It is no longer easy to adopt deterministic explanations of scholarly communication, technology or the information chain. Complex and reflexive relations have built up between the substantive and methodological literatures relevant to these topics. This thesis aims to explore these relations with reference to two sets of interviews, one with academicr esearchersa nd the other with information professionals. These interviews were conducted in 1998-9 during the FIDDO Project, a part of the UK Joint Information Systems Committee `Electronic Libraries Programme'. Two major theoretical perspectives are employed to support two analytic methodologies. The first is social constructivism, which is representedm ethodologically in the thesis by discourse analysis. The second is actor-network theory, which is represented methodologically by co-word analysis. Both of these approaches are engaged in questions of relativism and realism in social explanation. The implementation of each of the methodologies involves innovative moves. The discourse analysis is focused on personal deixis (self-reference) located by pronoun-use, and on interest management. The co-word analysis is adapted from a scientometric technique and supplemented by the use of categorical definitions of the three topics. Each methodology is employed to analyse both sets of interviews. The four resulting sets of findings are presented in terms of the boundaries apparent between the three topical concepts. The boundaries between scholarly communication, technology and the information chain are found to vary, for example according to the identities of the interviewees responsible for the data. They also vary according to the methodology employed. Discourse analysis of interviews with information professionals suggests that the idea of technology is deployed as a dual repertoire, consisting of empowerment and automation, and that the pattern of this deployment is one constituent of the contested boundaries between the three topics. Co-word analysis of the same interviews suggests that an important focus of the boundaries is around the idea of electronic journals. Discourse analysis of interviews with academicr esearchersa lso reveals use of the dual technology repertoire, but in addition suggests that the category of formal scholarly communication acts to legitimate the interests of researchers. Co-word analysis of the same interviews suggests that a number of models of document access were in play, including those based on the library, on paper and on documents. The implications of these substantive analyses include that studies based on `user needs' or the `impact of technology' could benefit from an analysis of how such topics are constructed in particular accounts. Finally, the question is addressed as to the extent that the results of the discourse and the co-word analyses (of the same data) are compatible so that they can be meaningfully synthesised. That is, do the two approaches give rise to outcomes that have similar epistemological status? The question is answered `empirically' with reference to the issueo f reflexivity as it is configured in the two approachesa, nd it is confirmed that the two types of outcome are not compatible due to profound differences in the positions adopted by their respective informing theories. The methodological implications of this include that those engaged in relativist research practice need to be aware the ways in which epistemological and reflexive issues are relevant to their actions.

For the past 500 years, the printed page has served as the basic and major means of storing and presenting information and has become an everyday tool which most of us take for granted. Despite the obvious usefulness and universal nature of the printed book, however, the development of electronic technologies has led to the evolution of the concept of the electronic book. This represents a significant new medium, which offers added value to the printed book through its potential for including other media in addition to text on its pages. The thesis takes the electronic book as its main theme, putting particular emphasis on its relevance to children. The thesis includes a discussion of whether electronic books can encourage children to read both more electronic and printed books, which establishes that television, film and audio versions of texts do encourage the reading of printed editions (and vice versa). The conclusion is reached that electronic books may have the potential to exhibit the same effect, depending how similar they are to television, film and audio. The nature of classic texts and their currently decreasing popularity are considered, in addition to whether the electronic medium can and should encourage children to read more classics. An increasing awareness of the classics derived from media other than print is identified, leading to children having misconceptions about the texts. It is concluded that electronic books might have the power to bridge the gap between print and other media, introducing children to the classics in a form which is closer to the original text. An attempt was made to identify the elements which make an author popular in order that these could be incorporated into electronic books to make them more desired as reading material. Emphasising the views of children themselves, rather than critics, parents and other adults, a study investigated the popularity with young readers of the writer Roald Dahl. Participants found some qualities and characteristics in common between works by Dahl, thereby rendering them different from other books. Identifying what children like about a certain author would enable the inclusion of the desired elements into electronic books, thus encouraging children to read such books. Leading on from the potential increase in children reading electronic texts, the proposition is investigated that the medium on which a book is presented affects the reader's comprehension of, and satisfaction with the book. In order to investigate the effect of the electronic medium on comprehension, reading ability and speed, a study of user interaction with electronic books was carried out comparing children reading an electronic book incorporating the book metaphor with children reading the same text in two different printed versions. No evidence was found to suggest that the added effects and visual dimension offered by the electronic book reduced participants' comprehension of the text. Indeed, there was an indication that electronic books of this kind might actually aid the reader's comprehension of a text. If children are to read electronic books, where will they get them from? The embracing of the technology of electronic books is likely to have an effect on the principal book suppliers. The thesis therefore reports two questionnaire studies. The first investigates the opinions of children's librarians on the subject of electronic books, and the second concentrates on booksellers. Notable conclusions were that there is a positive attitude towards including electronic books as part of the children's library service, and a high proportion of libraries offer access to them, the majority through main libraries. Smaller book shops had not entered the field of selling electronic books in great numbers, and that there was general uncertainty about the place of such texts in such outlets. Respondents to both surveys believed that electronic books are durable, and can exist alongside the printed items within their concerns. Lastly, parents and schools have a role in making electronic books available to children. Due to the lack of research on the attitudes of parents and representatives of schools concerning electronic books, the thesis includes a discussion of existing surveys and studies of computer equipment in homes, schools and public libraries in order to gauge the involvement of parents and schools. This research shows that the picture of access to computer equipment for children is fairly inconsistent across the three sources under consideration. A general discussion follows, and overall conclusions are drawn, including that: the suggestion that electronic books can encourage children to read represents an area that is lacking in research and which would merit further work; the relationship between the printed book and its electronic counterpart is a symbiotic one; and the portability of electronic books is currently not of major significance, although this is likely to change with the increasing prominence of dedicated e-book readers.

