Call for Presentations/Poster Sessions

[George Porter]

	This call is being posted to ASIS-L, BI-L, BUSLIB-L, ELDNET-L,
GOVDOC-L, LIBREF-L, LITA-L, MARS-L, MEDLIB-L, PACS-L, PUBLIB, SLAPAM-L,
STS-L, and WEB4LIB.  Please excuse the repetition this may cause to
those who are subscribed to multiple lists.  If you know of any
additional listservs where this call may be deemed appropriate, please
forward it.

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	1998 Machine Assisted Reference Services (MARS) Annual Program

	The MARS 1998 Annual Program Committee is soliciting proposals
for either
	brief presentations or poster sessions for the section's program
at the
	1998 ALA Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. entitled, "What
are They
	Doing? Understanding Patron Behavior in the Digital
Environment." 

	Presentations or poster sessions should discuss findings from
empirical
	research which address one or more of the following topics:

	--Studies of end user search behavior (beyond the catalog) -
particularly
	search strategies in full text databases or Web search engines;

	--Studies which assess the impact of various search interfaces
on search
	behavior and success

	--Studies which address users' evaluation strategies or
relevance judgments

	--Studies of broad information seeking patterns and the role of
digital
	resources in meeting the information needs of various user
populations

	We are seeking studies which reflect the diverse populations of
RUSA
	constituents including corporate, public, academic and school
library
	users and subgroups within these categories such as
undergraduates or
	elementary school children. 

	Please send a brief description of your proposal (100-200 word
abstract)
	to George Porter, 1998 MARS Program Planning Committee, 
	george at library.caltech.edu.  Include the following information
with your
	proposal:

	Name:
	Institutional Affiliation:
	Address:
	Phone:
	Email address:
	Presentation Title:

	Is this a presentation, poster session, or both?
	Has this been presented or published elsewhere?

***************************************************************

George S. Porter
Technical Reference Librarian
Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering & Applied Science

California Institute of Technology
Mail Code 1-43, Pasadena, CA  91125
Telephone (626) 395-3409 Fax (626) 431-2681
george at library.caltech.edu