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Reports the preliminary conclusions derived from the initial, pathfinder phase of a study devoted to a re‐assessment of the information needs of academic researchers. This exploration of researchers’ current information requirements and information seeking practices has been undertaken with a special emphasis on examining the validity of anything and everything we have customarily been holding true as to the information component of academic research work. The groundwork for the investigation has been laid down in a pilot project of seven in‐depth critical incident method based information needs interviews with faculty at the University of Haifa (Israel). The qualitative data thus obtained as to researchers’ information needs, how they go about meeting these needs, and the barriers they encounter in the process have been analysed within the comprehensive framework proposed for a systematic description of information needs. The ensuing evaluation considers 11 aspects of the present‐day academic researcher’s information needs: subject, function, nature, intellectual level, viewpoint, quantity, quality/authority, date/currency, speed of delivery, place of publication/origin, and processing/packaging.

This paper examines the websites of 11 political parties in the run up to the general election of 7th June 2001, to determine whether parties have got to grips with the Internet as a medium for information delivery and campaigning. The websites of all the parties were analysed; and their content, design, interactivity, multimedia features and currency evaluated. Overall, the parties appeared to have developed a more professional and corporate attitude to web design since 1997, and certainly made efforts to keep their web pages up to date. However, the parties tended to conform to a rather sterile design lacking in multimedia features, and mounted only predictable content. Only a few parties had made any special effort to draw users to their websites. Similarly, although interactive features were present, few of these allowed more than a token input into party policy.

This paper is the first part of a two‐part paper, which examines the transition to the electronic information era in academia. Seeks to establish from the published literature to what extent university researchers have accepted, and adapted to, the changes wrought in information activity by seemingly endless technological developments. Within the wider context of the impact of the changing information environment on each of the three clearly discernible components of academic research (the creation of knowledge and standards, the preservation of information, and the communication of knowledge and information to others), disciplinary‐rooted differences in the conduct of research and their influence on information needs are identified, and the resulting inter‐ and intra‐ individual variations in researchers’ information seeking behaviour are explored. Reviewing a large number of studies investigating the integration of electronic media into academic work, an attempt is made to paint the picture of academics’ progressively harnessing the new technologies to scholarly information gathering endeavours, with the expressed hope of affording some insight into the directions and basic trends characterizing the information activity of university faculty in an increasingly electronic environment. *The author is a PhD student at City University and is also Vice‐Director of the Library at the University of Haifa, Israel.

Aiming to ensure that everyone obtains the rich rewards available in today's information‐centred society, this paper sets out to explore how the curious problem of “information malnutrition” in an era of plenty might be overcome to bring about the true information enfranchisement of today's enthusiastic digital consumer.

Based on the insights gained from research projects involving hundreds of thousands of people, the paper first analyses the whys, wherefores, implications, effects and challenges of the “information malnutrition” problem and then proceeds to investigate the ways and means for its holistic solution.

Although in today's information‐saturated world people have vast amounts of information at their beck and call, their myriad information needs often go unmet. Fortunately, changing this picture of ineffectual information consumption is quite feasible. The key to it all is achieving a nuanced understanding of people's idiosyncratic needs through ongoing assessment, utilising the analytical framework offered up for the purpose by the authors. It falls to information professionals, then, to see to the true information enfranchisement of the digital consumer, for it is their proclaimed mission to ensure that people's information needs are handled effectively. This can be done directly, via the proficient planning and delivery of information provision, but also indirectly, by spreading professional thinking and practices to those who insist on sorting out their information needs on their own.

The paper offers a new approach to the much‐debated problem of ensuring that people really benefit from the information abundance that is available to them, which is firmly grounded in theory, but, nevertheless, highly practical.

This paper is the second part of a two‐part paper, which examines the transition to the electronic information era in academia. Seeks to establish from the published literature to what extent university researchers have accepted, and adapted to, the changes wrought in information activity by seemingly endless technological developments. Within the wider context of the impact of the changing information environment on each of the three clearly discernible components of academic research (the creation of knowledge and standards, the preservation of information, and the communication of knowledge and information to others), disciplinary‐rooted differences in the conduct of research and their influence on information needs are identified, and the resulting inter‐ and intra‐individual variations in researchers’ information seeking behaviour are explored. Reviewing a large number of studies investigating the integration of electronic media into academic work, an attempt is made to paint the picture of academics’ progressively harnessing the new technologies to scholarly information gathering endeavours, with the expressed hope of affording some insight into the directions and basic trends characterising the information activity of university faculty in an increasingly electronic environment.

The second part of a two‐part paper reports the preliminary conclusions derived from the pathfinder phase of a study devoted to a reassessment of the information needs of academic researchers. Proceeding from the notion that long‐established research information needs may not have remained wholly unaffected by the changing realities of the knowledge society, this exploration of researchers' current information requirements and information seeking practices has been undertaken with a special emphasis on examining the validity of anything and everything we have customarily been holding true as to the information component of academic research work. The groundwork for the investigation has been laid down in a pilot project of seven in‐depth critical incident method‐based information needs interviews with faculty at the University of Haifa (Israel). The qualitative data thus obtained as to researchers' information needs, how they go about meeting these needs, and the barriers they encounter in the process have been analysed within the comprehensive framework proposed by Nicholas for a systematic description of information needs. The ensuing evaluation reported here considers 11 aspects of the present‐day academic researcher's information needs. With the first part of the paper focusing on the insights gained into the two major aspects of subject and function, the subsequent discussion of the remaining aspects rounds out this portrayal of research information needs.

To meet the challenges of global competition, American managers are forcing to re think the way they do business and re‐evaluate the way they communicate. Effective corporate communication plays an essential role to make American companies become fast, flexible and competitive. This article covers two major areas of the new developments of corporate communication: changing corporate communication flow and bridging culture differences by cross‐cultural communication.

This paper provides a high‐level overview of some of the main research themes and preoccupations that are reported in this special ciber issue of Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives. The research activities of ciber are drawn together in the quest for a better understanding of the policy implications of large‐scale knowledge production systems against the backdrop of profound technical change, uncertainty over business models, and new forms of consumer behaviour. The paper presents a series of conceptual frameworks that aim to contextualise ciber’s work in bibliometrics, cybermetrics, research evaluation, scholarly communication, user studies, publishing strategies and policy analysis. The transparency that metrics can bring to the evaluation debate and the pivotal role of human information behaviour in determining those metrics, are discussed.