Search results

The World Wide Web's search engines are the main tools for indexing and retrieval of Internet resources today. Comparison and evaluation of their performance is of great importance for system developers and information professionals, as well as end‐users, for the improvement and development of better tools. The paper describes categories and special features of Web‐based databases and compares them with traditional databases. It then presents a review of the literature on the testing and evaluation of Web‐based search engines. Different methodologies and measures used in previous studies are described and their findings are summarised. The paper presents some evaluative comments on previous studies and suggests areas for future investigation, particularly evaluation of Web‐based search engines from the end‐user's perspective.

The Internet has significantly changed information management in developed countries through creating pressures to improve communication systems and develop more user friendly environments for information sharing. Now the Internet is penetrating developing countries, changing information practices in various sectors. The Internet is changing traditional ways of conducting information business by establishing new sources of information and new methods of communication on a global basis. It has created pressure to update information/technology infrastructures. It has created competition by bringing many international and indigenous information technology vendors on to the same platform. It has helped policy makers take advantage of access to global sources of information. Discusses the role of the Internet and its impact on developing countries, including major issues associated with electronic information access and delivery. It focuses on the two most populous countries in the world, China and India, which are also information‐rich countries in the East‐Asia and South‐Asia regions respectively.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how organizational learning at the strategic and operational levels (i.e. strategic learning and business learning, respectively) contribute to the development of organizational ambidexterity along the growth of enterprises from an evolutionary view.

The authors conducted a longitudinal single case study on Huawei – a leading Chinese firm in the telecommunication industry. Data were collected from various sources including interviews, senior speeches, scholarly publications, company magazines and other documents, and was analyzed in line with the principles of grounded theory.

This research reveals that the case company (Huawei) constructed organizational ambidexterity with different foci during different development stages. The organization’s ambidextrous capability evolves over time, shifting from one domain to another. Such ambidexterity development was largely beneficial from the multilevel organizational learning at both the strategic level (focussing on the whole organization and long-term goals) and operational level (focussing on local interests and short-term goals).

This paper represents one of the earliest works to uncover the ambidexterity building process from an evolutionary approach that requires the collection of longitudinal data. Also, the paper proposes a multi-level learning framework for ambidexterity building in practice. This framework distinguishes strategic learning from business learning and projects the two types of learning into learning at four levels-individual, team, intra-organizational, and inter-organizational, which can be leveraged to guide division of labor among hierarchical levels during the progressive development of ambidexterity.

New technologies in reference and information work place increasing demands on reference staff to acquire skills with the technology itself, to develop and evaluate new services and sources, and to train users in their optimal use. These demands for new skills create training needs among staff offering the services. This paper reports on a survey carried out in libraries in Guangzhou and Wellington that investigated the use of technology to provide information services in these libraries, the training that had been provided and areas where libraries felt there were still unmet needs for training. Although Chinese libraries were using a similar range of technologies, training programmes and needs varied between Chinese and New Zealand libraries.

This paper aims to examine the role of marketing to new generations of library users.

The paper reviews classical marketing texts and current user studies for applicability to library service.

The paper finds that libraries can apply classic marketing principles to attract and better serve new generations of users. Although libraries no longer have a monopoly on information sources, libraries do offer value‐added services.

By understanding the users and their contexts, the paper proposes various strategies of value to market librarians and library resources.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a systematic review of the literature addressing international aid to education, primarily focusing on China's aid principles and its practice of scholarship programs and short-term training held in higher education institutions (HEIs).

Using the systematic review approach, the authors identified 25 English-language articles in the academic databases. The review is driven by the analytical lenses of (a) the policy formulation and implementation of China's educational aid across macro-, meso- and micro-levels and (b) theories and methodologies that are commonly adopted in the existing studies.

The review identified three themes: (a) China's aid discourse in the international aid landscape, (b) critical reflections on educational aid program management and (c) international students' study experiences and perceptions of China. The authors also outline prevalent theories and methodological approaches used in the existing literature.

This literature review provides a review of research on China's international aid to education in the past 20 years, as a frequently cited example of emerging donors that have taken alternative aid approaches, thus bringing about a broader and nuanced perspective of aid to education. It also generates implications for researchers who are interested in studying education and development in the global context.

This study provides is first systematic literature review of studies on international aid to education provided by emerging donors, taking China as an example, to summarize its aid principles and aid practice in China's HEIs.

The study aims to find out the university students' health information service needs in post-COVID-19 age and then consider how to do the health information services well and promote it in further work.

This study uses Kano model to design a questionnaire about university students' health information service needs from academic library and investigates 243 students from seven universities in China. The data generated were analyzed using a statistical tool and presented in tables.

The results show the students' different requirements level of health information services from academic library as must-be requirements, one-dimensional requirements, attractive quality attributes and indifferent quality in post-COVID-19 age.

The questionnaire design and the scale of respondents have limitation, such as only focus on Chinese university, have not characteristically research on different group of students. It could optimize to cover more worldwide university students and refer to different groups of students' needs in further research.

The paper expands and deepens the theory about university library health information service and provides a practical reference and proposes some suggestions for academic libraries on how to carry out health information services and give the social health institutions inspiration on how to promote the health services, especially in post-COVID-19 age.

This chapter explores the role of iconic architecture in the development and promotion of urban megaprojects (UMPs) in globalizing cities. Iconic architecture is defined in terms of fame and aesthetic/symbolic significance. The argument is framed within the concept of the culture-ideology of consumerism. While the focus is on two case studies – the grands projets in Paris and UMPs in major Chinese cities since the 1980s – the chapter seeks to demonstrate the increasing importance of iconic architecture for UMPs around the world. The chapter utilizes official sources, scholarly research, and reports in the mass media to support the arguments, all within the context of a theoretical framework developed over the last two decades and widely published by the author, to explain how capitalist globalization works. Within the context of the culture-ideology of consumerism, the widely accepted rationale for capitalist globalization, the production and marketing of what has been increasingly identified as iconic architecture is the main route to achieving the profits – financial, political, and cultural – deemed necessary for the success of UMPs all over the world. The chapter presents the first available analysis of the key role of the transnational capitalist class in the production and marketing of iconic architecture in urban megaprojects, thereby offering a systemic explanation of the growth and characteristics of urban megaprojects in the era of capitalist globalization.