Increasing demand in the advanced developing countries for more information more quickly has called into serious question the traditionally fragmented nature of information services by creating a need for greater inter-institutional cooperation. Libraries and information centres have responded to this need by the formation of networks serving limited geographical areas or various special interests. Unless an inclusive network is established on a national scale, expendi tures, facilities and efforts will be unnecessarily duplicated and interconnection will become increasingly difficult as regional and specialised networks develop without a common approach. The time has come in every advanced developing country to create a national information network which would weld together its separate insulated information resources into a nationwide network. The purpose of this study is to identify common information needs and desires responsible for the present information services in the advanced developing countries, and to design a generalised structure of national information networks based on the common factors identified. This study was carried out by postal questionnaire, personal interview and literature review. The countries investigated are: Brazil, Colombia, Hong Kong, Iran, Iraq, Kenya, Korea, Kuwait, Malaysia, Malta, Mexico, Taiwan, Turkey, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. The data gathered by questionnaire and interview have been arranged in fifteen country reports to be summarised later by crocos-section characteristics, requirements and constraints. By choosing between the alternative network models and configurations, a generalised structure of national information networks based on the common characteristics of the information needs and desires existing in the advanced developing countries has been presented. The investigator has attempted in this study to view a network as an arrangement of different functional units working together to accomplish the purpose of the whole rather than an integrated set of different specialised networks such as those in agriculture, chemistry, economics, education, etc.

