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The papers (from a symposium held at the Fern Universitat) included in this collection focus on distance education in theory and practice. Contributions are written in English or in German, with summaries available for each in the language not used for the paper concerned. Contributions are: (1) "Distance Education as Communication: The Impact of Research and the Requirements of Practitioners" (Borje Holmberg); (2) "Educational Theory and Its Application to Distance Education" (Borje Holmberg); (3) "The Study of Distance Education: Terminology, Definition and the Field of Study" (Desmond Keegan); (4) "Towards a Better Understanding of Distance Education: Analysing Designations and Catchwords" (Otto Peters); (5) "Distance Education as a Multi-Dimensional System of Communication and Production" (R. Manfred Delling); (6) "Distance Education and Communication Culture: Continuous Counselling and Two-Way Communication" (Gerhard E. Ortner); (7) "Distance Education in the Society of the Future" (Erling Ljosa); (8) "Communication in Distance Education: A Pre-Requisite of Democracy" (Gerhard Stroh); (9) "Independence and Interaction: Getting the Mixture Right for Institutions" (John S. Daniel); (10) "Group Studies and Course Incorporation: The Concept of a Multi-Campus Institution of Distance Education" (Nehemia Levtzion); (11) "Distance Education Research for Distance School Work: Requirements of Practitioners" (Heinrich Dieckmann and Bernd Schachtsiek); (12) "Testing Distance Education Programs: What Administration Expects from Theory" (Michael Vennemann); (13) "The Feasibility of a Predictive Theory of Distance Education: What Are We Allowed To Expect?" (Borje Holmberg); (14) "Autonomous Learning in Distance Education: Methodology and Results" (Helmut Lehner); (15) "Contract Learning: A Contribution To Promoting Autonomous Learning?" (Monika Weingartz); (16) "Drop In and Drop Out: The Need of Definition" (Helmut Fritsch); and (17) "Diagnosis and Therapy: Theoretical and Methodological Aspects of Drop-Out Research" (Rudolf Schuemer and Herhard Strohlein). Each paper contains its own bibliography. The volume includes a list of the authors and their affiliations. (DB)

This collection of 12 papers commemorates the retirement of Bernhard Adams. Adams had a 30-year career at the Bochum University Library (Germany) and advocated innovation and automation in libraries. The papers are: (1) "Gemeinsame Wegstrecken: Bernhard Adams zur Ehre" ("Common Milestones: In Honor of Bernhard Adams") (Harro Heim); (2) "Die Anfange der Bibliotheksautomatisierung in Deutschland" ("The Beginning of Library Automation in Germany") (Gunther Pflug); (3) Katalogisierung mit Hilfe der elektronischen Datenverarbeitung: ein Erfahrungs--und Situationsbericht" ("Cataloging by Means of Electronic Data Processing: Experiences and Current Situation") (Ingeborg Sobottke); (4) "Vom Bandkatalog zum OPAC" ("From Card Catalog to OPAC") (Heinz-Werner Hoffmann); (5) "Automatisierung der Erwerbung--eine Frage intergrierter Bibliotheksautomatisierung" ("Acquisition Automation--A Question of Integrated Library Automation") (Ronald Michael Schmidt); (6) "Virtuelle Bibliothek--Resource Sharing ohne Bibliotheksbestande?" ("Virtual Library--Resource Sharing without Actual Library Holdings?") (Karl Wilhelm Neubauer and Wolfgang Binder); (7) "OSI-Anwendungen in Bibliotheken oder Was ein Bibliothekar von OSI wissen sollte" ("OSI-Applications in Libraries or What Any Librarian Ought To Know About OSI") (Christine Bossmeyer); (8) "Die Essener Symposien--mit einem Ruckblick auf den Bochumer Ursprung" ("The Essen Symposia--With Retrospection on their Beginning in Bochum") (Ahmed Helmi Helal); (9) "Die Funktion des Buroleitenden Beamten in Bibliotheken" ("The Role of the Library Manager in Libraries") (Eberhard Herf); (10) "Wie man in Bochum die rechtlich fixierte Zweigleisigkeit mit bibliothekarischem Leben fullt" ("How the Bochum University Library System Moved From a Model of Coexistence to Coordination") (Horst Rohling); (11) "Uber Namen von Bibliotheken: Aktuelle und historische Betrachtungen zur Umbenennung der Universitatsbibliotheken Bonn, Munster und Dusseldorf in Universitats--und Landesbibliotheken" ("About University Libraries of Bonn, Muenster, and Dusseldorf--and Lohse); and (12) "Bibliotheksgrundung in West and Ost: Nordrhein-Westfalen und Brandenburg im Vergleich" ("Library Foundations in the West and East: Comparing Nordrhein-Westfalen and Brandenburg") (Ulrike Eich). (UJ/DGM)

