In broad terms, Recommender Systems use machine learning techniques to process his- torical data about their user’s interests, encoded in user profiles. Once the algorithms used have been trained on user profiles, their output is used to compile a ranked list of all resources available for recommendation, based on each profile. Collaborative Filtering is the most widespread method of carrying this out, building on the intuition that similar people will be interested in the same things. The point of failure in this approach lies in that similarity can only be assessed between users that have expressed their preferences on a common set of resources. This requirement prohibits the sharing of preference data across different systems, and causes additional problems when new resources for recommendation become available, or when new users subscribe to the system. I propose that the difficulty can be overcome by identifying and exploiting semantic re- lationships between the resources available for recommendation themselves. Moreover, systems that are able to assess the strength of the relationship between any two resources can provide recommendations from multiple domains. For example, music recommen- dations can be made based on a person’s film taste if strong semantic relationships can be identified between certain films and the music he/she listens to. As such the contributions made by this dissertation can be summarised in the following: 1. Facilitating the comparison of heterogeneous resources The use of Wikipedia is proposed for this purpose, under the assumption that hyper–links between articles in Wikipedia convey latent semantic relationships between the concepts they describe. Thus, a methodology for projecting domain resources onto Wikipedia has been developed. The assumption is then validated by showing evidence that the projections are successful in retaining similarity between domain resources, in three independent domains. 2. Enabling the provision of recommendations from multiple domains The aforementioned projections encode the links present in Wikipedia articles that are found to correspond to domain resources, and can be viewed collectively as a graph. In addition, the Internet is populated with social networks of people who express their preferences on a given set of resources in the form of ratings. Members of such communities are included as nodes in the graph and ratings regarding domain resources represented as edges. A reversible Markov chain model was implemented to describe the probabilities associated with the traversal of edges in the integrated graph. Nodes that represent resources and other concepts the user is known to be interested in are then identified in the graph. Using these nodes as a starting point, the resource nodes most likely to be reached after an arbitrarily large number of edge traversals are considered the most relevant to the user and are recommended. Experimental results show that the framework is successful in predicting user preferences in domains different to those of the input.

This thesis seeks to better understand the nature of, and relationships between knowledge, data and information. The context selected for this work was clinical practice in the UK National Health Service (NHS) beginning with the generation and use of clinical knowledge. The thesis undertakes a critical examination of the relationship between that knowledge and the data it produces, and the large-scale statistical data sets generated from it via a number of human, technological, systemic and mathematical processes. The statistical data sets were regarded as important because they were highly influential, being used as the basis for significant and far-reaching decisions about healthcare in the NHS. These decisions included policymaking, financial allocations, and allocations of services and other resources. This situation provided fertile ground for this research because the clinical knowledge and data were believed to be subjective to some unknown degree. The statistical data sets, however, were endowed with objective and scientific value. The thesis explores and explains this apparent contradiction. In addressing this issue, the thesis encompasses philosophical, sociological and technological concerns and develops explanatory theories grounded in data collected. Data was collected by a process of extensive qualitative field-based investigation undertaken with clinicians, and data collectors, handlers and users in their operating environments. Key concepts underpinning these theories involve the social construction of reality as a product of individual and group frames of reference; social construction of reality as a result of social arrangements for professional groups; social construction of reality as a result of the pursuance of ontological security; and lastly, the phenomena of structural contradiction and conflict. Of major relevance in this was Giddens' work (1976, 1984) on Structuration Theory, in particular in terms of exploring the effects of sociologically-based frames of reference on creation and transfer of meaning in informational terms. This work was also influential in terms of the notion of structural contradiction and conflict and its informational effects. Application of this abstract, meta-level theory to this real-world situation also led to one of the main contributions to theory. This engagement with reality enabled refinement of its underpinning model. It also demonstrated its explanatory power. This strengthens the validity of the theory and renders it more accessible to other researchers. The thesis indicates clinicians' use of information and subsequent recording of data represents a highly personalised area of professional activity. This does not subsequently translate easily into the data sets and statistical classification schemes that are in common usage in healthcare management. These findings led to conclusions which confirmed initial perceptions of statistical clinical datasets as having a tenuous connection with the clinical knowledge and events upon which they purport to be based. Drawing on evidence which describes knowledge as being situationally-dependent, the conclusions also assert that the transformation of original meaning this implies is largely due to social influences. Finally they claim that the apparent rationality of decisions made on the basis of the transformed meaning, while the result of calculative thought designed to justify related decisions, is misguided in that it has no foundation in the evidence presented. The document ends with a call for a fundamental reassessment of the types of knowledge processed routinely through systems, and of the ways in which those types are handled.