Twitter is one of the most widely used social media tools, increasingly the object of academic research but also in use by academics themselves in their daily professional practice (Focus, 2010; Gerber, 2012; Lupton, 2014; Rowlands, Nicholas, Russell, Canty, & Watkinson, 2011). A number of empirical studies have been conducted to identify the uses and benefits of Twitter by scholars, at a general level. Among its core benefits appear to be that it offers a professional and scientific conversation channel, a means for sharing research ideas and increased research visibility, bridging geographical distances among academics community and practitioners; the facilitation of global partnerships in research; augmentation of teaching and learning; and the strengthening of academics’ engagement with public audiences, enhancing academic esteem and self-promotion (Lupton, 2014; Pearce, Weller, Scanlon, & Kinsley, 2010; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012a; Veletsianos, 2013). However, there has been little qualitative research on how academics practice Twitter (Kieslinger, Ebner, & Wiesenhofer, 2011; Lupton, 2014; Veletsianos, 2011, 2013). In this context, the aim of the study was to explore academics’ adoption and use of Twitter in UK Higher Education and the factors that influence their use of it. The study employed a qualitative method within an interpretive methodology (Mason, 2002; Miles & Huberman, 1994). A semi-structured interview was the main method of data collection; complemented by digital observation and interview observation. A total of 28 academics from five faculties at The University of Sheffield (UoS) were interviewed. A thematic approach was taken to data analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Findings captured detailed trajectories of academics’ Twitter use and six main themes emerged in the findings, namely: (1) the characteristics of Twitter users, (2) immediate drivers to adopt Twitter, (3) the pattern of adoption, (4) the range of Twitter uses, (5) temporal and behavioural patterns of Twitter use and (6) academic concerns over using Twitter. In addition, the study explores how attributes of the platform and technology affordances have key roles in shaping the practice. The study found that academics’ participation on Twitter is complex and multifaceted. Academics engage with Twitter for different purposes mainly in pursuit of academic interests and not for personal use. Findings identified nine types of Twitter use namely: (1) communication; (2) dissemination; (3) pedagogical activities; (4) building relationships and maintaining networks; (5) performing digital identity; (6) taking micro-breaks; (7) information seeking and gathering; (8) learning and (9) coordinating or amplifying other social media and website use. They perform these activities in strategic ways through a certain routines and develop approaches in managing its use. However, there is no simple formula to carrying out these activities. From a broader perspective, this study recognised two different views of the academic experience in relation to technology that could be relevant also to microblogging: a pessimistic and an optimistic view. Twitter use reflects issues identified by pessimistic commentators relating to the challenges faced by modern academics, such as: increasing competition to produce more quality and ‘impactful’ research; an agenda of excellence in teaching; pressure for public engagement; the rise of the academic ‘portfolio CV’; the research excellence framework (REF); and the wider effects of globalisation and the neoliberalism agenda (Henkel 2005; Clegg et al. 2003; Selwyn 2007; Fanghanel & Trowler 2008; Fanghanel 2011; Clegg 2012; Lorenz 2015). All these could be thought to affect how microblogging is taken up. On balance however, the experience of academics reflected more optimistic views of the impact of technology in Higher Education (Kirkup, 2010; Pearce et al., 2010; Scanlon, 2014; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012c; Veletsianos, 2013; M. Weller, 2011). Interviewees saw themselves as innovators and use Twitter as a vehicle to respond to the heavy workload that burdens them and they found the tools support their work in convenient and effective ways. The research makes a number of practical recommendations, providing suggestions to stakeholders in higher education such as institutions, academics and software developers. These include recommendations to provide staff with social media awareness training, promoting policies and guidelines for effective use for academics work including teaching activity, fostering take up through ‘key evangelist’ and promotional activities, offering helpdesk support, and teaching staff to anticipate risks such as managing social etiquette on Twitter. From a technical perspective, the study could inform the future design of technologies to support academic work.

This thesis is an examination of public libraries in Britain today. It sets forward the hypothesis that a new type of librarianship is emerging to meet the needs of change in the socioeconomic environment, and that this is based on a community development approach. The thesis examines the role of public libraries within their communities through a historical, contemporary and international review of literature and a national questionnaire survey of community development strategies in public library authorities. The survey forms part of a research programme funded by the British Library Research and Innovation Centre on the social impact of libraries. It was designed collaboratively, by myself, Andrew Green of the Community Services Group of the Library Association and Kevin Harris of the Community Development Foundation, although all subsequent work has been my own. In-depth analysis is followed by telephone interviews with four library authorities chosen as case studies, to establish the relationship between policy and practice. The thesis as a whole considers the history and development of libraries. After suffering years of policy drift, a poor research base and a low public profile, public libraries are considering how best to quantify their social impact. Rapid socioeconomic change has had a marked effect on the labour market and social cohesion in the UK, resulting in greater demand for training, education and information. Government has responded with community-oriented policies aimed at improving public access to the information society, making local government more accountable, empowering communities and supporting citizenship in an increasingly active democracy. Rapid advances in Information Technology have increased the potential of public libraries to contribute to this process and act as lifelong learning facilitators and providers. This thesis presents evidence of public libraries' changing role as an educative medium. A majority of public libraries responding to the survey are engaged in interagency work to support the independent learner and empower communities. Many are doing so as part of a community development strategy, or are working on such a strategy. Respondents to the survey of public library authorities expressed the desire to involve their public in a meaningful way. Those library services with a written community development strategy have taken practical steps to achieve this and have set up systems to monitor their progress. A new model for management of community-oriented services is proposed, highlighting issues of policy and practice such as staff training and service accessibility. Conclusions are drawn on an effective role for public libraries in Britain and the need for further research on how this can be achieved.

