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Search engines are used to locate information on the Web, but they cannot always adequately meet the information needs of users. Some schemes have been developed to solve this problem and meta‐tags are one of them. This article provides a comprehensive definition of meta‐tags and explains their function. Then, the possible attributes of meta‐tags and the most important meta‐tags are introduced in detail. It concludes that, although the meta‐tag has shortcomings, as do other schemes of information organizing, it can help improve the retrievability of information on the Web, and should be utilised by Web masters and search engine designers.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the structure of existing webliographies as human‐edited directories and review the literature on webliographies.

Using Google, 370 webliographies were identified and evaluated against seven essential elements of an ideal webliography including: annotated title, description, contents, annotated body, index, search mechanism, and contact us.

The research showed that a considerable number of webliographies lack five essential structural elements including annotated title, description, contents, search mechanism and index. Only two elements, i.e. annotated body and contact us, were present in the majority of webliographies.

Problems hindering access to web pages, including technical problems and difficulties caused by government internet filtering policy, were among limitations of the research.

The results can help webliography designers avoid common mistakes in webliography development and help webliography users make better use of these sources.

During the second half of the past century, the field of library and information science (LIS) has frequently used the research methods of the social sciences. In particular, quantitative assessment research methodologies, together with one of its associated concepts, quantitative assessment metrics, have also been used in the information field, out of which more specific bibliometric, scientometric, informetric and webometric research instruments have been developed. This brief communication tries to use the metrics system to coin a new concept in information science metrical studies, namely, webliometrics.

An overview of the webliography is presented, while webliometrics as a type of research method in LIS is defined. Webliometrics' functions are enumerated and webliometric research methods are sketched out.

That webliometrics is worthy of further clarification and development, both in theory and practice.

Webliometrics potentially offer a powerful and rigorous new research tool for LIS researchers.

The research outputs of webliometrics, although theoretically and statistically rigorous, are of immediate practical value.

This paper aims to increase the knowledge of an original thought as yet under‐utilised approach to research methods.

Information professionals have always concerned themselves with manipulation of information, and sources of information have been classified in some categories as one of the manifestations of information manipulation over the past years. This categorization has been a failure because of different and incoherent opinions – especially in the area of reference works. Through highlighting the differences and incoherencies, this commentary attempts to present a new solution, possibly a permanent one.

The paper looks at the problem based on a hierarchical viewpoint.

The paper interprets the categorization of information resources as a relative conceptualization process. Based on this viewpoint, an idea entitled annotated webliography of webliographies is provided. The paper presents a historical and definitive overview of webliography as the basis of this new concept and illustrates a possible structure, function, and value of this tertiary source on the world wide web.

This idea can be developed as the starting point of some large projects.

The aim of the present research is to do an overview on the concept of the meta‐tag in order to determine its applicability in indexing current documents of the world wide web.

Quantitative and qualitative aspects of the meta‐tag literature and, if necessary, the related part of the metadata literature were reviewed to explore the type and approach of the researches in these areas of studies. By using the literature review method, 30 articles were studied and categorized into three classes including theoretical, measurement and evaluative studies.

A paradoxical feature was observed which reflects a disagreement among researchers.

The paper concludes that the meta‐tag is still a matter of opinion and more studies are needed in this area of research.

There are many differences in, and various opinions on, naming library education institutions around the world. In a number of countries, this diversity has increased a powerful trend among library professionals to discuss and to challenge the problem of naming schools in which they are studying the discipline and the programs by which they are being taught. The present study, in response to this trend, aims to find out an adequate answer to this problem based on the real state of the librarianship's educational institutions on the World Wide Web.

After an introductory note, various opinions are classified into two categories. The diversity in interpretation of renaming schools is reviewed chronologically. The survey was done and a sufficient conclusion was presented.

More than 98.5 percent of the schools have renewed their titles, while fewer than 45 percent have changed their titles completely from the traditional forms to the newer ones.

Relativeness of the industrialization concept is too much. Therefore, conceptualization for such research would usually be a big problem.

It was not possible to discover whether the titles of the schools were being changed when the survey was being done or not.

The results of this survey can solve the paradox of renaming schools.

Digital information retrieval has been as a problem, and at the same time a research interest for information scientists in recent years. They have planned some solutions to solve problems manifested during the 1990s. Designing meta‐tags and applying them to HTML documents was a remedy in this direction. Meta‐tags can help authors, publishers and indexers of Web pages to analyze intended content more precisely and efficiently. The aim of the present survey is to measure meta‐tags of the Iranian Web sites in accordance with an international criterion. To carry out the research, 346 Iranian Web sites were selected among 3,342, which represented a sample of all Web sites existed in Iranhoo, an Iranian Web directory. The source codes of the sample home pages were reviewed in terms of the presence of keywords and description meta‐tags. The findings of the survey showed that 31.5 percent and 24.6 percent of the Iranian Web sites have keywords and description meta‐tags respectively. The paper concludes that the Iranian Web sites are lower than non‐Iranian Web sites in terms of the use of meta‐tags.

Information retrieval has emerged as one of the most important areas of study in the field of information science during the past decades. Since the invention of the World Wide Web, some solutions have been planned to solve the problem of digital information retrieval, including search engines and Web directories. A webliography is a special type of Web directory and consists of an enumerative list of hypertext links to the scientific sources of information on the Net. According to the last time of updating of the webliographies, this article tries to provide an answer to this question: are webliographies still in use? In order to do this, two searches on webliography and webography made using Google. Among 357 updated and retrieved hits, 303 items have been updated at the second period of webliographies lifetime. It concludes that doing some research projects on webliographies is not only possible, but essential.

Developments in web technologies have already provided end‐users with huge amounts of information on the one hand and an increasing number of search tools on the other hand. Webring is one of the oldest tools designed to help searchers surf the Net easier. The purpose of this paper is to determine if webring is still alive or not.

After providing a historical overview, webring is defined and its advantages and disadvantages are enumerated. Then, an exploratory study is done to determine webrings' survivability.

Based on the last update of each webring, the research shows that 69.1 per cent of webrings have been updated in the second period of their life. This implies that webrings are growing increasingly, and hence are still alive.

Lack of last time of updating in 199 webrings, having only the year of updating in 102 out of a 191 dated webrings and not retrieving some of the webrings because of filtering policy currently conducted in Iran are the research limitations.

It was not possible to contact ringers for getting more accurate data.

Results of this research can direct researchers to do more studies on webrings from the technical and user viewpoints.