An action research report on the Korean national digital library

This paper presents the results of my action research. I was involved in establishing and running a digital library that was founded by the government of South Korea. The process involved understanding the relationship between the national IT infrastructure and the success factors of the digital library. In building, the national IT infrastructure, a digital library system was implemented; it combines all existing digitized university libraries and can provide overseas information, such as foreign journal articles, instantly and freely to every Korean researcher. An empirical survey was made as a part of the action research; the survey determined user satisfaction in the newly established national digital library. After obtaining the survey results, I suggested that the current way of running the nationwide government-owned digital library should be retained. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Segmentation of spoken words into syllables by English-speaking children as compared to adults

Given the importance of syllables in the development of reading, spelling, and phonological awareness, information is needed about how children syllabify spoken words. To what extent is syllabification affected by knowledge of spelling, to what extent by phonology, and which phonological factors are influential? In Experiment 1, six- and seven-year-old children did not show effects of spelling on oral syllabification, performing similarly on words such as habit and rabbit. Spelling influenced the syllabification of older children and adults, with the results suggesting that knowledge of spelling must be well entrenched before it begins to affect oral syllabification. Experiment 2 revealed influences of phonological factors on syllabification that were similar across age groups. Young children, like older children and adults, showed differences between words with short and long vowels (e.g., lemon vs. demon) and words with sonorant and obstruent intervocalic consonants (e.g., melon vs. wagon). (C) 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.