The rapid development in technology and the huge funding in technological systems in Hong Kong Public Libraries have drawn the attention for researchers to conduct library technology research. While traditional research focuses on the technological development, it is found that there is lack of user-focused research. During the past ten years, public libraries in Hong Kong spent millions of dollars on the development of different technological systems. However, there is no proof that public library users have used them sufficiently. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting user acceptance of library technology in Hong Kong. Considering the reported underutilization of library technology and the importance of promoting them, this study aimed to provide better understanding of the different factors of user acceptance based on a well established theoretical foundation. This study integrated different technology acceptance models towards intention to use library technology in a public library environment. These models are prominent models used to explain the effects of users' internal beliefs and attitudes on their system usage behaviour. Fourteen variables are included in the proposed model in this study. This study employed a cross-sectional field study using a mixed research method which first included qualitative and then quantitative techniques. The study targeted public library users who have experience using library technology. The population of the study was public library users sampled in three major libraries and in three major districts in Hong Kong. Based on a sample of 462 public library users, the proposed integrated model was found to be strongly effective in explaining user acceptance of library technology. It also demonstrates the effects of external variables on behavioural intention through perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. The results of the data analysis showed that perceived ease of use had a stronger effect on user acceptance than perceived usefulness, suggesting that user acceptance of library technology depends on the ease of using one system. Relevance, system reliability and perceived ease of use showed positive effects on perceived usefulness. Also, it was found that accessibility, domain knowledge and level of navigation showed positive effects on perceived ease of use while level of understanding of terminology did not. Moreover, the results indicated that user training has a significant effect on perceived usefulness but not on perceived ease of use. This calls for a need to re-examine the effectiveness of user training in the context of library technology. The results also suggested that although subjective norm does not directly affect users' intention to use library technology, it exerts an influence for users in order to get to know this technology. Additionally, the results indicated that there were significant differences of age towards the acceptance of library technology while younger users were found to have more intention to use library technology than older users. The findings of this study provide public library managers with increased understanding so that they can implement improved strategic, marketing and operational changes. Details of the full range of management benefits of the findings are available in Chapter Eight of this study.

The advances in data collection and the increasing amount of unstructured and unlabeled text documents have led to the need for better disambiguation and indexing techniques, which allow for the effective and intelligent organisation of large amounts of documents into a small number of significant clusters; facilitating the analysis, browsing, and searching of document collections. Traditionally, document clustering systems have relied on bag-of-words and term frequency approaches to represent and subsequently classify documents, by only taking into account document syntax and with no consideration for semantic aspects. To address this issue, more complex indexing and clustering techniques, which consider the semantic associations between the words contained in a document and differentiate the degree of semantic importance of terms during the classification process, need to be further investigated in order to enable appropriate and automatic contextualisation of text documents and information. This research proposes a new indexing technique, which can be used to effectively represent, and subsequently cluster, collections of unstructured or structured documents. The presented technique aims at overcoming some of the major problems related to the bag-of-words approach; such as its lack of consideration for synonyms as well as its usual failure in differentiating the degree of semantic importance of terms. The main idea behind the proposed technique is to map each document into a lower dimensional space; by considering the semantic associations between the words contained in the document. To address the semantic problems posed by traditional indexing, the investigated method focuses on word sense disambiguation and document concepts. The proposed technique extracts concepts from documents and uses a set of these concepts as indexing units, achieving vector dimensionality reduction as well as more cohesive and separated clusters. Good results are also achieved in terms of purity, entropy, and when compared with similar studies in the field of semantic-based concept indexing.

Ontologies are becoming increasingly important in the biomedical domain since they enable knowledge sharing in a formal, homogeneous and unambiguous way. Furthermore, biological discoveries are being reported at an extremely rapid rate. This new information is found in diverse resources that encompass a broad array of journal articles and public databases associated with different sub-disciplines within biology and medicine in different languages. However, finding relevant multilingual biological dedicated ontology to the digestive system ontology among a large collection of information is recognized as a critical knowledge gap in science. Consequently, this research argues the real need to highlight the area of ontology in a sense of searching in bio-lingual, representing concepts and inter-concept relationships. English-Arabic human digestive system ontology (DISUS) and its methodology were created to demonstrate the above notion. The approach adopted for this research involved creating a new integrated reengineered methodology for a novel first attempt multilingual (English-Arabic) bio-ontology for the purpose of information retrieval and knowledge discovery. The targeted DISUS ontology is to represent digestive system knowledge and to ease knowledge sharing among the end users in the biology and medicine context .The integrated generic methodology is constitutes of four phases the planning phase which shed light on the scope and purpose of the domain and the functioning of knowledge acquisition, the conceptualisation phase organizes unstructured knowledge to structured. The ontology construction which involves the integration and merging among the core and sub-ontologies. The evaluation phase which finalizes the whole work and this is executed by domain experts. Evaluation of multilingual DISUS carried out through qualitative and quantitative approaches with biological and medical experts, validation was utilized through information retrieval technique and has revealed the effectiveness and robustness of using DISUS ontology as a way for concept mapping between Arabic-English ontologies terms for bilingual searches.

