Briefly Noted

White Paper on Electronic Journal Usage Statistics, Judy Luther. Washington, D.C.: Council on Library and Information Resources, 2000. 25 p. $15 (ISBN 1-887334-79-3) Available at <http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub94/contents.html>.

Luther, president of the consulting firm Informed Strategies, was commissioned by CLIR "to review how and what statistics are currently collected" (p.v). To this end, Luther conducted extensive interviews with both librarians and publishers. As e-journals comprise an increasing share of the serials budget, it is important that library decision-makers and publishers agree on standards for data collection (e.g. What is being used? When is it being used? Who is the user?). The white paper moves us closer to agreeing on core data that is comparable, reliable, and would inform collection management decisions. (S.H.)

A Student's Guide to Evaluating Libraries in Colleges and Universities, Association of College and Research Libraries. Chicago, IL: ACRL, n.d. [folded sheet] free. Also available at <http://www.ala.org/acrl/evalguide.html>.

Add this small, attractive pamphlet to the guides designed to help students select the best college for their needs. ACRL's guide, designed to reach college-bound students via their guidance counselors, raises the issue of how a prospective college library will help navigate the information environment. Questions for students to consider are succinct and arranged into three areas: services, facilities, and resources. (S.H.)

Systems of Knowledge Organization for Digital Libraries: Beyond Traditional Authority Files, Gail Hodge. Washington, D.C.: The Digital Library Federation and the Council on Library and Information Resources, 2000. 37 p. $15 (ISBN 1-887334-76-9) Order online or text and pdf copies available at <http://www.clir.org/pubs/abstracts/pub91abstract.html>.

KOSs, or knowledge organization systems, include traditional schemes, such as classification, subject headings, thesauri, and the nontraditional semantic networks and ontologies. Gail Hodge, senior information specialist at Information International Associates, Inc., probes the ways in which KOSs serve as bridges to digital libraries and thus the design elements that can facilitate greater access to digital collections. As digitization projects proliferate, Hodge points out that it is "valuable to analyze users' needs and interests and then to identify KOSs that can be used to enhance the digital library" (p. 34). The report includes a three page list of references and websites. (S.H.)

...