Sets bibliometrics in the context of the sociology of science by tracing the influences of Robert Merton, Thomas Kuhn, and D. J. Price. Explores the discovery of strong empirical relationships among measured communication and information that capture important features of social process and cognitive change in science. (SR)

Discusses electronic publishing as it refers to machine-readable databases. Types of electronic products and services are described and related topics considered: (1) usage of library and information science databases; (2) production and distribution of databases; (3) trends and projections in the electronic information industry; and (4)…

Discusses the need to restructure information science education programs for developing nations in such a way that the programs are appropriate and relevant to the special needs of these countries. A definition for a new discipline called Development Information Science is presented. (14 references) (CLB)

Discussion of sustainable communities, or sustainable development, focuses on the ethical role of information in fostering sustainable environmental development. Topics include background information, developments in information technology, permaculture in the area of horticulture and information ethics, information ethics models, hardware…

Presents an overview of artificial-intelligence-based inductive learning techniques and their use in information science research. Three methods are discussed: the connectionist Hopfield network; the symbolic ID3/ID5R; evolution-based genetic algorithms. The knowledge representations and algorithms of these methods are examined in the context of…

Discussion of the growth of scientific literature and the role of conference papers in scholarly communication focuses on information science literature. Highlights include the relationship of conference papers and journal articles; conferences as self-improvement, as group contributions, and as final products; and a new model for scientific…

Reports on the use of an electronic dictionary to research and develop a large-scale language database that will help computers process and understand natural languages, and will greatly contribute to future developments in information science. Also discusses the need for and uses of linguistic and world knowledge databases. (JMV)

Presents a historical background of the quality assessment of higher education publications in the United Kingdom. Explores quality control in British library and information science journals by analyzing the editorial processes and interviewing journal editors. Findings show that although there is some subjectivity in their application, valid…

Reformulates the success-breeds-success (SBS) principle in informetrics in order to generate a general theory of source-item relationships. Topics include a time-dependent probability, a new model for the expected probability that is compared with the SBS principle with exact combinatorial calculations, classical frequency distributions, and…

This discourse analysis of the cognitive viewpoint in library and information science identifies seven discursive strategies that constitute information as a commodity and persons as surveyable information consumers within a market economy: theoretical imperialism, referentiality and reification, representation and processing, radical…

This content analysis of library and information science (LIS) research from 1965 to 1985 was conducted to determine the distribution of topics in research articles and the research methodologies that have been used. Results indicated that information storage and retrieval was the most popular topic and that empirical strategies predominated. (20…

Discusses the history of information science and its understanding of and approach to relevance; explains human categorization theory and applies it to the idea of relevance; shows that information science research is flawed because it fails to adequately explain experience; and suggests implications for future research. (17 references) (LRW)

Presents information about the new accreditation policies for schools of library and information studies of the American Library Association's Committee on Accreditation (COA). Three articles discuss those policies from the perspective of the information science professions, note the importance of specialized accreditation agencies, and suggest…

Discusses methodological issues concerning qualitative research and describes research practices that qualitative researchers use to address these methodological issues. Topics discussed include the researcher as interpreter, the emergent nature of qualitative research, understanding the experience of others, trustworthiness in qualitative…

Presents an alternative discussion of recent trends in the United Kingdom's information and library science curriculum based on an analysis of shifts in higher education policies and ideologies. It is concluded that this new vocationalism jeopardizes independence among professionals and the development and preservation of specialized skills and…