Examines the literature on the myth of "hard science-soft science" as a means of defining scientific specialties and classifying science literature, and discusses some shortcomings of scholarship in library and information science. Use of Toulmin's categorization of sciences to organize the literature and provide access for scientists is…

Discusses the concept of gatekeepers in the area of information and culture and presents a model for the information-seeking behavior of ethnolinguistic gatekeepers. Highlights include information needs and use models; information inequity in information and retrieval programs; affective and cognitive domains; and research implications for…

A study investigated the relationship between the completeness of end users' mental models of an online system and their ability to use the system effectively. Although all of the study subjects were relatively successful, those with more complete mental models tended to have better search results than subjects with incomplete or poor mental…

Describes British Library's work on Systems Dynamics, a set of techniques for building simulation models based on analysis of information feedback loops. Highlights include macro-simulation modelling activities of social science disciplines, systems analyses and models of information retrieval processes and library services, policy models, and…