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The analysis of unstructured information, particularly in the form of text, has long been a technique in the armory of social scientists, who have to deal with conversational records, historical documents, unstructured interviews, and the like. Unsurprisingly, a considerable amount of methodological literature has developed on the subject. The methods of “qualitative data analysis” have now spread to areas of information analysis as diverse as market research and legal evidence analysis. Related computer techniques, from database management systems and word‐processors to specialized qualitative data analysis software, have been pressed into use. This article discusses the information processing methodology and theory assumed by computer‐based qualitative data analysis software; and, in particular, describes and analyzes the methodology of the NUDIST system developed by the authors.

To meet the increased demand for assistance from both the novice and the more experienced enquirer amidst an environment of decreasing funding for staff resources, some automation must be used. University libraries are increasingly implementing computers and automation. This trend encourages and facilitates the use of expert systems in those libraries. Expert systems can be used as guides to provide a broad overview of library services and resources. Expert systems may also be used within the narrow focus of a particular course or department, and, soon, may be used to provide detailed relevant information to suit the “level” of the user.

There is a major transformation taking place in the Arab and Muslim worlds. People in these nations are poised on the edge of a significant new social landscape. Called the Internet, this new frontier not only includes the creation of new forms of private communication, like electronic mail and chat, but also webbased forums, which for the first time enables public discussion between males and females in conservative societies. This paper has been written as a result of an ethnographic study conducted in Saudi Arabia during the period 2001‐2002. The purpose of the study was to understand how online communities in Saudi Arabia are affecting people. The results of the study indicate that while participants to a large extent used online communities in accordance with their cultural values, norms and traditions, the communication medium and the features associated with it, such as the anonymity and lack of social cues, have affected them considerably. For example, many participants became more flexible in their thinking, more aware of the diverse nature of people within their society, less inhibited about the opposite gender, and more self‐confident. On the other hand, participants neglected their family commitments, became less shy and some became confused about some aspects of their culture and religion. These findings and their implications for the Arab and Muslim worlds will be highlighted in this paper.

The purpose of this study is to develop and validate a model to analyze the inter‐relationship between information transparency and the protection of digital privacy of customers, from the perspective of e‐services providers.

A total of 320 questionnaires were sent out to all e‐banking service providers in the Guangdong province in China in 2004 and 150 useable questionnaires were collected. The response rate was 46.9 percent.

The paper identifies three types of digital privacy: information, communication and individual privacy. The findings show that e‐service marketers who adopt a more open information transparency policy are more likely to pay attention to customers' information and communication privacy, but less to their individual privacy.

E‐services providers need to be very careful about the necessity to be transparent in information sharing, but at the same time, have to be well aware of the need of the protection of individual privacy of their customers. Unfortunately, at times they may be too aggressive in adopting an open information transparency policy that may upset their customers by intruding into their individual privacy.

The paper contributes to a more comprehensive conceptualization of digital privacy not only by identifying three generic types of privacy (information, communication and individual), but also by looking into the relationship between information transparency and these three generic types of privacy. This study shows that, unlike the first two types of privacy, individual privacy of customers is given less concern by most e‐service providers.