Search results

The purpose of this paper is to present a high‐level investigation of the physical‐conceptual continuum occupied by both digital and physical libraries.

A framework is provided for thinking about the notions of place and library. The issue of materials and the ideas they represent is considered. Places for people are considered, including issues of people's sense of place in physical and digital spaces. The issue of physical and digital spaces as places for work, collaboration, and community‐building is considered.

As more digital libraries are built, and as more physical libraries offer electronic access to parts of their collection, two trends are likely to result: the role of the library as a storage space for materials will become decreasingly important; and the role of the library as a space for users, for individual and collaborative work, and as a space for social activity, will become increasingly important.

Digital libraries are unable to fulfill some of the functions of the physical library as physical spaces, but are able to offer functions beyond what the physical library can offer as cognitive spaces.

Areas of likely future development for digital libraries are suggested, as vehicles for enhancing cognitive space by augmenting representations of ideas in materials.

This paper argues that in many ways digital libraries really are places in the conceptual sense, and will continue to broaden and enrich the roles that libraries play in people's lives and in the larger social milieu.

There is a paucity of evidence on how small new ventures cope with shifts from physical space to cyberspace imposed by external crises, such as pandemics. Further, even though the concept of space is highly relevant to understanding entrepreneurship, the concept has been underutilised in entrepreneurship research. In particular, the potential of understanding entrepreneurship in terms of the interplay between physical space and cyberspace is yet to be explored. The authors address these research gaps by pursuing the following research question: How did micro new ventures experience the shift from physical space to cyberspace (technology adaptation) imposed by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis?

Data were collected via semi-structured interviews with founders of start-ups associated with two incubators, in Spain and Monaco. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts was conducted, approaching the data with the focus on firm positioning in “real” space and in cyberspace and on possible transformations of business models.

The pandemic opened new opportunities for small new ventures, as many start-ups were successful in shifting into cyberspace by undergoing a radical digital transformation and ended up with more scalable business models and in many cases transformed themselves into micro-multinationals.

Overall, firms tended to shift from physical space to cyberspace, following the firms' customers to cyberspace, finding new and more international, customers in cyberspace or guiding the firms' existing customer base into cyberspace. Firms that maintained the pre-pandemic position were either already fully digital or had sufficient resources to hold position in the anticipation of the post-pandemic future.

The authors introduce the concept of cyberspace in the context of entrepreneurship studies and explore the trajectories of firms in a crisis.

The purpose of this study is to describe the evolution of fraud schemes with historically conducted with fiat money in physical space to the crypto-assets in digital space as follows: ransomware, price manipulation, pump and dump schemes, misrepresentation, spoofing and Ponzi Schemes. To explain how fraud schemes have evolved alongside digital asset markets, this study applies the space transition theory.

The methodology used is a review of the media regarding six digital asset fraud schemes that have evolved from physical space to virtual space that are currently operational, as well as a review of the literature regarding the space transition theory.

This paper finds that the digital space and digital assets may facilitate pseudonymous criminal behavior in the present regulatory environment.

The field is rapidly evolving, however this study finds that the conversion from physical to virtual space obfuscates the criminal activity, facilitating anonymity of the perpetrators, and creating new challenges for the legal and regulatory environment.

This paper finds that the digital space and digital assets may facilitate pseudonymous criminal behavior in the present regulatory environment. An understanding of the six crypto-asset fraud schemes described in the paper is useful for anti-financial crime professionals and regulators focusing on deterrence.

The space transition theory offers an explanation for why digital space leads criminals to be better positioned to conduct financial crime in virtual space relative to physical space. This offers insights into behavior of digital asset fraudster behavior that could help limit the social damage caused by crypto-asset fraud.

To the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to detail the evolution of fraud schemes with fiat money in physical space to their corresponding schemes with digital assets in physical space. This study is also the first to integrate the space transition theory into an analysis of digital asset fraud schemes.

The purpose of this paper is to build cyber-physical-psychological ternary fusion crowd intelligence network and realize comprehensive, real, correct and synchronous projection in cyber–physical–psychological ternary fusion system. Since the network of crowd intelligence is the future interconnected network system that takes on the features of large scale, openness and self-organization. The Digital-selfs in the network of crowd intelligence interact and cooperate with each other to finish transactions and achieve co-evolution eventually.