This book, which focuses on how personality, societal values and politics have influenced the mission of adult education, contains 34 papers originally presented at a 2000 conference on the history of adult education. Following a Foreword (Poggeler) and Preface (Nemeth) the papers are: "The Globalization of Adult Education and the One World Concept: Aspects of Their History, Present and Future" (Poggeler); "Adult Education in a Voluntary Social Movement: the Education Work of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1959-94" (Fieldhouse); "Adult Education and Cooperation: The History of a Dutch Walden" (van Gent); "Questions of Value in Adult Education: A Theoretical-Scientific and Methodological Challenge in the History of Adult Education" (Theile); "Influence of Ideas and Institutions on the Culture and Adult Education in Hungary" (Felkai); "The Changes Of Folk ANF Worker's Universities in Slowenia Between 1945-1991" (Jug); "THR Folk High Schools From the View of Political and Social Problems of Poland" (Solarczyk); "Basic Conceptions and Aims in Some Theories of Adult Education Through History" (Popovic); "The Role of Scientific Positivism in European Popular Educational Movements: France and Radical Free Masonry" (Steele); "Samuel Smiles and the Ideology of Self-Help" (Cooke); "How Adult Education Participates in the Making of 'Active Society'" (Bouverne-De Bie); "Local and Global Experiences and Dimensions of German Adult Education" (Hinzen); "Adult Education and the Human Rights Movement: Toward a Global Research Agenda for the History of Adult Education" (Boucouvalas); "The Performance-Directed or Task-Oriented Approach as a Teaching and Learning Concept in Adult Education" (Paape); "The Assimilation Possibilities and Problems of East European Adult Education After the Political Change: The Example of Hungary" (Petho); "Ideological and Paradigmatic Changes in the History of a German Further Education Centre Based on the Centre of Further Education, Aachen" (Putz); "Struggle and Compromise: A History of South African Adult Education from 1960 to 1999" (Aitchison); "Idealists and Liberal Adult Education in the West of Scotland" (Turner); "Through a Glass Darkly: The Seduction of an Adult Education Social Movement" (Benn); "Adult Education and Social Movements: A Century of (Informal) Learning in Social Movements" (Dekeyser);"Grundtvig: From a European and Romanian Perspective" (Sacalis); "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Adult Education as an Ethical Issue" (Cser); "The Social-Historical Conditionality of the Constitution and Activities of Croatian People's and Workers' Universities" (Ceptic); "The Transformation of Adult Education from Culture to the World of Work" (Tosse); "Lloyd Ross and the Education of Australian Workers" (Morris); "From the Workers' Education to the Work Development: Historical Stages and Changing Interests in the Finnish Trade Union Education" (Tuomisto); "Social Based Adult Education: The Development of Workers' Education and Training in Pecs Hungary at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Century" (Koltai, Nemeth); "Adult Education An Ideal of Modernity: The End of Adult Education as a Social Movement" (Jarvis); "The History of the Finnish Adult Education System" (Ropponen); "Advanced Teaching Movement in Croatia and Its Influence on National Education" (Lavrnja, Klapan); "Some Changes in the Sphere of Adult Education in Russia in the Transitional Period: Socio-Psychological Aspects" (Mryakina); "Adult Education in Romania in the Last Ten Years Requirements and Realities" (Sava); "Social-Educational Aims and Forms of Adult Education on Distance in the 1980s in Poland: TV Vocational Agricultural School and Radio-TV High School for Working People" (Gajda); "Dutch Andragology in Transformation" (Katus). Some of the papers contain figures and tables. All of the papers contain bibliographies, some of them substantial. (AJ)

"Experiences in Acculturation: What Is Being Learned?" is the first of two papers in this volume. It reports on a study of social representations and their development during cultural contacts conducted with beginning teachers who were studied over time and through comparison with cross-culturally competent experts with the aim of putting multiethnic education into the position of preventing and managing crosscultural conflict. Six people with at least 6 years residence in a foreign culture were recruited as experts in acculturation. Twenty monocultural German beginning teachers were chosen as novices in acculturation. Novices took an assimilationist point of view toward cultural differences, but experts appeared to have different cognitive acculturation models for minorities. After a year of teaching multicultural classes, the teachers had different views and less faith in the resolution of cultural conflicts if students were not ready to assimilate to the main culture. The second paper, "Zum Problem der psychologischen Operationalisierung des Begriffs 'Kultur': Ergebnisse einer Untersuchung der psychometrischen Eigenschaften eines Fragebogens zum Thema: 'Individualismus-Kollektiuismus'" ("On the Problem of the Psychological Operationalization of the Concept of 'Culture': Results of an Investigation into the Psychometric Characteristics of a Questionnaire on the Topic:'Individualism-Collectivism'"), explores the idea of a taxonomy of psychologically-based cultural differences being indispensable to intercultural psychological research if it is to be not merely descriptive, but also explanatory. More than 700 individuals were questioned in an attempt to operationalize the cultural dimension 'Individualism-Collectivism,' and the psychometric particularities of this dimension are examined. Because of the incompatible answers from persons with dissimilar cultural backgrounds, the usefulness of the method to understand culture, in the sense of a linear construct, is questionable. These differences are represented with an analysis of intercultural communication. (Contains 15 figures and 29 references.) (SLD)