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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.

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.

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 aims to examine the potential impact of eleven social and psychological factors – anxiety, closeness with family and friends, intellectual curiosity, life control, life satisfaction, physical health, religiosity, self-esteem, sociability, socioeconomic status and works status and demands – on the use of digital technology by older adults for the purpose of communicating with family and friends.

A path analysis, which uses ordinary least squares regression to examine relationships among variables, is used to perform a secondary analysis of data from the 2018 Health and Retirement Study. A correlation matrix, which displays the direct relationships among variables, is also incorporated.

Statistically significant direct influences are revealed between the use of digital technology for communication and three factors: intellectual curiosity, self-esteem, and sociability. These three factors are themselves moderated by the influences of the remaining eight factors. While most factors relate to an increase in the adoption of social uses of digital technology, increased anxiety and increased work demands (for those who are employed) are related to decreased adoption, while increased religiosity has a mixed effect (reduced intellectual curiosity but increased sociability). These findings suggest a few avenues for identifying and intervening in the lives of physically and socially isolated older adults, by illuminating correlates of technology adoption.

While many studies have examined factors that correlate to increased technology adoption, this study is original in that it focuses specifically on the use of digital technology for communication with family and friends (i.e. use of email, messaging, social media) while also focusing on social and psychological factors (many of which can be changed through intervention) rather than innate and uncontrollable factors like age, gender and ethnicity.

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 literature review explores the definitions and characteristics of cluster analysis, a machine-learning technique that is frequently implemented to identify groupings in big datasets and its applicability to library and information science (LIS) research. This overview is intended for researchers who are interested in expanding their data analysis repertory to include cluster analysis, rather than for existing experts in this area.

A review of LIS articles included in the Library and Information Source (EBSCO) database that employ cluster analysis is performed. An overview of cluster analysis in general (how it works from a statistical standpoint, and how it can be performed by researchers), the most popular cluster analysis techniques and the uses of cluster analysis in LIS is presented.

The number of LIS studies that employ a cluster analytic approach has grown from about 5 per year in the early 2000s to an average of 35 studies per year in the mid- and late-2010s. The journal Scientometrics has the most articles published within LIS that use cluster analysis (102 studies). Scientometrics is the most common subject area to employ a cluster analytic approach (152 studies). The findings of this review indicate that cluster analysis could make LIS research more accessible by providing an innovative and insightful process of knowledge discovery.

This review is the first to present cluster analysis as an accessible data analysis approach, specifically from an LIS perspective.

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.

The purpose of this study is to identify typical sample sizes and response rates in questionnaire research studies within the discipline of information systems, as well as the top statistical analyses utilized for questionnaire data in these studies.

A total of 842 articles published between the years of 2000 and 2019 were identified that met the criteria of using a questionnaire as the research method. These articles were analyzed based on the sample size, response rate (if applicable) and statistical analysis methods used.

The typical questionnaire study received between 136 (first quartile) and 374 (third quartile) respondents, with a median number of 217. Typical response rate ranged between 16.5% and 50.0%, with a median of 27.8%. it was found that articles published in journals included in the Social Science Citation Index had significantly larger numbers of respondents than those not included in the index, though no difference was found for response rate. Studies that utilized more advanced statistical methods (regression analysis, structural equation modeling) were found to have significantly larger sample sizes than those that utilized only descriptive statistics or t-tests. Structural equation modeling, including the partial least squares approach, was used in the largest number of studies.

This study is the first to broadly examine the typical sample size, response rates and methods of statistical analysis used in information systems questionnaire studies. The findings of this study may be useful for systems researchers in developing appropriate procedures for questionnaire-based research.

Considerable overlap exists between the disciplines of library and information science and museum studies. Exploiting the overlap and examining those areas were library/museum instruction courses diverge may provide valuable insights for how to improve the quality of these courses and better prepare students for instructional roles in both disciplines.

Word frequency and thematic analysis of the instructional course descriptions for all 52 American Library Association-accredited Master of Library and Information Science programs in the USA and 49 museum studies and affiliated (e.g. MA in anthropology with museum studies concentration) programs is performed.

Each discipline has some specific language to describe tasks specific to itself (e.g. museums), but these comprise a small percentage of the total language usage. Among other terms and themes, overlap occurs at a rate of about 50%. The remaining 35-45% of terms and themes reveal areas that are emphasized in only one discipline, but could be beneficial to incorporate in the curriculum/content in both disciplines.

This research builds on a growing corpus of work demonstrating relations between museum studies and library and information science, and their status within a metadiscipline of information; this research presents a comparison of course content that may inform future curriculum/content development.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study of this type has been performed with museum studies courses, nor has a comparison between the two disciplines been investigated at this level.