Virtual education in universities: a technological imperative

Many educational journals have debated the issue of the "virtual university". As technology is improving and evolving, such "virtuality" becomes a reality. The forecasts are that, in the not too distant future, it will be possible for courses to be completed solely by the use of the World Wide Web or Internet. These "virtual classrooms" will take the place of the solid buildings where students currently attend lectures, at set times in set rooms. The information will be gathered at the student's convenience and assignments will be handed in via this medium. There is potentially an advantage for everyone involved, from the reduced building resource costs to the availability of teaching support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Whilst many of these studies identify the benefits of technology in education there are dissenting voices from many other quarters. However there are also arguments identifying the disadvantages to the technology based delivery systems proposed. Either way, there are going to be radical changes in the methods which students will use to tackle the workload involved in studying towards a degree. This paper will explore both sides of the argument. The main contention of this paper is that technology undoubtedly will offer many benefits for the learner, however, the pitfalls need careful consideration in the design of the learning environment. This paper uses examples from educational institutions across different cultures.     

Alternative press promotion and distribution: A telephone survey of literary publishers

Conclusion One of the most obvious conclusions the survey results point to is that the presses questioned are more similar than different. Differences are mainly in degrees of sophistication, no technique. The larger presses are able to orchestrate the various elements of promotion and distribution more completely than the smaller ones, which do not have the resources to do everything, and tend to focus on a limited number of areas. One press may not do much advertising, preferring to concentrate on direct mailings; another may put a lot of energy into promotion to libraries, and not into selling foreign rights. Not surprisingly, cash flow and distribution were named the biggest problems facing the presses surveyed; another major obstacle was lack of time. One might think that sufficient sums of money could solve all these problems, but even the commercial presses with their comparatively vast resources haven’t been able to come up with a way to sell literature. The most noteworthy point about this survey is the willingness of the presses to participate and to talk about promotion, marketing and distribution. This shows they are practical as well as idealistic. Though they are editorially driven, presses that want to continue to publish the books they love knew they have to master thebusiness of publishing to survive. Lisa Domitrovich, formerly of Calyx Books, undertook this survey while an Arts Administration Fellow, Literature Program, National Endowment for the Arts.     

Describing microforms and the marc formats

Conclusion It is easy to get bogged down in the complexities of this topic. What is most important to keep in mind, (and what we tell the SAA MARC-AMC workshop participants) is to create a catalog record that expresses to the user what you want it to. However, this is often easier said than done.