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The purpose of this paper is to investigate sources of self-efficacy for researchers and the sources’ impact on the researchers’ use of social media for knowledge sharing. It is a continuation of a larger study (Alshahrani and Rasmussen Pennington, 2018).

The authors distributed an online questionnaire to researchers at the University of Strathclyde (n=144) and analysed the responses using descriptive statistics.

Participants relied on personal mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion and emotional arousal for social media use. These elements of self-efficacy mostly led them to use it effectively, with a few exceptions.

The convenience sample utilised for this study, which included academic staff, researchers and PhD students at one university, is small and may not be entirely representative of the larger population.

This study contributes to the existing literature on social media and knowledge sharing. It can help researchers understand how they can develop their self-efficacy and its sources in order to enhance their online professional presence. Additionally, academic institutions can use these results to inform how they can best encourage and support their researchers in improving their professional social media use.

Researchers do rely on their self-efficacy and its sources to use social media for knowledge sharing. These results can help researchers and their institutions eliminate barriers and improve online engagement with colleagues, students, the public and other relevant research stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how information professionals in Scotland and in European national libraries perceive linked data (LD) as well as if and how they are implementing it.

The authors applied four data collection techniques: a literature review, semi-structured interviews (n=15), online resources analysis (n=26) and an online survey (n=113). They used constant comparative analysis to identify perceived benefits and challenges of LD implementation, reasons behind adoption or non-adoption of LD and the issues hindering its implementation in libraries.

Some projects demonstrate LD’s potential to augment the visibility and discoverability of library data, alongside with overcoming linguistic barriers, and supporting interoperability. However, a strong need remains to demonstrate the Semantic Web’s potential within libraries. Participants identified lack of expertise and lack of resources/time/staff as implementation barriers. Several other issues remain unsolved, such as licensing constraints, as well as difficulties with obtaining management buy-in for LD initiatives, even where open data are government-mandated.

Information professionals and vendors should collaborate to develop tools for implementation. Advocacy through disseminating and reviewing successful implementations can help to solve practical difficulties and to obtain management buy-in.

This is the first known study to present a multinational, comprehensive picture of library LD implementations and associated librarians’ perceptions of LD.

With the shift to an information-based society and to the de-centralisation of information, information overload has attracted a growing interest in the computer and information science research communities. However, there is no clear understanding of the meaning of the term, and while there have been many proposed definitions, there is no consensus. The goal of this work was to define the concept of “information overload”. In order to do so, a concept analysis using Rodgers' approach was performed.

A concept analysis using Rodgers' approach based on a corpus of documents published between 2010 and September 2020 was conducted. One surrogate for “information overload”, which is “cognitive overload” was identified. The corpus of documents consisted of 151 documents for information overload and ten for cognitive overload. All documents were from the fields of computer science and information science, and were retrieved from three databases: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library, SCOPUS and Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA).

The themes identified from the authors’ concept analysis allowed us to extract the triggers, manifestations and consequences of information overload. They found triggers related to information characteristics, information need, the working environment, the cognitive abilities of individuals and the information environment. In terms of manifestations, they found that information overload manifests itself both emotionally and cognitively. The consequences of information overload were both internal and external. These findings allowed them to provide a definition of information overload.

Through the authors’ concept analysis, they were able to clarify the components of information overload and provide a definition of the concept.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the sources of self-efficacy that researchers rely on when using social media for knowledge sharing and to explore how these sources impact their use.

The study employed 30 semi-structured interviews with researchers at a major Scottish university. The authors analysed the interview transcriptions using directed content analysis.

The researchers relied on the four sources of self-efficacy proposed by Bandura (1977) when using social media for knowledge sharing. These sources lead researchers to use social media effectively and frequently for sharing knowledge, although some may discourage its use.

It extends the self-efficacy integrative theoretical framework of Bandura (1977) by presenting the relative amount of the influence of these sources for researchers to share their ideas, experiences, questions and research outputs on social media. While the participants included academic staff, postdoctoral researchers, and PhD students, the majority were PhD students.

The findings can help universities understand how to promote productive use of social media. For example, academic staff who have high personal mastery experience could mentor those who do not.

This is the first known study to investigate the sources of self-efficacy that impact researchers’ use of social media for knowledge sharing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine current public library apps in Scotland and assess Scottish public library users’ opinions of those apps.

Two qualitative and quantitative surveys were conducted. One survey was distributed to each Scottish local authority, the entities responsible for public libraries and Scotland. The second survey was made available to the public. The results were analysed with nonparametric statistics and content analysis.

All 32 authorities responded. In all, 17 authorities had an app, two had one in development, and 13 had none. Offering an alternative means of communication to patrons was the main reason for providing an app, while cost and low priority were the main reasons provided against app provision. Authorities were satisfied with the core services offered in their apps, but less so with others. No authorities had consulted the public regarding app provision. The public (n=185), while satisfied with current library apps, criticised the complex procedures required to access external services. Patrons from authorities without an app stated interest in apps.

It is vital for public libraries to implement at least core services that are optimised for mobile devices. They should consult with the public before and throughout the development process to ensure they are happy with the implementation.

This is the first known study to explore public library app use in Scotland as well as one of the first in public library app use worldwide.

The purpose of this article is to report on sessions the author attended at the 2013 ASIS&T Conference.

The approach is an informal review of sessions and events the author attended.

This report condenses the author's notes from various events and sessions at the conference.

This is an original conference report written after attending the conference.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how both producers and consumers of user-created music videos on YouTube communicate emotional information.

In total, 150 filmic documents containing fan-generated versions of U2’s “Song for Someone” were purposively collected. The author used discourse analysis to understand the types of videos created, the communication of emotional information from both the producers and the consumers, the social construction of emotion in the filmic documents, and elements of intertextuality that represented emotion.

Fans created videos containing cover versions, original versions of the song with new visual content, and tutorials about how to play the song. Producers of cover versions communicated emotional information, especially tenderness, through facial expression, their surroundings, and corresponding musical elements. Producers’ visual content expressed emotion through meaningful photographs and sad stories. Producers’ descriptions revealed emotion as well. Emotions were individually experienced and socially constructed. Consumers conveyed emotion through likes, dislikes, and expressive positive comments. Intertextuality communicated passion for U2 through tour references, paraphernalia displays, band photographs, imitating the band, and musical mashups.

Information science can work towards a new generation of multimedia information retrieval systems that incorporate emotion in order to help users discover documents in meaningful ways that move beyond keyword and bibliographic searches.

This is one of the earliest research papers in the area of emotional information retrieval (EmIR).

This study aims to investigate the outcomes that researchers expect from using social media for knowledge sharing and to explore how these outcomes impact their use.

The authors conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with researchers at a major Scottish university. They analysed the interview transcripts using directed content analysis.

Researchers expect social and personal outcomes from the use of social media to share knowledge. Each type has positive and negative forms. The positive outcomes motivate researchers to use it, whereas negative outcomes prevent them from using it.

This study extends the integrative theoretical framework of outcome expectations within the social cognitive theory by exploring these outcomes and their relative amount of influence on sharing ideas, experiences, questions and research outputs on social media. While the participants included academic staff and postdoctoral researchers, the majority were PhD students.

The findings will help individual researchers and universities to use social media effectively in sharing ideas and promoting research through identifying the positive outcomes. Identifying the negative outcomes will help in using solutions to overcome them.

This is the first known study to investigate the outcome expectations that impact researchers’ use of social media for knowledge sharing.