Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of reading in scholarly work among academics in Finland. This study analyzes readings from a variety of publication types including books, conference proceedings, research reports, magazines, newspapers, blogs, non-fiction and fiction.

An online survey was developed and distributed in Finland in 2016–2017 (n=528). Participants were asked their finding and use of scholarly information resources of all types.

Scholars read from a variety of publications. Different types of publications are read and used differently. Reading also varies between disciplines, ranks, work responsibilities and type of research performed.

The study was a nationwide study of researchers in Finland; therefore, all findings are within the context of researchers in a single country. All results are self-reported; therefore, the authors assume but cannot be sure that respondents accurately recollect the specifics of their use of scholarly information.

The results of this study are relevant to publishers, research librarians, editors and others who serve consumers of scholarly information resources, design information products and services for those scholars, and seek to better understand the information needs and use of a variety of types of scholarly publications.

This study replicates previous studies in a variety of countries and provides a more up-to-date and single-country contextualized overview of how researchers find and use scholarly information in their work.

The decade of the 1990s has seen a great increase in the variety of electronic reference options in academic libraries. Surveys of ARL (Association of Research Libraries) academic members in 1991/92, 1994/95, and 1997/98 show that nearly all ARL libraries now provide online catalogs, CD‐ROM databases, and World Wide Web access. A majority also offer locally loaded and end‐user online databases. The biggest change this decade is the widespread embrace of the Web. Library use instruction is changing as well, as librarians report more time is being devoted to formal instruction, point‐of‐use instruction, and remote instruction. The focus of classes is now on search strategies and how to select databases.

Three questions – what can be studied; how can studies be done; and what can be measured – drive research methods and help to identify information metrics for user studies. User studies can investigate user needs, search strategies, or preferences. Observing and asking, the two main methods for conducting user studies, yield quantitative and qualitative data through studying patterns of behavior and insights into motivation. ciber (Centre for Information Behaviour and the Evaluation of Research, City University, London) is in a good position to continue supporting information user behavior studies that use a variety of methods to gather both qualitative and quantitative data and help establish consistent metrics.

Research on why people would use general interest magazine articles online in full‐text is identifying a variety of possible uses including document location, browsing, and fact retrieval. No one search strategy works best for all uses, so databases and online systems that have magazines in full text must offer a full range of proximity operators, display features that facilitate browsing, value‐added fields, and diverse cost options if potential success is to be realized.

Word‐oriented databases of potential relevance to the multidisciplinary field of emergency management were identified by the University of Illinois, Information Retrieval Research Laboratory under contract to the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This article is an extension and outgrowth of that contract. It analyzes forty databases for relevance to emergency management by searching each database using an emergency management subject profile, printing a random sample of citations to determine percent of false drops, and ranking the databases according to number of relevant citations. Bradford's law of scatter is shown to apply to this multidisciplinary field, using databases instead of journals and citations instead of articles. No one database provides more than 19% of the literature, however, illustrating that the literature in the field is widely scattered throughout databases. These findings can help in the choice of the specific databases containing emergency management citations and in the determination of how many databases need to be searched in order to retrieve a given percentage of the literature. A companion article in this issue of Online Review — ‘Evaluation of database coverage: a comparison of two methodologies,’ explains the subject profile evaluation method employed in this project and compares it to another coverage evaluation technique.

Complete texts of many journals are now available for online searching. Most of these full text databases have been made available on the same or similar search systems that provide access to bibliographic information. The systems use inverted files that retain limited context information (e.g., paragraphs and location of words within paragraphs). The retrieval techniques used are simply those that were developed earlier for bibliographic databases. Retrieval relies on Boolean logic, word stem searching with truncation, and word proximity specification. Minor adjustments have been made for the display of full text databases, allowing words resulting in retrieval to be displayed in context; but changes have not been made in retrieval techniques. This is due to the reliance on search systems that provide access to many types of databases, all of which are by‐products of improved techniques for creating printed publications.

While assessment and user experience (UX) have been identified as areas of growing focus in all types of libraries, there is currently little infrastructure to prepare students for these roles (Applegate, 2016; Askew and Theodore-Shusta, 2013; Nitecki et al., 2015; Oakleaf, 2013; Passonneau and Erickson, 2014). As a step toward addressing this gap, a team from an American Library Association-accredited master’s program situated at a large public land-grant institution (LGU) worked with practitioner partners from academic libraries and information agencies to develop a new model for preparing information professionals with assessment and UX expertise. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In fall of 2015, faculty members applied for funding from the US Institute for Museum and Library Services Laura Bush 21st Century Librarians program for a program to develop formalized assessment and UX training in Library and Information Science (LIS) education. The student cohort would have interests in two areas: academic libraries and specialized information agencies. The two groups would complete much of the same coursework, earn the ALA-accredited master’s degree and have the opportunity to engage in co-curricular activities focused on UX and assessment. However, each sub-group would also pursue a subject-specific curriculum. In April 2016, IMLS funded the program.

In addition to reviewing the literature related to best practices in curriculum development, the authors describe the process of designing the program, including the curriculum, co-curricular mentoring and practicum opportunities, and the tools developed to evaluate the program’s effectiveness.

At a time in which the library practitioner and LIS educator communities are contemplating how best to prepare professionals with much-needed expertise in assessment and UX, UX-A represents an innovative approach in professional preparation. Although the UX-A program is grant-funded, several of the program components could be adapted and incorporated without such support.

This paper discusses the structure and history of the program, issues related to developing a new curricular program for LIS education, and the educational and professional development needs of the assessment and UX professional community. It includes an extensive review of literature related to LIS curriculum development, practica, and professional mentoring, as well as suggestions for implementing elements of the program in other settings.

This is a revised and updated version of a paper firstpresentedata Workshop on Electronic Information in Libraries at the Catholic University of Milan, 26 September 1996. Following identification of the need for a new means of managing access to and control of OPACs, CD‐ROMs and digital library resources, a consortium of three universities in London, Madrid and Florence is working with EnWare, a Madrid‐based software house to develop both a new library management system architecture and a test bed for it. A client‐server system consisting of a Z39.50 version 3 information retrieval client can be controlled by library staff using the specially developed CACTuS administra tion system, which is operated from a Windows PC. This article discusses issues which have arisen during the project since its startin January 1995 under the European Union's Telematics for Libraries programme.

The library marketplace for reference services is a rapidly changing environment. Various types of technologies have been introduced during the past twenty years to facilitate the retrieval of periodical information. Beginning with online access to databases, and progressing from menu‐driven systems to access online databases, the library community is now ready to embrace the latest and most revolutionary technology for libraries—CD‐ROM.

Carol Tenopir is a professor at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Hawaii. She has a BA in English/History from Whittier College in California, an MS in Library Science from California State University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in Library and Information Science. She teaches courses in Electronic Reference Services, Advanced Online Information Services, Indexing and Abstracting, and the Information Industry. Dr. Tenopir is well known for her Library Journal column, “Online Databases,” which she has been writing for ten years.