In response to a methodological challenge in social science research, especially linked to studies of online phenomena including Web 2.0 applications, this thesis proposes a new methodology that deploys digital by-product data. Digital by-product data is the data created by an internet operating system to back-up content including browsing history, files downloaded, photos uploaded and so on. With the emergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), our daily life is becoming digitalized and can be described by digital by-product data. This thesis seeks to demonstrate that using digital by-product data is an important opportunity to help social scientists overcome various bottlenecks such as the deficiency of data and the limitations of analysis and possible risks of bias when using existing research methodology. Proposals relating to the new methodology are based on a discussion and analysis of the current data environment of social science research, the online environment and existing research methodology found within the digital science field. The experimental aspect of the thesis uses digital by-product data to explore online phenomena, and to evaluate the utility of applying such a methodology more generally. After considering the availability of the data resources, the diversity of the data types, the usability of the data, and the research value of the subject, Wikipedia was chosen as our case study. The thesis uses the digital by-product data that is generated by Wikipedia to analyse its collaborative mode in which millions of participants work together to provide an online encyclopaedia. The research is constructed in such a way that three related issues are addressed in a step-by-step manner. We aim to answer whether there is a collaborative model in Wikipedia and if so, what it is and how it works. In the process of answering this, we describe the existing dynamics of mass collaboration; build a model of the collaborative model; explain the approaches and ratio of contribution by the various participants; and then analyse the administrative system as well as its policy to deal with editing conflicts. Finally, the results of this work are displayed in different ways, including the use of mathematical equations, metrics and visualization. The thesis demonstrates that using digital by-product data provides a series of benefits to resolve the contemporary methodological challenge in the field and extends the capabilities of social scientists to investigate online phenomena. The thesis also provides practical lessons to guide investigators to help them to avoid the mistakes and problems that were encountered by the author of this thesis. Through studying an actual social phenomenon, the objective of this research is to evaluate the possibility and feasibility of using a new methodology, which makes use of a neglected data resource to improve the engagement of social science with the world of the web. Such an evaluation can help scholars interested in using digital by-product data in their studies and also can provide some innovative ideas for social scientists in a new information age.

Information literacy was the investigated subject of this PhD research which aimed to study the variations and changes in Syrian school librarians conceptions of information literacy. The main target group was a twenty Syrian school librarians working in high schools in Damascus and its Suburb, ten of them graduated librarians and the rest are classroom teachers who were transferred to the library to perform the duties of the school librarian. The targeted group was purposely selected with intention as broadest as possible samples from different educational, social and ethical backgrounds. The researcher adopted a phenomenographic approach to discover how the Syrian school librarians conceive the phenomenon of information literacy and how their conceptions changed after attending an information literacy programme designed by the researcher. The research was in three phases: the first phase aimed to discover and study the school librarians' conceptions of information literacy by conducting a pure phenomenographic approach. Six different conceptions of information literacy were emerged as a result to first phase analysis. The second phase aimed to provide the school librarians with a wide range of perspectives, conceptions and thoughts of information literacy discussed worldwide via an information training programme designed especially to serve that purpose. The training programme was designed by the researcher who consulted a broad literature and methods in attempts to integrate different ideas from different territories. For example, she employed business methods such as Eat the Elephant strategy and SWOT analysis, training methods such as icebreaking and team working, Soft System method such as rich picture and mind map, educational methods such as integrating different teaching styles to meet different learning needs style and communication method such as body language and presentations. The third phase aimed to discover the variations and changes in school librarians' conceptions of information literacy by conducting a new phenomenographic approach. The third phase was conducted six months after the second phase to give the participants chance to discover the concept of information literacy in real world practice. Seven different conceptions were emerged as a result to analysing second phase interviews. The findings of the research indicate that the school librarians' conceptions of information literacy at the first phase were influenced by their context (school library) and experiences as school librarians, though, further studies are vital. In the third phase the school librarians evidenced more complex and boarder conceptions. Further they were able to combine and create different conceptions to meet their schools' needs. It is interesting to mention that school librarians were not only able to create new conceptions of information literacy that meet their needs, but they were also able to in the Arabic literature.