In the past, information systems have been developed by system analysts and programmers with the involvement of end users being at a minimum. For a long time now, researchers (Lucas 1976, Alter 1996) have been stressing the importance of significant user involvement because it brings a number of beneficial results: involvement can be challenging and intrinsically satisfying; involvement usually results in more commitment to change; the user becomes more knowledgeable about change and so is better trained in the use of the system; a better solution to the problem is obtained because users know more about the present system than analysts; involvement means the user has retained much of the control over operations. The contribution that this thesis makes is the concept of self knowledge elicitation as an approach to prototyping, developing and maintaining information systems. A key feature of this concept is the high degree of user involvement in the design and development process. Self knowledge elicitation allows the user to build an information system using his/her own knowledge and expertise, and then also allows him/her to maintain and update this system. This concept initially emerged following a research project which involved the development of an Expert Advisory System for AIDS/HIV using traditional techniques of development, which were found to have a number of deficiencies including the time-factor. Both formal and informal evaluations of the self knowledge elicitation concept were carried out at 20 different sites throughout Central England, over a minimum period of nine months. The results of these trials indicated that this concept was acceptable and could be used as a practical, cost-effective way of developing and maintaining information systems - especially for the purposes of training and education. Significant technological advances in both hardware and software over recent years (advanced word processors, intemet/intranet, web browsers, e-mail, etc.), used appropriately, will increase the availability, functionality and acceptability of the self knowledge elicitation concept.

This study investigates the development of intranets in Scottish secondary schools and within that development the role of the school librarian. There is little written on the development of intranets in schools. There has been a lack of recent research on the role of the school librarian in the UK, and in particular there have been no studies investigating their involvement in ICT. This research adopted an interactionist approach which has been used in studying the social impact of computing (see Hiltz 1992). A grounded methodology has produced original substantive theory. Methods include a questionnaire to Scottish education authorities and semi-structured interviews with key individuals at authority level and in fifteen Scottish secondary schools. Schools which have successfully developed their own intranets were found to have a supportive culture which enabled key individuals to work on the intranet and develop content relevant to the internal curricular needs and ethos of the school. Examples of materials on the intranet was important in encouraging further content through a snowball effect. The key individuals were defined as activators (people with the technical skills to create content), mediators (people willing to encourage, provide ideas and examples) and to a lesser extent gatherers (who collected content from school staff). A predictive model for intranet development has been produced based on these findings. There appears to be flexibility within the role of the school librarian for individuals to take on a variety of roles. This research on intranet development found that the librarians who qualified within the last five years focussed on the intranet as a way of developing and promoting their role. Their involvement with the intranet has put school librarians in the role of intranet builder, intranet manager and content creators. Most significantly they have operated as activators and mediators in intranet development. Some librarians have broadened into network administration roles. This is increasing the difference between recently qualified librarians and longer serving school librarians. However it was found that the more recent graduates involvement with these more "technical" roles is not distancing them from their traditional areas of work. There is evidence that through these new roles, close curriculum cooperation has been achieved.

