Search results

Because of the special “State of the States” issue of Library Hi Tech and other circumstances beyond my control, the four quarterly “Comp Lit” compilations for 1996 appear here in a single and possibly peculiar chunk. A lot changes in a year of personal computing, but on reflection it seemed useful to include the citations and comments as I originally wrote them.

Until last summer, when I moved the photocopier to a separate table, I was working not just from a home office but from a desktop office. From left to right, on a six‐foot golden oak desk (a 1950s high‐school‐principal model that I got a decade ago, free for the hauling) sit a fax machine, a 386 IBM‐clone PC, a CD‐ROM drive and a laser printer. That array still leaves room for some files (and piles), a Rolodex, and a tarnished silver julep cup that I use as a pencil holder.

In previous Search Strategies published in Online & CDROM Review, searchers from different countries and professions were given a question to answer, a budget of £50 and a time in which to produce their report. To round off the year, Tom Koch here makes his own contribution to the debate about online searching — data vs. information, value‐added vs. databased — to give an idea of information mapping as a strategy.

‘Living is learning,’ Konrad Lorenz once remarked, to which multimedia system designers might add that the more life‐like the educational tools, the better the learning. Hence, the growing interest in combining interactive training and educational programs with music, moving images, colour and sound.

Examines the document supply issues connected with distance learning, particularly in the South African context. Considers distance learning itself, the role of the library, and new approaches to text delivery: electronic software, print delivery and software, and electronic storage of text in databases. Concludes that the document/text delivery system should enable both students and lecturers to achieve their aims at acceptable cost, without denying access to any student.