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There is a need for technology that can protect scientific findings as a unique asset but is this possible? Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are one possible solution.

Plagiarism is an unethical act and a violation of acceptable practices in the field of scholarly research and writing. Over the years, effective tools have been created to prevent and minimize plagiarism, especially through the integration of artificial intelligence technology to identify copied text. However, there is still scientific plagiarism of contents (such as articles, inventions or other digital objects).

NFTs are unique digital identifiers that use blockchain technology to ensure ownership rights of an object are maintained. NFT is a blockchain derivative that first entered the world of digital currencies and has now entered other areas, such as economy, fashion, music and computer games.

In this essay, how this technology may be useful to preventing acts of academic plagiarism is discussed.

This paper aims to provide an overview of key definitions related to ChatGPT, a public tool developed by OpenAI, and its underlying technology, Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT).

This paper includes an interview with ChatGPT on its potential impact on academia and libraries. The interview discusses the benefits of ChatGPT such as improving search and discovery, reference and information services; cataloging and metadata generation; and content creation, as well as the ethical considerations that need to be taken into account, such as privacy and bias.

ChatGPT has considerable power to advance academia and librarianship in both anxiety-provoking and exciting new ways. However, it is important to consider how to use this technology responsibly and ethically, and to uncover how we, as professionals, can work alongside this technology to improve our work, rather than to abuse it or allow it to abuse us in the race to create new scholarly knowledge and educate future professionals.

This paper discusses the history and technology of GPT, including its generative pretrained transformer model, its ability to perform a wide range of language-based tasks and how ChatGPT uses this technology to function as a sophisticated chatbot.

Journals are the essential tools of researchers, especially academicians, to present their scientific findings. So, choosing the right journal helps not only science development but also their academic promotion. The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that Iranian medical researchers consider when selecting scholarly journals in which to submit their work.

A self-administered online questionnaire was emailed in May 2021, with 101 responses received. The sample included all the faculty members with the role of “lecturer” in Iranian medical universities and who have 1–5 articles in the Scopus database as early-career Iranian medical researchers. The questionnaire consisted of 36 items, divided into five sections: basic information, attitudes and beliefs, ways to choose a journal, problems and familiarity with the components of scientometrics/validity metrics related to journals.

The findings indicate that these researchers value the expertise of experienced researchers and professionals, like librarians, when selecting publication venues. They often use journal indexes to guide journal selection. They also consider factors like the length of typical peer review and the complexity of submission guidelines when making decisions.

The study of one country, though detecting requirements of journal selection behavior, cannot be generalized to the entire region.

The current study has academic implications as far as decisions on journal selection are concerned. University policymakers in Iran may consider re-examining their emphasis on academicians’ promotion policies at Iranian universities of medical sciences.

These findings may support the work of early-career researchers and those individuals (e.g., librarians) that serve them, as well as publishers and editors of scholarly journals.

This article presents an introduction to the Delphi method and review of Delphi studies published in the literature of library and information science (LIS).

A review of Delphi studies published between the years of 1971 and 2019 is performed, using studies retrieved from the Library and Information Science Source database. A total of 122 articles were retrieved and evaluated based on the population studied, means of identifying experts, number of participants for each study round, type of Delphi, and type of findings.

General librarians (any type), academic librarians, and information science researchers are the most common populations in LIS Delphi studies. On average (middle 50 percent of studies), 14–36 experts are used in the first round of LIS Delphi studies (median n = 23). Employment in a specific role and publications in scholarly journals are the most common means of identifying experts. Variants of the e-Delphi (online survey/email) method are increasingly common, particularly in LIS Delphi studies that focus on general information science, rather than library, topics. Though LIS Delphi studies are relatively few in number, they have a consistent record of being published in some of the most prestigious LIS journals.

This paper provides an introduction to the Delphi method for LIS research and presents an overview of existing literature in LIS that utilizes the research method. No overview of this extent exists in the LIS literature, and, thus, this paper may serve as an important information source about the method for LIS researchers.

This study examines research methods utilized in five practitioner-oriented research journals – College and Research Libraries, Information Technology and Libraries, Journal of the Medical Library Association, Library Resources and Technical Services and Reference and User Services Quarterly. The study fills gaps identified in existing content analyses of methods in practitioner-based LIS research publications.

Based on analysis standards and coding schemes supplied by the studies of Kalervo Jarvelin and Pertti Vakkari, as well as Heting Chu, this study identifies the primary research method utilized in 6,387 articles published in these five journals from 1980 to 2019. Trends in the frequencies with which various research methods were used are identified and presented using a series of visualizations.

Significant shifts have occurred in the research methods used by articles in these practitioner-based journals over the past four decades. Notably, the proportion of case studies has dropped substantially, particularly among College and Research Libraries and Journal of the Medical Library Association articles. Diversity of research methods utilized in articles has increased over time, with College and Research Libraries, in particular, having a significant proportion of articles in recent years that employ data analytic or qualitative approaches.

While similar approaches have been used to examine research methods among other LIS journals, this study is the first to focus primarily on practitioner-based journals and document continuous change (as opposed to sampling a few years) over an extended, 40-year period.

While vaccines are an effective preventative measure to defend against the spread and harmful symptoms of COVID-19, information about COVID vaccines can be difficult to find and conflicting in its coverage of vaccines’ benefits and risks. This study aims to examine the extent to which Americans are searching for information about the three major vaccine producers (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen) in relation to the amount of reliable scholarly information that has been produced about each one.