Inaugurated by legislation in 1850 the municipal public library had by the end of the First World War become a common feature of urban life. The research and writing of public library history has been myopic; the subject has received little attention from historians working in broader fields. Inadequate methodological and theoretical assistance has been sought from those non-library historical investigations relevant to public library development. Public library history has been characterized by a tendency to chronicle. Recent work has acknowledged the importance of context; but the latter explains only 'how' and not 'why' public libraries emerged. Theories of public library history are lacking. This study presents a theory of development based on the symbiotic relationship between cultural and material pursuits. It is suggested that the Victorian, Edwardian and First World War public library aimed to help deliver social stability by diffusing humanistic culture and by assisting individual and national economic prosperity. These ostensibly divergent preoccupations achieved a high degree of compatibility within the context of the local municipal library. It was an institution which at once emphasized the importance of community and spiritual refreshment; yet sought to promote self-help individualism and tangible gain. Via the medium of the public library humanistic culture was seen to possess material externalities; the intention being to advance industrial capitalism whilst ameliorating its dehumanizing effects. The method employed to support this theory is to identify points of intersection between public library growth and recent debates in wider history. Attention is paid to discussions of emergent class consciousness; economic decline; middle class 'failure'; technical education; social control; the social origins of architecture; and the emergence of the professions. Underpinning the thesis is an exploration of the philosophical origins of the public library in terms of the tension between utilitarian and idealist thinking.

The ever increasing volume and diversity of information objects, technological advances and rising user expectations is causing libraries to face challenges in adequately describing information objects so as to improve the findability and discoverability of these objects by potential end users. Taking these present metadata challenges into account, this thesis inductively explores and develops overarching concepts and principles that are pertinent within both current standards-based and emerging metadata approaches. Adopting a Constructivist Grounded Theory Method, this thesis conducted in-depth interviews with 57 purposefully selected participants, comprised of practising librarians, researchers, metadata consultants and library users. The interview data was analysed using three stages of iterative data analysis: open coding, focused coding and theoretical coding. The analysis resulted in the emergence of four Core Categories, namely, metadata Enriching, Linking, Openness and Filtering. Further integration of the Core Categories resulted in the emergence of a theory of digital library metadata; The Theory of Metadata Enriching and Filtering. The theory stipulates that metadata that has been enriched, by melding standards-based (a priori) and socially-constructed (post-hoc) metadata, cannot be optimally utilised unless the resulting metadata is contextually and semantically linked to both internal and external information sources. Moreover, in order to exploit the full benefits of such linking, metadata must be made openly accessible, where it can be shared, re-used, mixed and matched, thus reducing metadata duplication. Ultimately, metadata that has been enriched (by linking and being made openly accessible) should be filtered for each user, via a flexible, personalised, and re-configurable interface. The theory provides a holistic framework demonstrating the interdependence between expert curated and socially-constructed metadata, wherein the former helps to structure the latter, whilst the latter provides diversity to the former. This theory also suggests a conceptual shift from the current metadata principle of sufficiency and necessity, which has resulted in metadata simplicity, to the principle of metadata enriching where information objects are described using a multiplicity of users’ perspectives (interpretations). Central to this theory is the consideration of users as pro-active metadata creators rather than mere consumers, whilst librarians are creators of a priori metadata and experts at providing structure, granularity, and interoperability to post-hoc metadata. The theory elegantly delineates metadata functions into two: enriching (metadata content) and filtering (interface). By providing underlying principles, this theory should enable standards-agencies, librarians, and systems developers to better address the changing needs of users as well as to adapt themselves to recent technological advances.

The research reported in this thesis is about the description and discussion of an experimental document retrieval system for Arabic texts, using linguistic methods of analysis. Specifically, Arabic presents difficulties for the efficient retrieval of information because it is an agglutinative language, thus rendering the stop list method (as commonly used for English texts) near to useless.

