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The purpose of this paper is to explore the emergent field of information history (IH) and to move towards a definition of IH. Some of the more traditional historical approaches to information science are challenged in their claims to be information history.

The historiography of the field is discussed, and an analysis of the continuing development of IH is explored.

IH is a field that has been attracting increasing attention in recent years from historians and information scientists alike. Although still a relatively young area, this paper argues that IH has the potential to develop into a highly relevant and dynamic field of research. The paper concludes with a look at the future for this area of research, with some suggestions as to how IH needs to develop in order to gain the credence and recognition it deserves.

This paper attempts to augment the debate on IH and to encourage a broader recognition of this young and dynamic field within LIS.

Guest history is a valuable service and marketing tool. In particular, it is likely to become a strategic device for the development of brand loyalty in the 1990s. Reports on a nationwide Australian study of 121 hotels′ use of guest history, and describes some of the key opportunities for optimizing the guest history function. The findings suggest that while guest history is being widely utilized by hotels, the extent of that utilization is limited. Three major areas for developing strategies to optimize the guest history function were found to include: specific guest history training modules; an internal service orientation emphasizing the organization‐wide usage of guest history to service the customer better; and further enhancement of the use of guest history for increasing brand loyalty.

The purpose of this paper is to discover Spanish history students' subjective perception of their information literacy (IL) status in order to find and suggest some academic and individual improvement actions.

The implementation of the IL‐HUMASS survey provides diagnostic data on two IL quantitative dimensions (belief in importance and skills self‐assessment) and a third qualitative dimension (learning habits) deployed along 26 variables, which are grouped into four categories (search, evaluation, processing, and communication‐dissemination of information).

The analysis confirms that variables related to information processing (above all schematising and abstracting information) show high scores of belief in importance and skills self‐assessment among students. By contrast, variables related to technological advances (above all the use of bibliographic reference managers) show the worst results. In sum, there is a lack of subjective digital literacy in a set of skills related to the technologies of search, processing and communication of information. Among the less valued skills, independent learning reaches an excessive priority. However, this is really just an isolated learning.

The help of classrooms and libraries as learning tools would improve these results. Policy makers and instructors need to improve their role in the learning process by means of more extensive planning processes and the promotion of specific courses, above all on skills related to the technologies of information search, processing and communication. The concept of independent learning needs to be clarified and enhanced.

This is a pioneering study that approaches IL from a triple perspective.

For more than 25 years, the National History Day (NHD) program has a number of distinctive features that make it a uniquely powerful collaborative vehicle for information literacy instruction. By requiring that student participants do in‐depth research using primary source materials, NHD strongly encourages integrated learning of historical content and information‐seeking processes, and thus partnerships between history teachers and librarians. Because few middle and high schools have extensive collections of primary source materials, NHD also promotes partnerships between K‐12 schools and academic libraries, public libraries, and museums in making primary source materials available to students. This case study aims to draw on one academic library's three‐year experience of partnering in NHD events in its community.

Describes the NHD program, highlighting the commonalities between NHD learning goals; the National Standards for History: Historical Thinking Standards (Grades 5‐12); the American Association of School Libraries' Information Literacy Standards for Student Learning; and the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

Shows how one academic library was able to successfully implement NHD programming, especially in the area of library instruction, to engage students in their own learning.

NHD participation by higher education librarians, collaborating with their K‐12 counterparts, can be a powerful learning vehicle for elementary and secondary students to learn historical content knowledge, historical thinking skills, and information literacy skills.

The purpose of this paper is to explore crisis history further. The paper also examines the possible impact of information source on publics’ perceptions. The study seeks to expound on the tenets of the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT), particularly the underutilized crisis history component.

The study used a 3 × 3 between-subjects experiment design to examine the effects of crisis history and information source on publics’ crisis emotions, perception of crisis responsibility, control, and organizational reputation. Participants were 174 undergraduate students from a large Southeastern university.

The study’s findings suggest that an organization’s crisis history by the media can increase publics’ perceived organizational control (referred to as personal control) in a crisis situation. However, negative crisis history told by the media can evoke more severe public anger in a crisis. A positive crisis history still could lead to negative perceptions.

