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This paper aims to report a small-scale study that investigated attitudes to open source library management systems (LMS)s in UK higher education libraries. The study sought to establish why the sector has been slow to adopt this technology, and how attitudes towards it in UK universities might change in the future.

A quantitative online questionnaire was sent to all 181 libraries within the UK higher education sector and received a response rate of 46.4 per cent. The questionnaire was followed by qualitative telephone interviews with five selected professionals.

UK higher education libraries rely on peer feedback when choosing a LMS. With limited experience and a need for strong commercial support given uncertainty about staffing in the present financial climate, HE librarians are reluctant to choose open source LMSs. Participants also demonstrated a lack of motivation to change from current LMSs, suggesting limited adoption of alternatives in the near future. A higher number of questionnaire respondents reported considering adopting an open source LMS than in Adamson et al.; however, this may be due to open source advocates being more likely to participate.

Drawing on Adamson's survey as a starting point, this study enriches the body of knowledge on open source LMSs by reporting and reflecting on the results of a survey and set of interviews with higher education information professionals. It adds to the small but growing literature in this field.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to consider the possibility of designing a story-based image indexing system based on users’ descriptions of images. It reports a pilot study which uses users’ descriptions of two images.

Eight interviews were undertaken to investigate storytelling in user interpretations of the images. Following this, storytelling was explored as an indexing input method. In all, 26 research subjects were asked to create stories about the images, which were then considered in relation to conventional story elements and in relation to Hidderley and Rafferty's (2005) image modality model.

The results of the semi-structured interviews revealed that the majority of interpretations incorporated story elements related to setting, character, plot, literary devices, and themes. The 52 image stories included story elements identified in the first part of the project, and suggested that the image modality model is robust enough to deal with the “writerly” images used in this study. In addition, using storytelling as an input method encourages the use of verbs and connotative level responses.

User indexing is generally based on paradigmatic approaches to concept analysis and interpretation in the form of tagging; the novelty of the current study is its exploration of syntagmatic approaches to user indexing in the form of storytelling. It is a pilot, proof of concept study, but it is hoped that it might stimulate further interest in syntagmatic approaches to user indexing.

The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: to examine three models of subject indexing (i.e. expert‐led indexing, author‐generated indexing, and user‐orientated indexing); and to compare and contrast two user‐orientated indexing approaches (i.e. the theoretically‐based Democratic Indexing project, and Flickr, a working system for describing photographs).

The approach to examining Flickr and Democratic Indexing is evaluative. The limitations of Flickr are described and examples are provided. The Democratic Indexing approach, which the authors believe offers a method of marshalling a “free” user‐indexed archive to provide useful retrieval functions, is described.

The examination of both Flickr and the Democratic Indexing approach suggests that, despite Shirky's claim of philosophical paradigm shifting for social tagging, there is a residing doubt amongst information professionals that self‐organising systems can work without there being some element of control and some form of “representative authority”.

This paper contributes to the literature of user‐based indexing and social tagging.

This study aims to consider the value of user‐assigned image tags by comparing the facets that are represented in image tags with those that are present in image queries to see if there is a similarity in the way that users describe and search for images.

A sample dataset was created by downloading a selection of images and associated tags from Flickr, the online photo‐sharing web site. The tags were categorised using image facets from Shatford's matrix, which has been widely used in previous research into image indexing and retrieval. The facets present in the image tags were then compared with the results of previous research into image queries.

The results reveal that there are broad similarities between the facets present in image tags and queries, with people and objects being the most common facet, followed by location. However, the results also show that there are differences in the level of specificity between tags and queries, with image tags containing more generic terms and image queries consisting of more specific terms. The study concludes that users do describe and search for images using similar image facets, but that measures to close the gap between specific queries and generic tags would improve the value of user tags in indexing image collections.

Research into tagging has tended to focus on textual resources with less research into non‐textual documents. In particular, little research has been undertaken into how user tags compare to the terms used in search queries, particularly in the context of digital images.

This paper seeks to report a project to investigate the degree of inter‐indexer consistency in the assignment of controlled vocabulary topical subject index terms to identical graphical images by different indexers at the National Library of Wales (NLW).

An experimental quantitative methodology was devised to investigate inter‐indexer consistency. Additionally, the project investigated the relationship, if any, between indexing exhaustivity and consistency, and the relationship, if any, between indexing consistency/exhaustivity and broad category of graphic format.