The present study involves the gathering of data and information on book publishing in Thailand and an attempt to systematically develop a data base on the book publishing industry. The research gives emphasis to the private sector which has recently been encouraged by the government to play a leading role in national development. Critical analysis of the findings serves as a basis for recommendations to promote and develop commercial book publishing. Almost all commercial book publishers in Thailand are based in the capital city of Bangkok. Regardless of the seemingly continuing emergence and disappearance of publishing houses, the number of publishers have been steadily increasing through the years. The newly established enterprises tend to be non-family business and could successfully compete in the market, gradually catching up with the older establishments. Most publishers are faced with problems relating to manuscripts, either quantitatively or qualitatively or both. The current general business practice is informal having no written agreement between publisher and author. It is an exception rather than a rule that books are edited by professional editors. Distribution remains a major issue in the development of the publishing industry. Consequently, publishers tend to carry out their own distribution as soon as it becomes economically feasible. It is noted that Thai women are active in book publishing with the average rate of female employment among the majority of publishers under study being slightly more than half of the total employment. Statistics on book production during the past two decades show an overall increase of more than 600 percent. Commercial publishers play an important role in the book publishing industry with commercial book production accounting for half or more of the total number of titles published, gradually increasing from slightly over 50 percent in 1981 to over 70 percent in 1986. The annual trade value is over 3,000 million bahts (US$ 124 million), with no less than 20,000 titles in circulation. The survey indicates average spending on books is less than 1 percent of earning. There appears to be a significant correlation between the GNP per capita and book production. The study reveals that in 1986 there was one book for every 2 to 3 people compared to one book for every 4 to 5 in 1977. The publishing industry has been serving mainly the local market and, as such, is significantly affected by government policy and planning. The National Library of Thailand and the Book Development Centre are the two major national organizations promoting book development in addition to the relevant professional associations. In anticipation of increasing potential market for commercial book, certain major recommendations are proposed to further develop the book publishing industry. These include: 1) Strengthening of the national machinery and professional organizations. 2) Systematic collection and publication of national statistics on book production. 3) Promotion of professional editorial in book publishing.

The main aim of this study is to investigate the provision and use of industrial information in Saudi Arabia, to compare it with corresponding patterns in the UK, and to examine what conclusions follow from this comparison for the information infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. To achieve this aim four main objectives have been established: (1) to determine what major information services are available to Saudi and British industry; (2) to examine the level of service and relevance of the information provided; (3) to investigate how aware industries are of information services and to what extent they use them; (4) to look for differences in the use of information services as a function of the type of firm concerned. The major focus of the work is on provision and use of this information in Saudi Arabia. It is not intended as a comprehensive overview of all business information in the UK. The first stage of the methodology involved a questionnaire survey distributed to Saudi manufacturing firnls in the building, chemical and metals industries. For the UK, the same industries were selected, and the size and distribution of the sample surveyed were chosen so as to parallel the Saudi sample. The second stage of the methodology involved a series of interviews carried out in both Saudi Arabia and the UK with the main information providers cited by the respondents. The main findings of this study show that Saudi firms tap a greater number of government information sources than Britishfirms do, but the latter use more non-government sources. This difference reflects the stronger emphasis on information provision by the government in Saudi Arabia, as compared with government provision in the UK.

This thesis is concerned with the provision of multimedia services (involving voice, video, text and graphics) in an office environment. The office of the future is expected to comprise a heterogeneous collection of workstations and multimedia components (including fileservers, voice and video codecs, document scanners, laser printers, etc) interlinked by a high speed (digital) local area network. Every office is likely to have one or more connections to a public Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) providing integrated access (involving various types of traffic) to a very large number of subscribers. This thesis considers general issues relating to the design of such an office. Particular attention is given to the problem of the integration of media both at the network and user levels. Much of this discussion draws on practical experience gained during the Alvey Unison Project in which experimental multimedia offices were interconnected using a pilot ISDN. The architecture of the Unison network is discussed with particular reference to its suitability for the support of multimedia services. The bulk of this thesis is devoted to a description of the design and implementation of a number of prototype multimedia applications, and to an evaluation of their performance over the network. The handling of slow-scan video and high resolution images have been particular areas 01 interest. Much emphasis is placed on the problem of control in a distributed environment, and a model is presented for the management of control based on the use of a directory-like service. This model also provides a mechanism for locating an office service based on the name of the user to whom it belongs.