Discusses the use of interface metaphors in computer system design. Describes empirical research that shows users can experience cognitive dissonance with metaphors and suggests that the concept of a logical analogue rather than that of a metaphor should guide system designers. (Contains 66 references.) (LRW)

Discusses the design of the National Taiwan University Digital Library and Museum that addresses both content and knowledge management. Describes a two-tier repository architecture that facilitates content management, includes an object-oriented model to facilitate the management of temporal information, and eliminates the need to manually…

Traditional themes of information science must be expanded to accommodate systematic understandings of ways to design effective documentary systems and anticipate their social consequences. The field of social informatics offers important concepts, theories, and methods that give this kind of inquiry a sound scientific basis. Social informatics…

Reviews the characteristics of electronic communications technologies and their role in knowledge utilization. The uses of various technologies, relationships among technologies, and success in the marketplace are addressed; and issues for knowledge utilization research are discussed. (17 references) (EA)

Discusses how to increase user satisfaction by designing information retrieval systems that inform the user while the user is interacting online. Models the information processing operations of a user who has received an information message from the system and is stimulated into grasping at a higher understanding of the information need. (Contains…

Presents a heuristic, attribute-based, noise-tolerant data mining program, HCV (Version 2.0) based on the newly-developed extension matrix approach. Outlines some techniques implemented in the HCV program for noise handling and discretization of continuous domains; an empirical comparison shows that rules generated by HCV are more compact than the…

This case study, of an application to facilitate dispatch work in a large organization, describes a history of collaboration and conflict between information systems professionals and end users as system designers. A Social Construction of Technology approach is used to examine the mixture of cooperation and conflict between the departments.…

Describes a system that was developed in Germany for natural language processing (NLP) to improve free text analysis for information retrieval. Techniques from empirical linguistics are discussed, system architecture is explained, and rules for dealing with conjunctions in dependency analysis for free text processing are proposed. (13 references)…

Protein Annotators' Assistant (PAA) is a software system which assists protein annotators in assigning functions to newly sequenced proteins. PAA employs a number of information retrieval techniques in a novel setting and is thus related to text categorization, where multiple categories may be suggested, except that in this case none of the…

Information customization is a client-side activity designed to pick up where information filtering leaves off. This article describes a vision of information customization and chronicles the development of a proof-of-concept prototype, Cyberbrowser, for customizing information on the Web. (Author/AEF)

Discusses information-seeking strategies in information retrieval systems, including Web search engines, and focuses on an in-depth investigation of shifts in the micro-level of user goals, namely interactive intention and information-seeking strategies. Discusses implications of the results for the design of adaptive information retrieval…

Defines digital library collections and outlines two classes of collection metadata. Describes the Alexandria Digital Library (ADL) Project approach to collection metadata, including the ADL system architecture and collection guidelines and the format and use of the ADL collection metadata. Appendices include ADL collection metadata and example.…

Discusses what a functional chemical information workstation should provide to support the users in an academic library and examines how it can be implemented. Highlights include basic design considerations; natural language interface, including grammar-based, context-based, and statistical methodologies; expert system interface; and programming…

Describes Ethnomethodologically informed ethnography (EM) as a methodology for information science research, illustrating the approach with the results of a study in a university library. Topics include differences between the practical orientation of EM and theoretical orientation of other ethnographic approaches; systems design; and…

Presents a framework for the design of information representations in terms of previews and overviews, to aid designers of digital library interfaces. Defines previews and overviews, as graphic or textual representations of information abstracted from primary information objects, analogous to bibliographic records and catalogs; and describes four…