Search results

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.

I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. St John, Chapter 21, verse 25.

To provide a background for this special section on transaction log analysis, the following discussion proposes a definition of transaction log analysis and briefly introduces some of the issues involved in the methodology.

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.

E‐resource usage statistics contain a wealth of information, but mining that information from the massive amounts of data can be time consuming, expensive, and dangerous. Focuses on the practical aspects of getting some use out of usage statistics. Recent national studies in the USA and efforts to standardize the gathering and interpretation of e‐resource usage statistics show promise for accelerating the adoption and diffusion of reliable, meaningful usage information. The article concludes with some speculation about the overall value and long‐term potential for e‐resource usage statistics.

Several aspects of the e‐book revolution are reviewed, as well as some related issues confronting libraries. Regardless of format, texts and text‐bearing devices have relationships of mutual dependence, and readers simultaneously experience both. The dominant relationship between texts and text‐bearing devices is shifting from static to dynamic. The e‐book revolution is more about new distribution systems for content, new digital rights management systems, and perhaps an unwitting or inchoate power struggle among the principal interested parties, than it is about the design and diffusion of dedicated reading devices. The e‐book revolution opens up possibilities for new and improved post‐retrieval processing of texts, defined as anything a person can do with a text after it has been retrieved. Librarians need to reassert – especially to the fledgling e‐book industry – the enduring principle of libraries as a social good. The two biggest challenges facing libraries are how to make the transition to an era dominated by dynamic relationships between texts and text‐bearing devices, and how to foster and facilitate robust and complex post‐retrieval processing of texts.

The article explores the issues and opportunities for health sciences libraries surrounding the use of personal digital assistants (PDAs) by healthcare professionals. Six general trends, issues, and opportunities are identified, as well as ten potential roles for libraries. Health science librarians need to explore various potential roles, then, based on an assessment of local needs and resources, determine the level and extent of their commitment to PDA support. The underlying support by health sciences libraries for handheld information seeking, information storage, computing, and communication at the point of need and care should remain strong and unflagging.

A recent Fortune article went for the jugular, “Management consultants and business planners share a dirty little secret. Ninety percent of all strategies fail to get implemented.” The same article told the tale of a consultant who took a $3 billion company with no strategy and developed 200 separate Strategic Business Units. The issue is obvious. Given a company that couldn't execute one strategy, how do you suddenly take on 200 different ones — each requiring a different style, staff and skill?

For the purposes of library and information science research, transaction log analysis can be narrowly defined as the study of electronically recorded interactions between online information retrieval systems and the persons who search for the information found in those systems.