Search results
1 – 10 of 608This essay demonstrates how information systems — collections of documents, data, or other information-bearing objects — function internally as sites for creative manipulation of…
Abstract
Purpose
This essay demonstrates how information systems — collections of documents, data, or other information-bearing objects — function internally as sites for creative manipulation of genre resources. In the information systems context, these textual activities are not clearly traced to the purposeful actions of specific writers.
Findings
Genre development for information systems can result from actions that may appear individually to be rote, repetitive, passive, and uninteresting. But as these actions are aggregated at increasing scales, genre components interact and shift, even if change is limited to one element of the larger assemblage. Although these changes may not be initiated by writers in accordance with targeted work activities and associated rhetorical goals, the composite texts thus produced are nonetheless powerful documents that come to partially constitute the broader activities they appear to merely support.
Originality/value
In demonstrating “writerless” phenomena of genre change in distributed, regulated systems, this essay complements and extends the strong body of existing work in genre studies that emphasizes the writer’s perspective and agency in its accounts of genre development. By showing how continually evolving compound documents such as digital libraries constitute such sites of unacknowledged genre change, this essay demonstrates how the social actions that these composite documents facilitate for their users also change.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the basic concepts and principles of linked data, discuss benefits that linked data provides in library environments, and present a…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the basic concepts and principles of linked data, discuss benefits that linked data provides in library environments, and present a short history of the development of library linked data.
Design/methodology/approach
The chapter is based on the literature review dealing with linked data, especially focusing on the library field.
Findings
In the library field, linked data is especially useful for expanding bibliographic data and authority data. Although diverse structured data is being produced by the library field, the lack of compatibility with the data from other fields currently limits the wider expansion and sharing of linked data.
Originality/value
The value of this chapter can be found in the potential use of linked data in the library field for improving bibliographic and authority data. Especially, this chapter will be useful for library professionals who have interests in the linked data regarding its applications in a library setting.
In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work…
Abstract
Purpose
In recent years, aceted search has been a well-accepted approach for many academic libraries across the United States. This chapter is based on the author’s dissertation and work of many years on faceted library catalogs. Not to hope to be exhaustive, the author’s aim is to provide sufficient depth and breadth to offer a useful resource to researchers, librarians, and practitioners about faceted search used in library catalogs.
Method
The chapter reviews different aspects of faceted search used in academic libraries, from the theory, the history, to the implementation. It starts with the history of online public access catalogs (OPACs) and how people search with OPACs. Then it introduces the classic facet theory and its relationship with faceted search. At last, various academic research projects on faceted search, especially faceted library catalogs, are briefly reviewed. These projects include both implementation studies and the evaluation studies.
Findings
The results indicate that most searchers were able to understand the concept of facets naturally and easily. Compared to text searches, however, faceted searches were complementary and supplemental, and used only by a small group of searchers.
Practical implications
The author hopes that the facet feature has not only been cosmetic but the answer to the call for the next generation catalog for academic libraries. The results of this research are intended to inform librarians and library information technology (IT) staff to improve the effectiveness of the catalogs to help people find information they need more efficiently.