The main factors which prompted the present study were: (1) PRECIS has a linguistic universal feature for computerized subject indexing; (2) the largest Chinese bibliography and index published by the National Central Library of Taiwan still lack subject indexes; (3) both mainland China and Taiwan have created their bibliographic databases based on UNIMARC; and (4) the field 670 of the UNIMARC is reserved for PRECIS. This study has aimed to experiment with PRECIS for indexing Chinese documents, generate Chinese subject indexes using PRECIS, and suggest the use of PRECIS in online retrieval in Chinese bibliographic databases. The last objective is an assumption which was based on the achievement of the first objective.

The law of copyright will celebrate its tricentennial in thirteen years time. First introduced in England in 1709 in response to the invention of printing, its history has been one of constant development to keep pace with significant changes in technology. In the 1990s, copyright is more topical than ever. The potential for worldwide distribution of multi-media works over the emerging Global Information Infrastructure is the latest challenge facing the copyright system. This situation has prompted ambitious programmes for copyright reform and harmonisation at national level and within the Berne Union and the European Union. It is timely therefore to reexamine the basic justifications for copyright. The first two legislative texts on copyright, the UK Statute of Anne 1709 and the Copyright Clause of the US Constitution 1787, embodied the concept that providing copyright protection for authors for a limited time would encourage and promote learning and progress and thus act for the public good. The thesis explores the underlying principles governing copyright legislation in the light of the proposition that copyright is a just and proper concept, established and developed in the public interest. In recent years, this proposition has been contested in the context of the challenges to the copyright system posed by technical developments. In this debate, the philosophical basis for copyright and its moral and economic functions have been called into question and the public interest has been invoked, not in favour of improved protection for copyright owners, but in favour of free and unfettered access by the public to copyright works. By reexamining these issues, the thesis aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on public policy in relation to copyright reform and harmonisation.

No description available.

Die Öffentlichen und Wissenschaftlichen Bibliotheken Sachsens leisten einen unverzichtbaren Beitrag bei der Vermittlung von Wissen und Kultur. Um ihre Arbeit zu würdigen, lobt das Sächsische Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst in Kooperation mit dem Landesverband Sachsen im Deutschen Bibliotheksverband e.V. den „Sächsischen Bibliothekspreis 2013“ aus.

Im Heft 2012/1 stellten wir Ihnen an dieser Stelle die Aufgaben eines Bibliothekars im Jahre 1926 vor. Doch welche Voraussetzungen sollten die Berufsanfänger zu dieser Zeit mitbringen?

No description available.

No description available.

The majority of existing controlled languages for English language technical documentation for industrial and consumer electronics are in-house, proprietary systems. As a result, limited information or research has been published and disseminated about them. This has created knowledge gaps that are addressed in this thesis. First, the thesis provides a detailed description of existing controlled languages with a stated aim to improve technical documentation comprehensibility and readability for native and non-native English users. This is achieved through obtaining information, much of which was previously unavailable or difficult to obtain, about their rule sets and lexicons. This fills a gap in knowledge about existing controlled languages. Second, the thesis analyses and synthesises the best-practice features of the text in modern, quality technical documentation that have been identified in government, academic and professional literature as contributing to comprehensibility (the cognitive use of the text to process and identify information) and readability (the physical use of the text to visually scan and recognise information). It then uses the identified linguistic, organisational and visual features of the text to analyse the rule sets from existing controlled languages. The main finding of the analysis is that the existing controlled languages fail to address the visual features of the text despite their prominence in the literature as contributing primarily to readability. The thesis seeks to address this failure to adopt a holistic approach to the improvement of technical documentation in existing controlled languages by developing a new, broader controlled language for consumer electronics with comprehensibility and readability-oriented rules that fully address the linguistic, organisational and visual features of the text. This is named COED (an acronym for Controlled English Documentation). Third, the thesis provides a detailed description of a study to evaluate the effect of applying the comprehensibility and readability-oriented rules from COED to extracts from existing technical documentation for consumer electronics. The findings clearly show that the application of the comprehensibility-oriented rules (that aim to make it easier to cognitively process and identify information) allows the native and non-native English users in the study to locate and understand information more accurately. With the additional application of the readability-oriented rules (that aim to make it easier to visually scan and recognise information), the native and non-native English users in the study are also able to locate and understand information more quickly. The study provides an encouraging demonstration of the potential of COED to improve both the accuracy and speed with which information in technical documentation for consumer electronics can be located and understood by native and non-native English users. It also fills a gap in research knowledge about controlled languages.

This research addresses the issue of how organisations can build capabilities to acquire, deploy, exploit and sustain computer-based information systems. With the application of information technology dramatically altering the strategies, structure, and processes of organisations, capabilities in acquiring and deploying computer-based information systems are considered critical to organisational success. It is often presumed that firms have similar capabilities to derive maximum value from deploying computer- based information systems. However, they have been shown to exhibit disparate capacities to successfully implement and exploit such systems. The concept information systems capability is introduced and refers to an organisation's capacity to effectively orchestrate the processes of acquiring, deploying, exploiting and sustaining computer-based information systems to support its strategic and functional objectives. Emphasising evolutionary and resource-based perspectives of the firm the research stresses the firm-specific, cumulative, and path-dependent nature of organisational IS capability. Three strategic dimensions of IS capability are identified. These are routines, resources, and contexts. Routines refer to the IS-related processes and practices of the organisation. Resources are its endowments. Contexts reflect the environmental factors influencing IS investment opportunities and decisions. Capabilities develop through a prescient understanding of the contexts, the strategic acquisition and deployment of IS resources and the establishment and enaction of effective organisational routines. Researchers are concerned about the persistence of ineffective information technology transfer and diffusion in developing countries. This research seeks to explicate the concept of information systems capability by drawing on examples from a developing country context. Through case studies and surveys done in Zimbabwe it explores organisational efforts to develop IS capability. The findings of the case studies confirm the significant impact of macro-contextual and organisational factors on capability building. A framework for IS capability building is proposed.

This research has accomplished a clarification of what exactly constitutes semantic analysis using the specification language NORMA. Having clarified the essential elements of the language, this work has shown how the language can be put into practice. The technique has been exemplified on three applications. This process of indicating how the technique can be applied to a case is necessary if we are to show the practical usability. Another important contribution has been the setting out of more precise rules for the constraints; the sketching out of a metaschema. Although more work is needed here to express the full range of metaphysical relationships that underlie any semantic schema in NORMA, a start has been made. This work will support the building of a computer system to aid the analyst. With the large range of constraints and fundamental assumptions associated with NORMA, the need for a method of applying them was paramount. In this work we have attempted to set out a rational agenda of work comprised in the performing of semantic analysis, and in a manner which is easily accessible. A simple set of ten stages in the work spans the range of tasks that are required. At no stage has there existed such a straightforward introduction, rather, the tendency has been to point to the possibility of beginning the analysis in a number of ways. As a further contribution this work has examined some of the examples of semantic analysis and identified a few 'classic' errors. The importance of this is to focus on what are likely to be common mistakes that spring from an inadequate grasp of the language, which if corrected can lead to better results quite quickly and avoid a significant part of the problems associated with the 'learning curve'.