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Shortcomings in the BRS MENTOR mainframe interface and the desirability of using the workstation capabilities of the PC were factors in the decision to develop and implement a microcomputer‐based interface to the BRS software and associated databases. The Interface Design Subcommittee's charge was to design and implement the interface components for the Library Information Workstation, a microcomputer public terminal that provides access to local and remote online catalogs, periodical index databases, campus information resources, and information files stored on the microcomputer. This article focuses on the design of the interface to the BRS/SEARCH software and ancillary periodical index databases—initially Current Contents, six Wilson databases, and ERIC.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

The ability to conduct unobtrusive observation of user searching is a potential strength of the method of information retrieval system analysis known as transaction log analysis (TLA). Transaction logs supply unequivocal information about what a user typed while searching. All other methods rely on self‐reporting, which, as Nielsen points out, is not always corroborated by the logs. Regardless of where in an institution information retrieval (IR) system evaluation takes place, TLA is a method that enables library staff at all levels to examine a variety of system and user‐related activities that are recorded on the log. Dominick suggested that TLA can enable the examination of three broad categories of activity: 1) system performance and resource utilization, 2) information retrieval performance, and 3) user interaction with the IR system. This article has been divided into several sections corresponding to functional areas in a library to suggest useful applications of TLA.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the seventeenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items, in English published in 1990. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.