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When the Institute of Information Scientists was founded in 1958 the Internet was still germinating in the Cold War bunkers of the ARPANET, the seventeen‐year old Pele was performing his magic in the World Cup in Sweden, and librarians were still recording bits of information on 5 by 3 index cards. The 40th Anniversary Conference of the Institute which took place at the University of Sheffield from 8–11 July 1998 took place with the Net ubiquitous (well, at least in the English‐speaking countries), with Ronaldo leading the line for Brazil, and with Information Scientists confronting opportunities to remake themselves as the cutting‐edge ‘knowledge managers’ of the corporate world.

The journal publisher Academic Press has decided to take action ‘to jump out of the subscription spiral where library funding goes down and consequently our prices go up, so subscriptions drop even further.’

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate a novel form of deep log analysis by linking questionnaire data with transactional server log data generated by the same users; and to provide a richer understanding of the information‐seeking behaviour of a strategic community of virtual scholars.

Usage statistics were obtained from logs for an 18‐month period: 16,865 sessions were covered and 110,029 pages were viewed. Searching behaviour was studied in regard to number of returned hits and number of searches in a session. A questionnaire survey was also conducted to identify ScienceDirect users according to the subject/discipline to which they belonged and attitude towards some scholarly communication issues. The answers of more than 750 ScienceDirect users to the questionnaire were linked to the usage logs of the same users through matching internet protocol (IP) addresses.

The study reveals large differences between scholars in different subjects in terms of information‐seeking behaviour and their interaction with electronic journal systems.

The findings can be utilised to improve electronic journal systems such as ScienceDirect in order to provide more suitable service for users in different subjects.

The originality of the paper lies in its methodology that links questionnaire attitudinal data to the web log data of the same users at individual level to gain a better understanding of users' behaviour.

This chapter explores the domestication of Marx's critique of political economy within Marxist-oriented environmental sociology, and treadmill of production (ToP) theory, in particular. The aim is to explicate the theoretical resources for a rigorous critique of capital-induced planetary degradation. Shortcomings of ToP theory pertaining to the conceptualization of capital and value are identified. The reasons for these shortcomings, including how they might be addressed, are elaborated by reconsidering key aspects of Marx's critical theory of modern capitalist society. The chapter contributes to current discussions in both critical theory and environmental sociology by demonstrating the continued relevance of Marx's critical theory for understanding the political-economic, social, and ideational dimensions of planetary degradation. In contrast to ToP theory, which critically examines the production of wealth by counterposing finitude and limits against the expansionary tendencies of economic growth, the critical theory approach advanced in this chapter conceptualizes the acceleration of environmental degradation following World War II in terms of a ToP of value, whereby the necessity of the value form is continuously established in the present. The chapter discusses how Marxian critical theory facilitates a critical examination of the widespread growth of environmentalism as concomitant with the spread of neoliberal capitalism.

The information seeking patterns of a group of research physicists and research chemists were analysed and the key features of those patterns identified. The aim was to use a similar methodology to that employed in a previous study of the information seeking activities of a group of social scientists and to effect a comparison between the information seeking patterns of the scientists and the social scientists. The information seeking patterns were derived from interviews with physicists at Manchester University and chemists at the University of Sheffield. The methodology adopted for the interviews and analysis was qualitative and based on the grounded theory approach. The results were then compared with the findings of the previous study of the social scientists to try and identify similarities and differences between the two groups. Certain minor variations concerned with awareness levels of facilities, the extent of usage of a source and the research stage at which a strategy may be employed were identified. Nonetheless, fundamental differences in information seeking behaviour could not be determined. Finally, the extent to which developments in electronic communication have had any impact on the information or communication patterns of the scientists and social scientists is considered.

A behavioural approach to information retrieval system design is outlined based on the derivation of a behavioural model of the information seeking patterns of academic social scientists. The information seeking patterns of a variety of academic social scientists were broken down into six characteristics: starting, chaining, browsing, differentiating, monitoring, and extracting. These characteristics constitute the principal generic features of the different individual patterns, and together provide a flexible behavioural model for information retrieval system design. The extent to which these characteristics are available on existing systems is considered, and the requirements for implementing the features on an experimental system are set out.

Any system of making scientific and technical articles available must meet a reasonable number of the requirements of the main players in the system: authors, publishers, libraries and consumers. Among the requirements are high visibility (authors), profit (publishers) and affordable costs (libraries). Consumers need inter alia exposure, ready access and ease and flexibility of use. They have most requirements but least power. Needs differ for current and older journals. Of the various single modes of publication none performs very well for all parties. Combinations of modes are more effective but payment has to be made twice. Much depends on authors' willingness to accept less visible forms of publication, but the ultimate deciding factor is publishers' assessment of the economics.

Even though many libraries now have sales counters where postcards (usually reproductions of old views) and some local histories (usually published by the library itself — like Northamptonshire Libraries' new, profusely illustrated and documented Waterways of Northamptonshire) are on sale, few if any have proper shops dispensing a full range of printed material on local topics (do send details if they exist).

Evaluates, through deep log analysis, the impact of “Big Deal” agreements on the online searching behaviour of users of the Emerald digital library Web site, which provides access to more than 150 journals in the fields of business and information science. The purpose of the evaluation was to map the online information seeking behaviour of the digital library user and to see whether those signed‐up to a Big Deal arrangement behaved any differently from the others. In general they did. The real surprise proved to be the strong consumer traits of the library’s users. Research reported here refers to the first stage of a three‐stage research project.