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As we approach the millennium, we find ourselves in a world that places ever greater weight and significance on the outcome of polls, surveys, and market research. The advent of modern polling began with the use of scientific sampling in the mid‐1930s and has progressed vastly beyond the initial techniques and purposes of the early practitioners such as George Gallup, Elmo Roper, and Archibald Crossley. In today's environment, the computer is an integral part of most commercial survey work, as are the efforts by academic and nonprofit enterprises. It should be noted that the distinction between the use of the words “poll” and “survey” is somewhat arbitrary, with the mass media seeming to prefer “polling,” and with academia selecting “survey research.” However, searching online systems will yield differing results, hence this author's inclusion of both terms in the title of this article.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate alternative strategies to enhance participant interaction in library focus groups.

Descriptive alternatives strategies are suggested as techniques to enhance participant interaction in library focus groups.

There are no findings as such, rather this is a paper which suggests different approaches than have hitherto be tried in library focus groups.

There has not been a similar article or set of proposed alternative strategies on this subject in so far as library focus groups are concerned.

Over the past fifty years, public opinion polls have assumed an increasingly important role in daily life. Quite possibly every person living in America has at one time or another been affected by polls. In fact, few aspects of our lives remain untouched by polls—from the television programs we watch, to the choice of candidates for public office, to national political issues, to the products we buy. Polling has become widely known through frequent use by television and the mass market print media.

Focus group interviewing, an important social science research methodology dating to the 1920s, is currently experiencing renewed popularity worldwide. This paper aims to review the implementation of this qualitative assessment tool as it relates to the library environment. The article is designed to stimulate the use of focus groups in librarianship and to demonstrate the range of positive applications across various activities within this field, such as administration, cataloging, reference, internet, and other areas. The goal is to bolster recognition that this data‐gathering technique can be utilized to achieve a variety of goals.

A comprehensive search of online databases was conducted in library science and in numerous other social sciences, given the interdisciplinary nature of the topic. The salient monographic and journal literature was selected and annotated. A number of standard handbooks, textbooks, references sources, and scholarly articles were consulted to provide the background information found in the introductory essay.

The paper finds focus group interviewing can be successfully employed in a wide range of endeavors within librarianship. Relative to the other social sciences, to date libraries have underutilized the approach.

This research may be useful for librarians, library administrators, and others who are involved in planning and conducting a focus group project in order to appraise the quality of library programs, services, and policies. No other article provides this level of in‐depth review and evaluation through copiously annotated entries covering the spectrum of use throughout the library literature.

This index accompanies the index that appeared in Reference Services Review 16:4 (1988). As noted in the introduction to that index, the articles in RSR that deal with specific reference titles can be grouped into two categories: those that review specific titles (to a maximum of three) and those that review titles pertinent to a specific subject or discipline. The index in RSR 16:4 covered the first category; it indexed, by title, all titles that had been reviewed in the “Reference Serials” and the “Landmarks of Reference” columns, as well as selected titles from the “Indexes and Indexers,” “Government Publications,” and “Special Feature” columns of the journal.

President Bill Clinton has had many opponents and enemies, most of whom come from the political right wing. Clinton supporters contend that these opponents, throughout the Clinton presidency, systematically have sought to undermine this president with the goal of bringing down his presidency and running him out of office; and that they have sought non‐electoral means to remove him from office, including Travelgate, the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vincent Foster, the Filegate controversy, and the Monica Lewinsky matter. This bibliography identifies these and other means by presenting citations about these individuals and organizations that have opposed Clinton. The bibliography is divided into five sections: General; “The conspiracy stream of conspiracy commerce”, a White House‐produced “report” presenting its view of a right‐wing conspiracy against the Clinton presidency; Funding; Conservative organizations; and Publishing/media. Many of the annotations note the links among these key players.

This chapter reviews identity, culture, and Indigeneity, examining indigenous research pathways as a decolonizing research method. In this context, the chapter explores indigenous research challenges. It explores phenomenology of practice, reflexive ethnography, and grounded theory as possible research methods to advance indigenous studies and help decolonize research methods.

The recent outbreak of severe epidemic illness at Brighton and Hove with the accompaniment of widespread anxiety, suffering and death, as well as great financial loss, both public and private, draws attention of the most unfavourable kind to what appears to be grave deficiency in the supervision and control of the milk supply of one of the most important towns on the south coast.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).