The study uses a fictional crisis scenario that may not evoke the same emotions or perceptions as an actual crisis.

Crisis communicators concerned with angry publics should focus less on traditional media relations and more on new media to reach other gatekeepers; or focus more heavily on media strategy since the media is more likely to elicit more anger among publics. Furthermore, a positive crisis history does not give organizations a pass in current crises.

Although the SCCT identifies crisis history as an intensifier of attribution of responsibility, few studies have examined crisis history.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

This study aims to explore the question “how would professors teach information literacy to prepare high school students for college?” by observing two history professors at a high school early college during routine classroom instruction.

The research took a case study approach to studying information literacy instruction, drawing from multiple data types but relying primarily on classroom observations and teaching artifacts.

This research found that subjects taught information literacy by situating students as legitimate peripheral participants in the discipline of history. They did so as part of the daily fabric of classroom instruction, using pedagogical techniques such as dialogical reading, spending time with texts, writing to think and thinking historically.

This research focuses on history instruction. Future studies could include additional disciplines and directly examine the impact of teaching practices on student cognition.

The findings suggest that taking a disciplinary approach is one way to apply insights from the field of situated information literacy to the high school to college transition. It also suggests that information literacy instruction need not be confined to research assignments, and that information literacy educators consider the possibilities these teaching techniques offer for enhancing instruction.

This paper offers a rich description of information literacy pedagogy in an unusual but intriguing context of use to instruction librarians and educators at both high school and college levels. It also offers a bridge between situated information literacy rooted in workplace research and academic information literacy instruction.

This study explores, historically, that definition of information management (IM) which centres on the ordering and channelling of non‐publicly available information within organisations. Whereas IM as a discipline is relatively new, as an activity within modern organisations it has a long history. Three types of organisation are highlighted: the business corporation, the library and the state agency (specifically, British military intelligence). Sophisticated information systems in organisations are a core feature of modernity and can be traced back to the revolution in state administration in the nineteenth century and to the emergence of large corporations from about 1880 onwards. At about the same time, libraries too evolved systematic, internal information flows and regimes, often of a standardised nature dictated by library management theorists. Evidence from the government sphere is also presented: considerable space is given in the study to the role played by IM in the early years of MI5, Britain‘s counter‐espionage and counter‐insurgency military intelligence agency. Documents recently released by the Public Record Office, covering the first decade of MI5’s history between 1909 and 1919, point to a growing recognition of the importance of IM. In conclusion, a case will be made for the construction of a new subject field of ‘Information Management History’ which will enrich, particularly through potentially exciting research pathways, not just the established fields of business and administrative history but also the emergent discipline of IM itself.

This paper examines the structure of Philippine historiography as viewed by Filipino historians. The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of the knowledge domain of Philippine history and in particular how its practitioners organize their field of study in terms of periodization. At the end of the paper an application of this analysis is proposed, the development of an online encyclopaedia of Philippine history.

Interviews were arranged with willing historians at two of the premier institutions of higher learning in the Philippines: the Ateneo de Manila and University of the Philippines. The historians were asked three general questions: what in their opinion, are the key defining events in Philippine history? What are the key historians for each of those events? And what are the key debates regarding these events? For the purpose of this paper it is the results of the first question that are in focus as it deals with one of the fundamental tools of historical analysis, periodization.

Philippine history was found to be periodized in a variety of ways, from the traditional to other approaches that stress either Filipino rather than colonial agency or the uneven trajectories of historical development that depend on region, class, or language group. A final approach viewed Filipino history as a network of relations spanning space and time. Wikis designed around the results of domain analysis make it possible to provide information on topics of importance to a discipline as well as reveal something of its deeper structure. Combined with traditional concerns, such as use of appropriate sources, this would serve to help develop a deeper awareness of the nature of knowledge production.

This paper represents both a contribution to the study of knowledge domains, as well as an application of that study to the work of information professionals. Putting the spotlight on Philippine historians and history also helps the LIS discipline to move away from its traditional North American and European focus. Studies of knowledge producing bodies in the rest of the world are important and overdue.