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The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

Aslib is interested in developing modular simulation models of aspects of library systems in order to investigate the use of such models as aids to systems design and operation. The conceptual model of library procedures, developed during the OSTI‐supportcd project on the use of bibliographic records in libraries, offered a suitable basis for a pilot study. The pilot study was aimed at investigating the practicality of developing and using simulation models of library operations, and gaining experience in the application of simulation techniques to problems in the library and information field. The simulation language used was GPSS, in accordance with the 1968 edition of the IBM GPSS/360 User's Manual, H20–0326–2.

The ability to conduct unobtrusive observation of user searching is a potential strength of the method of information retrieval system analysis known as transaction log analysis (TLA). Transaction logs supply unequivocal information about what a user typed while searching. All other methods rely on self‐reporting, which, as Nielsen points out, is not always corroborated by the logs. Regardless of where in an institution information retrieval (IR) system evaluation takes place, TLA is a method that enables library staff at all levels to examine a variety of system and user‐related activities that are recorded on the log. Dominick suggested that TLA can enable the examination of three broad categories of activity: 1) system performance and resource utilization, 2) information retrieval performance, and 3) user interaction with the IR system. This article has been divided into several sections corresponding to functional areas in a library to suggest useful applications of TLA.

A discourse analysis of the cognitive viewpoint in library and information science identifies seven discursive strategies which constitute information as a commodity, and persons as surveyable information consumers, within market economy conditions. These strategies are: (a) universality of theory, (b) referentiality and reification of ‘images’, (c) internalisation of representations, (d) radical individualism and erasure of the social dimension of theory, (e) insistence upon knowledge, (f) constitution of the information scientist as an expert in image negotiation, and (g) instrumental reason, ruled by efficiency, standardisation, predictability, and determination of effects. The discourse is guided throughout by a yearning for natural‐scientific theory. The effect of the cognitive viewpoint's discursive strategy is to enable knowledge acquisition of information processes only when users' and generators' ‘images’ are constituted as objectively given natural‐scientific entities, and to disable knowledge of the same processes when considered as products of social practices. By its constitution of users as free creators of images, of the information scientist as an expert in image interpretation and delivery, and of databases as repositories of unmediated models of the world, the cognitive viewpoint performs ideological labour for modern capitalist image markets.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi‐user electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) model that would enhance the present billing systems as well as overcome the problems of periodic generation of billing reports and mail volumes.

The paper evaluates three existing models of EBPP: Biller‐direct, consolidation, and invited pull models and identifies their limitations. Then, the thin consolidation model approach is modified by developing an Extensible Hypertext Markup Language based architecture that is capable of consolidating billing reports from a variety of disparate heterogeneous sources. The modified model is implemented using two case studies.

The modified consolidation model of the EBPP enhances quick subsequent notification of bills to the consumer for goods or services previously rendered. In the model, a user could pay for multiple services rendered by companies; this in turn overcomes mail volumes.

This paper develops a data integration and unification architecture that will allow billing reports from multiple billers to be integrated into a unified database.

A major problem in using current best‐match methods in a filtering task is that of setting appropriate thresholds, which are required in order to force a binary decision on notifying a user of a document. We discuss methods for setting such thresholds and adapting them as a result of feedback information on the performance of the profile. These methods fit within the probabilistic approach to retrieval, and are applied to a probabilistic system. Some experiments, within the framework of the TREC‐7 adaptive filtering track, are described.

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.