Computing and communications in colleges and universities.

Ibrahim Michail Hefzallah has been on the faculty of Fairfield University since 1968. At present, he is a professor of educational technology and the chair of the Educational Technology Department of the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions.

Open Distributed Processing contains the selected proceedings of the Third International Conference on Open Distributed Systems, organized by the International Federation for Information Processing and held in Brisbane, Australia, in February 1995. The book deals with the interconnectivity problems that advanced computer networking raises, providing those working in the area with the most recent research, including security and management issues.

The current era in higher education is characterized by increased need for accountability and fiscal constraint coupled with demands for increased productivity. Higher education is expected to meet the demand of changing student demographics, as well as requests for research and service from government and industry. To preserve the academy's ability to meet these demands, the editors and contributors to this volume argue that, while change is inevitable and desirable, any radical alterations to the practices that have established and upheld the excellence of higher education in the United States must be carefully considered.The editors and contributors cherish the best ideals of higher education: academic freedom, commitment to both inquiry and teaching, and preservation of an independence of mind and spirit in the face of external pressures. At the same time, the authors of these essays also reflect upon the failings of higher education, including problematic historical legacies such as racism, sexism, and anti-semitism. In Defense of American Higher Education is a careful analysis of what we have inherited, undertaken with a critical eye for constructive reform. It will be of interest to anyone concerned about the future of American higher education.

Concerning the changing shape of the university, this book sets out the social, historical and philosophical aspects of the current digital transformation of education.

How do we begin to assess the impact of economic, technological, demographic, and management trends in our environment and understand the long term implications? How can administrators, managers and information professionals take advantage of these trends? How can librarians empower staff and change organizational hierarchies to create more responsive and rewarding environments? How do we restructure organizations to make them more learning- and student-centered and more responsive to the needs of new clienteles? These are just a few of the questions addressed in Libraries as User-Centered Organizations, which examines organizational change from the point of view that academic institutions are experiencing a paradigm shift in the definition of their mission, their focus, and their activities. As librarians move into a new paradigm of library as gateway and connector, they must also shift their focus from the information product to the user of information. This profound change in vision is explored in this book through the concept of user-centeredness, a focus on the habits, needs, desires, dislikes, abilities, and preferences of the user. Libraries as User-Centered Organizations explores a variety of important aspects of organizational change including: leadership styles sustaining and expanding staff empowerment and creativity collaboration between libraries and computer centers creating multicultural organizations remolding the library science educational structure organizational change in professional associations Libraries as User-Centered Organizations looks at current trends affecting higher education, research libraries, professional education for librarians, professional associations, and publishing from the point of view of some of the leaders in these fields and offers readers a context for viewing organizational change. The book is of particular assistance to library administrators and educators engaged in planning for change and rethinking operations and services.

The National Information Infrastructure will bring information to the doorstep of every household. Librarianship must respond to this development through the National Electronic Library. Librarianship as a profession must set the information agenda if it is to be a viable and influential entity in the electronic environment. Traditional library services are being redefined by technology, and the concept of the National Electronic Library must combine the roles of the academic institution, public enterprise, and library education. This professional reference is a guide to assist librarians in planning for the future. The volume maintains that the growing electronic environment is driving a cultural transformation in which libraries must examine and understand what libraries have been, what they are, and what they need to be. Libraries need to participate actively in this transformation in order to remain the central providers of information and related services. The book explores the National Electronic Library as a concept and formal organization. Library services, collections, and the physical facility are examined in terms of present and future needs based on the rapidly changing electronic environment, and the volume relates the future management of information to administrative structures, constituencies, public and technical services, collection development, education, and strategic planning.