To realize comprehensive, real, correct and synchronous projection between cyber–physical–psychological ternary fusion system, the authors propose the rules and methods of projection from real world to the CrowdIntell Network. They build the mental model of the Digital-self including structure model and behavior model in four aspects: identity, provision, demand and connection, thus forming a theoretical mental model framework of Digital-self.

The mental model is excepted to lay a foundation for the theory of modeling and simulation in the research of crowd science and engineering.

This paper is the first one to propose the mental model framework and projection rules and methods of Digital-selfs in network of crowd intelligence, which lays a solid foundation for the theory of modeling, simulation, intelligent transactions, evolution and stability of CrowdIntell Network system, thus promoting the development of crowd science and engineering.

The emergence of new social media is shifting the market place for business towards virtual market space. In the light of the emerging digital space for new forms of marketing, the traditional servicescape concept is critically examined. This paper aims to show why servicescape concepts and attitudes need to be adapted for digital media.

First, the authors explain how the traditional servicescape concept adds meaning to a service provider’s value-proposition by modifying customer expectations and customer experience. Second, recognising that the environment for service is no longer bound to a physical place, the authors discuss the implications of the epistemic shift involved.

The authors’ examination shows that digital service space challenges traditional concepts about what constitutes a customer experience and derived value. The authors conceptually “zoom out” into a virtual service eco-system and show with exemplar examples why the servicescape in digital space is more socially embedded and necessarily more fluid in its time-space design. In the more advanced sites, interactions between various artificial bodies (avatars) are co-created by controlling off-line participant-actors; yet, these participant-actors remain strangers to each other at an off-line level. This is entirely a new and radical development of old times.

The research findings are based on scholarly research of the relevant literature, from practitioner reports, and evidence emerging from the examination of many digital web-sites. It has not been the authors’ intention to objectively represent current servicescape functionalities but more to indicate the major directions of change with exemplar examples. The future cannot be predicted, but their interpretive conclusions suggest major challenges in service marketing and management logic ahead. New forms of digital servicescape are still being created as technology and service imagination enables, so further research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected.

Social media platforms are enabling organisations to learn more about their customers and also to engage them more. In these changing times, bricks and mortar stores would be well advised to review their servicescape presence to allow and encourage engagement with the more involved consumers. And, by integrating their digital space into their physical place, bricks and mortar stores might take on more relationship oriented process-like characteristics, both in the digital space and in their physical places, with developments on one platform leading to possible service innovations on the other.

The digital era is changing consumer behaviour. Service managers need to take into account that many customers are already equally as engaged with digital-space social networks as they once were with bricks and mortar stores. The more time consumers as participant-actors spend in social networks, the decision on what and where to buy is decided by interactions with friends and other influencers.

New forms of digital servicescape are being created as technology and service imagination enables. Further scholarly research interest in virtual atmospherics can be expected, impacting on the authors’ sense of place, and self-identity.

The purpose of this article is to investigate digital public spaces and audiences and to explore the relationship of digital public spaces to both ideas of nationhood and physical public institutions.

The article investigates tensions arising from the conjuncture of public spaces and digital culture through the lens of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). This research uses qualitative content analysis of a range of data sources including semi-structured interviews, primary texts and secondary texts.

The construction of the public library space as a digital entity does not attract anticipated audiences. Additionally, the national framing of the DPLA is not compatible with how audiences engage with digital public spaces.

Drawing on original, qualitative data, this article engages with the prevalent but undertheorized concept of digital public spaces. The article addresses unreflexive uses of the digital public and the assumptions connected to the imagined audiences for platforms like the DPLA.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the need for integrating a focus on digital literacies and digital ethics into sustainability education, proposing a conceptualization of these for sustainability education.

The paper draws on relevant literature in the field of sustainability education and in the field of digital literacies and digital ethics. It synthesizes perspectives in both fields to form a conceptualization of digital literacies and digital ethics for sustainability education.

The paper conceptualizes “digital literacies” as a capacity to reflect on the nature of digital space in relation to sustainability challenges and “digital ethics” as a capacity to reflexively engage with digital space in ways which build rich discourses around sustainability. Critically reflective and exploratory activities in digital space are a means of developing these capacities.