Inter‐indexer consistency in the assignment of topical subject index terms to graphic materials at the NLW was found to be generally low and highly variable. Inter‐indexer consistency fell within the range 10.8 per cent to 48.0 per cent. Indexing exhaustivity varied substantially from indexer to indexer, with a mean assignment of 3.8 terms by each indexer to each image, falling within the range 2.5 to 4.7 terms. The broad category of graphic format, whether photographic or non‐photographic, was found to have little influence on either inter‐indexer consistency or indexing exhaustivity. Indexing exhaustivity and inter‐indexer consistency exhibited a tendency toward a direct, positive relationship. The findings are necessarily limited as this is a small‐scale study within a single institution.

Previous consistency studies have almost exclusively investigated the indexing of print materials, with very little research published for non‐print media. With the literature also rich in discussion of the added complexities of subjectively representing the intellectual content of visual media, this study attempts to enrich existing knowledge on indexing consistency for graphic materials and to address a noticeable gap in information theory.

During the First World War, the Creel Committee, set up by President Woodrow Wilson, used the powerful weapon of advertising to disseminate information and shape public opinion. Creel promised Wilson ‘a plain publicity proposition, a vast enterprise in salesmanship, the world's greatest adventure in advertising’. This campaign, with memorable adverts such as Courtauld Smiths' Red Cross poster, ‘The Greatest Mother in the World’, and James Montgomery Flagg's self‐portrait of Uncle Sam declaring ‘I want YOU for the US Army’, was a great success for advertising technique and enhanced the status of the tyro profession. It also showed how effective advertising could be in persuading and swaying mass opinion. A ‘Printer's Ink’ editorial of 1917 clearly shows that the relationship between advertising and control has been, perhaps for the first time, fully exploited, and fully appreciated:

Image is important in business. Corporate advertising is a means of raising salience, heightening consumer awareness, establishing market presence and credibility, creating an organisational culture and, more recently, influencing shareholders and averting hostile takeover bids. To quote Management Today: ‘Familiarity breeds favour, not contempt. Nine times out of ten in every country, there is a high correlation between how well people know a company and how well they regard it’. It is hardly surprising that corporate expenditures on media advertising can be reckoned in billions of dollars. Transnational corporations (TNCs) and political parties alike have discovered that image is not a matter of peripheral concern, but a fundamental lever in manipulating public opinion. Opinion polls over the last decade have demonstrated that seven out of 10 people believe that a company with a good reputation will not sell poor quality goods. That perception may be spurious, but its effect on profitability is very real. However,‘… if a company can't deliver its corporate promise at point of sale, lavish ad campaigns are nothing less than a waste of money’.

The purpose of this research is to describe the development of an indexing template to guide the indexing of images using keywords. The template is designed to be used for indexing the image collection held at The Children's Society.

A facet matrix based on analysis of existing studies was used to identify the most popular user query facets from user studies in the literature. A total of 33 archivists were surveyed regarding indexing practice and indexing wish‐lists. The results of these investigative activities were synthesised to produce an indexing template.

The results of this study suggest that indexing general entities and activities could be more comprehensive than is currently the case. A practical indexing template is proposed for organisations wishing to index image collections.

This article reports a project undertaken on behalf of The Children's Society to design an image indexing system for use with their photographic collection. Its method of enquiry is based on an application and interpretation of the Shatford‐Ensor matrix.

If an information retrieval system is going to be of value to the user then it must give meaning to the information which matches the meaning given to it by the user. The meaning given to music varies according to who is interpreting it – the author/composer, the performer, cataloguer or the listener – and this affects how music is organized and retrieved. This paper aims to examine the meaning of music, how meaning is communicated and suggests this may affect music retrieval.

Musicology is used to define music and examine its functions leading to a discussion of how music has been organised and described. Various ways of establishing the meaning of music are reviewed, focussing on established musical analysis techniques. It is suggested that traditional methods are of limited use with digitised popular music. A discussion of semiotics and a review of semiotic analysis in western art music leads to a discussion of semiotics of popular music and examines ideas of Middleton, Stefani and Tagg.

Agreeing that music exists when communication takes place, a discussion of selected communication models leads to the proposal of a revised version of Tagg's model, adjusting it to include listener feedback.

The outcome of the analysis is a revised version of Tagg's communication model, adapted to reflect user feedback. It is suggested that this revised communication model reflects the way in which meaning is given to music.