Language archives, like other scholarly digital repositories, are built with two major audiences in mind. These are depositors of language data and various potential end-users of these materials: researchers (linguistics and others), language communities, students, educators, artists, etc. Being a relatively new phenomenon, language archives have…

This study reports on a survey of students in information sciences designed to test differences related to e-book formats and other factors. The results from 161 respondents suggest that strategic decision-making shapes use of different e-book and print format options for users who already have significant exposure to e-books. These format options…

Introduction: The paper proposes a model of information behaviour in crisis. No previous model has attempted to integrate information resources, information behaviour and needs of the storm-affected communities within the temporal stages of a natural disaster. Method: The study was designed as autoethnography. The data were collected through a…

The paper reports on a study of 12 Danish high school students' perceptions of public libraries' role in learning, user education, information literacy, and librarians' information competencies. The study is undertaken by use of literature review and interviews with a purposive select sample of public library users in Denmark. The study…

Introduction: The objective of this study is understand the information needs that businesses have while seeking Library and Information Science professionals and analyse how they formulate those needs. Method: The analysis is performed by examining the professional skills and capabilities demanded in job offers published. A total of 1,020 job…

Personalization of information retrieval tailors search towards individual users to meet their particular information needs by taking into account information about users and their contexts, often through implicit sources of evidence such as user behaviors and contextual factors. The current study looks particularly at users' dwelling behavior,…

Studies of information-seeking behaviors are common in the professional literature for library and information studies. This study examines the generalizability of findings of single-institution studies to other institutions by performing an institution-to-institution comparison of the results obtained from an information-seeking behavior survey…

The Web 2.0 "buzz" starts with new technologies such as virtual worlds, cell phones and handheld devices that offer 24/7 web access, tagging, social networks, and blogs and brings together various web capabilities in unique combinations. Web 2.0, however, is about much more than the technology--it is about a change in focus to participation, user…

Catastrophes like Katrina destroy a community's critical infrastructure--a situation that instigates several dilemmas. Immediately, the community experiences information disruption within the community, as well as between the community and the outside world. The inability to communicate because of physical or virtual barriers to information…

Introduction: The perceived information needs of teachers who specialize in reading instruction for at-risk first graders were studied and related to frameworks for the role of social context in information needs, seeking and use. The frameworks considered were: disciplinarity, role theory in work settings, small worlds and information grounds and…

Introduction: A work roles and role theory-based approach to conceptualise human information activity, denoted information work analysis is discussed. The present article explicates the approach and its special characteristics and benefits in comparison to earlier methods of analysing human information work. Method: The approach is discussed in…

Introduction: The paper deals with the identification of the information needs and information competencies of a professional group. Theoretical basis: A theoretical relationship between information needs and information competencies as subjects is proposed. Three dimensions are examine: cognitive, affective and situational. The recognition of an…

Introduction: The rapid growth of the Internet has modified the boundaries of information acquisition (tracking) in environmental scanning. Despite the numerous advantages of this new medium, information overload is an enormous problem for Internet scanners. In order to help them, intelligent agents (i.e., autonomous, automated software agents…

In the FY2007 and FY2008 Budgets, the President recommended that the National Commission on Libraries and Information Sciences (NCLIS) be consolidated with the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). In FY2007, while waiting for Congressional action on the proposal in the President's FY2008 Budget, the Commission recognized the need to…

Information science is presently a mechanistic discipline which needs to be humanized. There must be more communication between librarians and information scientists, perhaps through seminars and exchanges, to bring the advantages of computerization to bear on human needs. (LS)