The conceptualization allows sustainability education to account for the increased role digital space plays in shaping views of sustainability challenges. It proposes a pedagogical approach to doing this.

Digital media has been firmly established in contemporary society and now is a time of unprecedented growth and innovation in the world of digital technologies. Conversely, before and during this period, physical public space has diminished in quantity and quality. The purpose of this paper is to suggest that creating and intensifying connections between digital space and physical public space might open up new possibilities to reactivate urban places.

Historically, art has provided a territory in which new ideas could be introduced and tested. For example, the great landscape gardens of Versailles provided a model for the later development of the urban structure of Paris. Many artists in the last few decades have experimented with how digital/virtual environments might be related to real physical space. It is reasonable to assume that these experiments will be applied in broader contexts and will most likely have impact at the scale of the city. This essay contextualizes current interactive installations within an overview of selected forward‐looking precedents.

The analysis of early experiments in collapsing the realms of virtual and physical environments demonstrates that the implications of a fuller integration have not reached its potential in contemporary applications.

Walter Benjamin's speculation that media could contribute to urban space of heightened interaction is a promise still waiting realization. Art installations that promote interactive relations between the spectator and physical space are used as instigations for speculations at an urban scale. In particular, attention is given to the development of improved interfaces.

Focusing on two particularly challenging issues facing Chinese academic libraries – space constraints and the trending of digital scholarship services, this paper aims to explore which spaces students and faculty wanted and how to leverage low-use spaces and growing digital scholarship services to build the Center for Digital Scholarship (CDS) to meet their demands.

The participant observation method was used in the launch stage of the space redesign from May 2016 to October 2018. The usage analysis method was used to reveal the use of the renovated spaces and assess the success of the space redesign when CDS was open to users between October 1, 2017 and September 30, 2018. The usage was gathered from the space reservation system.

A hybrid academic service center combining information commons, a collaborative workplace, social spaces and digital scholarship services, the CDS is able to meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs and fulfill the mission of its university in the context of insufficient funds, space and specialists. While it approaches the goal of the space redesign project, some deficiencies remain to be addressed in the future design and service plan, including separating quiet and noisy areas, flexible arrangements and business process reengineering.

This study shows a hybrid academic service center can meet the complexity and diversity of users’ needs, despite insufficient funds, space and specialists. To ensure sustainability, digital scholarship services should adapt to local users’ needs and expectations. While the author’s patent service and subject development analysis are local and popular with the users and sectors in his university, they make their services somewhat different from those of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) members.

This is one of the few, recent studies on space redesign incorporating digital scholarship services in a well-known academic library in China.

Digitalization is one of the most important phenomena that characterize the last decade – not only in business-to-consumer markets but also in business-to-business as well. The advent of digital technologies has multiplied the number and type of touchpoints between actors, thus generating new spaces of interaction where cross-boundary movements are frequent and traverse physical and digital contexts. All these elements, in turn, produce a higher need for coordination in business relationships. By using the concept of boundary objects, the purpose of this paper is to understand the main functions of boundary objects to coordinate business relationships across digital and physical contexts.

The empirical research is based on two case studies where the role of boundary objects is particularly emphasized: Salesforce.com and 3DiTALY. 27 qualitative interviews with key referents have been carried out. To analyze data, the authors applied a constructionist perspective based on Carlile’s (2004) framework of transferring, translating and transforming knowledge across boundaries.

The study will identify six functions that boundary objects play in coordinating business relationships across physical and digital contexts. It will also show the relevance of a mental network space of shared understanding to enable changes in the relational network space.

This study makes concrete the abstract idea of boundary objects. Therefore, it sheds light on the opportunity of managing strategically boundary objects in order to improve their effectiveness in digital environments.

The study will contribute to IMP research on b-to-b relationships by showing that, in digital contexts, boundary objects are key to coordinate interaction in space and cross-boundary movements. The study will show that once considering a digital context, the traditional functions of boundary objects in terms of transfer, translation, and transformation can be further declined into sub-functions. The study will also provide important managerial implications on how boundary objects can be strategically used by companies to increase the effectiveness of their business relationships.