Data were retrieved from Google Trends for the US Web users alongside scientific research output of the US scientists toward three Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-authorized COVID-19 vaccines in Web of Science, Scopus and PubMed. The authors searched for descriptive statistical analyses to detect coronavirus-seeking behavior versus coronavirus releases in the USA from May 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021.

Of the three COVID-19 vaccines, Pfizer has attracted more attention from the US population. However, the greatest number of articles about COVID-19 vaccines published by the US scholars belonged to Moderna (M = 8.17), with Pfizer (M = 7.75) having slightly less, and Janssen (M = 0.83) well behind. A positive association was found between COVID-19 vaccine information-seeking behavior (ISB) on Google and the amount of research produced about that vaccine (P <0.001).

As the researchers use the single search engine, Google, to retrieve data from the USA, thus, selection bias will be existing as Google only gathers the data of people who chose to get the information by using this search engine.

If the policymakers in the US Department of Health and Human Services or the US CDC desire to improve the country’s health ISB and the scientific publication behavior (SPB) of the US researchers regarding COVID-19 vaccines studies, they should reference the results of such a study.

From an infodemiological viewpoint, these findings may support the health policymakers, as well as researchers who work on COVID-19 vaccines in the USA.

This paper aims to present a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of research papers published on chat generative pre-trained transformer (ChatGPT), an OpenAI-developed large-scale generative language model. The study’s objective is to provide a comprehensive assessment of the present status of research on ChatGPT and identify current trends and themes in the literature.

A total of 328 research article data was extracted from Scopus for bibliometric analysis, to investigate publishing trends, productive countries and keyword analysis around the topic and 34 relevant research publications were selected for an in-depth systematic literature review.

The findings indicate that ChatGPT research is still in its early stages, with the current emphasis on applications such as natural language processing and understanding, dialogue systems, speech processing and recognition, learning systems, chatbots and response generation. The USA is at the forefront of publishing on this topic and new keywords, e.g. “patient care”, “medical”, “higher education” and so on are emerging themes around the topic.

These findings underscore the importance of ongoing research and development to address these limitations and ensure that ChatGPT is used responsibly and ethically. While systematic review research on ChatGPT heralds exciting opportunities, it also demands a careful understanding of its nuances to harness its potential effectively.

Overall, this study provides a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners interested in ChatGPT at this early stage and helps to identify the grey areas around this topic.

In terms of training the public in prompt engineering skills, no single discipline or profession currently takes the lead, presenting an opportunity for professions like librarianship to step into this role. Librarians are already well-equipped to educate the public in a wide range of literacy skills and tasks, so prompt engineering may be a natural progression. The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential role of prompt engineering for library professionals.

Prompt engineering is the process of optimizing the text that is provided to an artificial intelligence (A)I model to ensure proper interpretation and the generation of relevant, detailed results. The field of prompt engineering is relatively young, evolving alongside the growth of large language models like ChatGPT and BARD. This conceptual paper will explore prompt engineering as a possible domain of expertise for librarians.

This paper delves into the world of prompt engineering, its alignment with the existing roles and expertise of librarians, and the potential emergence of a new role known as the “prompt engineering librarian,” akin to the well-established “information literacy librarian” role that has gained prominence in recent decades.

The significance of this work lies in exploring the synergy between prompt engineering and the traditional roles of librarians, highlighting the potential for a new and valuable profession in the form of prompt engineering librarians. This innovative concept could bridge the gap in AI literacy and facilitate more effective interactions with AI systems, contributing to the broader goal of AI accessibility and understanding.

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the types and sources of information sought by older adults along with their motivations in the Midwestern United States.

Interviews were conducted with 30 older adults residing in rural communities around the Midwestern United States during late-summer (July/August) 2020, using a protocol based on Dervin's Sense-Making Methodology. The resulting data was analyzed using standard content analysis procedures, guided by the theoretical frameworks based on Dervin's Sense-Making and Williamson's Ecological Model of Information Behavior. Implications of COVID-19 for the normative behaviors described in these models are discussed.

Findings show that older adults were concerned primarily with health and political information during this period, but that this information was not necessarily sought only to address an informational need, but also to satisfy the need to maintain social and emotional connections in coping with isolation and loneliness. Sources of information that allowed for social interaction with people were favored. Wider personal networks (community members) were strained by the social distancing measures and closures. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for considering the impact of social restrictions on information seeking behaviors of older adults in a time of crisis.

This study is the first, known to the authors, that applied the two adopted theoretical frameworks to explore information seeking behaviors of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to describe the benefits of the Brave web browser and its native cryptocurrency, the Basic Attention Token (BAT), for use by library patrons to preserve privacy and as a potential fundraising platform for libraries.

The Brave browser and BAT are introduced, an analysis of trends in adoption of these technologies is discussed and an argument for libraries to adopt/promote these technologies is presented.

Libraries could support the online privacy of their patrons if they encourage them to adopt the Brave browser, which is designed with privacy and security in mind. Libraries could also benefit from participating in the Brave Rewards program, which allows Brave users to donate BAT, a cryptotoken that they earn by viewing Brave ads, which can be traded for cash.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss the applications of the Brave browser in libraries and the potentials of cryptocurrency adoption by libraries.