Response to Mitch: Another form of data that would be useful is how many libraries did they include in this research? It would also be interesting to know if most of these libraries surveyed were urban or from smaller towns. If they are from urban communities, maybe this means that the education system is not that great. Therefore, libraries are playing a role to help educate the youth of their city.

Reply to Peter: It would be interesting to know the ages of the participants in the study. For example, if the participants were fairly young and computer savvy maybe that is why the results were so positive for the index search. What would the results be for a group of older people who may or may not be as computer savvy? Or, maybe the group had a variety of ages, which proves that anybody of any age can successfully navigate the index search process.

Response to pjbrooks's article: Ruffin, A., Cogdill, K., Kutty, L., & Hudson-Ochillo, M. (2005). Access to Electronic Health Information for the Public: Analysis of Fifty-Three Funded Projects This seems to be a fairly comprehensive study. I can see the results of this article as well as its methodology could be used to evaluate comparable collaborative projects across other disciplines such as law, personal finance, education, public safety, and agriculture.

Replying to maberg411's article I would be interested in data that shows how many presidential campaign biographies are collected by a sample of libraries as well as data that supports why libraries have or have not actively collected them.

Reply to maberg411's response. I thought it might be interesting to compare library and information schools with other higher ed disciplines. Is there consistency addressing online disabilities across academic departments? Response to Angela’s article: It appears that the data in this article focused on library and information schools and how they address online disabilities. It would be interesting to see what the data would be for public libraries and how the numbers compare. Do library and information schools provide better resources for those with disabilities or do public libraries?

To respond to Mary Ann's inquiry as to the type of health information library patrons sought, the article indicated that the majority of the questions (62%) were specific to a medical condition and the next highest types of questions posed (26%) were on medications. This information would help librarians to design the types of programs that focus on providing resources that allow folks to locate information on these topics more readily.

Response to Mary’s article. Along with collections on presidential campaign biographies, I can definitely see the study’s method of using WorldCat being applicable to library collections of other important topics. Relevant studies may include those on the collections of particular controversial topics, how such collections differ in number and content among a sample of public libraries, and how findings from these collections correlate with their respective user communities.

Response to Angela’s article. The article’s mention of Target’s tenacity in not agreeing to improve the accessibility of its website for those with disabilities made me wonder about what and how many other major organizations and companies today run websites that would be considered noncompliant to Section 508 and W3C guidelines. The importance of this issue addressed by this article can influence research into the design of other essential websites (e.g. a banking website within which the bank's clients can manage their finances).

Response to Patty’s article. The study described in the article appears to be qualitatively oriented. Questions asked to the interviewees on topics such as methods of publicity and a project’s impact on target communities would be open-ended questions. Also, the fact that the researchers analyzed the interviews afterward in order to find themes among all the projects exhibits qualitative research.

Response to Mitch’s article. Collecting data on the learning styles of the students who visit the Homework Center may be useful in addition to existing items in the Center’s survey. Schools and other institutions interested in learning styles may use such data from this and other homework help centers to design or revise curricula and methods of instruction.

Reply to Mary’s response. Age could definitely play a role in these studies. By documenting the age of each participant, the studies could have revealed any relationship between age and computer navigation skills. Given that the sample consists of voluntary students, faculty, and staff of an academic university, there is no telling the evenness of age group representation. For instance, the 2005 study could have more or less of one age group than the 2006 study. Excellent point.

Reply to Angela’s response. I was also wondering about that unusual difference in total questions asked in the 2006 study as I was reading the article for the first time. I believe that such inconsistencies in data collection, especially at that margin, should be explained. Though the percentages themselves favor on the side of web indexes, the denominators that help determine the percentages do not even come close to being equal to each other, surely causing doubts in the validity of those percentages.