This study explores the hierarchy of symbolic value between literary and genre fiction through a discourse analysis of book reviews of chick lit and critically acclaimed books published between 1998-2008 in leading review publications such as The New York Times, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. Genre fiction is typically accorded less symbolic value than literary fiction, and, at times, distaste for genre fiction has lead to distaste for its audience. Evidence for these assertions can be found in the type of language employed in book reviews of chick lit and critically acclaimed novels, especially in the use of adjectives, opinion words, as well as terms used to describe writing techniques, characters, authors, and reading publics.

This study explores the hierarchy of symbolic value between literary and genre fiction through a discourse analysis of book reviews of chick lit and critically acclaimed books published between 1998-2008 in leading review publications such as The New York Times, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. Genre fiction is typically accorded less symbolic value than literary fiction, and, at times, distaste for genre fiction has lead to distaste for its audience. Evidence for these assertions can be found in the type of language employed in book reviews of chick lit and critically acclaimed novels, especially in the use of adjectives, opinion words, as well as terms used to describe writing techniques, characters, authors, and reading publics.

Master of Science / Department of Food Science / Delores Chambers / Electronic reading (e-reading) device has been available for decades and there are many studies that have been published based on those devices. However with continuously changing tablet marketplace, there is a lack of studies looking at current devices. In order to understand the effect of tablets on undergraduate students, we conducted a consumer study to: 1) Determine the most beneficial tablet size for college students in their academic pursuits and 2) Determine the necessary types of support from academic libraries for college students conducting schoolwork using a tablet. An initial focus group study guided a consumer survey of 121 undergraduate students. The focus group study identified reading and note taking as key academic activities for tablet users. The participants were also interested in receiving quick help from the library and using electronic journal articles available from the library. A consumer survey took place at a university campus a month later. Each survey respondent answered a set of questionnaires using both large and small tablets of either Android or iOS operating system. The survey data showed that overall, larger tablet was preferred for academic use. Tablet size was not an important factor in reading or note taking (P ≥ 0.05) but perceived portability of a tablet size increased preference for that tablet size (P = 0.0078). In addition, the library’s instant messaging feature was found to be equally successful in both full and mobile website when viewed on a tablet (P ≥ 0.05). Many students who use HTML only or both HTML and PDF formats to view electronic journal articles when on a computer switched to PDF only when on a tablet. Our findings can assist tablet manufacturers in making a suitable tablet targeted for higher education uses. This study can also guide academic libraries in improving accessibility to resource for a growing number of undergraduate tablet users.

Subject searching—seeking information with a subject or topic in mind—is often involved in carrying out undergraduate assignments such as term papers and research reports. It is also an important component of information literacy—the abilities and experiences of effectively finding and evaluating, and appropriately using, needed information—which universities hope to cultivate in undergraduates by the time they complete their degree programs. By exploring the subject searching of a small group of upper-level, academically successful undergraduates over a school year I sought to acquire a deeper understanding of the contexts and characteristics of their subject searching, and of the extent to which it was similar in quality to that of search and domain experts. Primary data sources for this study comprised subject searching diaries maintained by participants, and three online subject searches they demonstrated at the beginning, middle, and end of the study during which they talked aloud while I observed, followed by focused interviews. To explore the quality of study participants’ subject searching I looked for indications of advanced thinking in thoughts they spoke aloud during demonstration sessions relating to using strategy, evaluating, and creating personal understanding, which represent three of the most challenging and complex aspects of information literacy. Applying a layered interpretive process, I identified themes within several hundred instances of participants’ advanced thinking relating to these three information literacy elements, with evaluative themes occurring most often. I also noted three factors influencing the extent of similarity between the quality of participants’ advanced thinking and that of search and domain experts which reflected matters that tended to be i) pragmatic or principled, , ii) technical or conceptual, and iii) externally or internally focused. Filtered through these factors, participants’ instances of advanced thinking brought to mind three levels of subject searching abilities: the competent student, the search expert, and the domain expert. Although relatively few in number, I identified at least some advanced thinking evincing domain expert qualities in voiced thoughts of all but one participant, suggesting the gap between higher order thinking abilities of upper-level undergraduates and information literate individuals is not always dauntingly large.

Master of Science / Department of Computing and Information Sciences / William Hsu / This thesis examines automated genre classification in literature. The approach described uses text based comparison of book summaries to examine if word similarity is a feasible method for identifying genre types. Genres help users form impressions of what form a text will take. Knowing the genre of a literary work provides librarians, information scientists, and other users of a text collection with a summative guide to its form, its possible content, and what its members are about without having to peruse individual topic titles. This makes automatically generating genre labels a potentially useful tool in sorting unmarked text collections or searching the web. This thesis provides a brief overview of the problems faced by researchers wishing to automate genre classification as well as the current work in the field. My own methodology will also be discussed. I implemented two basic methods for labeling genre. The results collected using them will be covered, as well as future work and improvements to the project that I wish to implement.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the practices of Canadian repositories in making their archival holdings available on the Internet to see whether they are more or less restrictive than copyright law requires. The Internet provides an opportunity to make archival material more widely accessible; however, repositories’ copyright practices in making their holdings available online may affect the extent to which wider access to archival material is actually achieved. The study employed four different sources of evidence, i.e., the website content of 154 Canadian repositories whose websites feature archival material from the repository’s holdings; copyright policy and procedure documents of those repositories; 106 responses to a questionnaire sent to the staff of those repositories; and 22 interviews with repository staff members. In terms of selection for online access, the study found that the repositories studied prefer to select items that are perceived to incur little risk of copyright infringement (because the copyright has expired or because the repository owns the copyright), or items that require few or no resources to investigate copyright status or obtain copyright authorizations. Thus, with regard to selection, repositories were more restrictive than the law required, largely due to lack of resources. Although repositories have no legal or professional obligation to enforce others’ copyright interests, they nonetheless attempt to control further uses of their online holdings through the use of technical measures (e.g., low resolution images, watermarks, etc.) or non-technical measures (e.g., conditions placed on further uses), for reasons not necessarily related to copyright. Overall, the study found that repositories’ practices in making their holding available online were more restrictive than copyright law envisages. While this may be due to factors other than copyright, access to online documentary heritage may be limited as a result.

Many Library and Information Science (LIS) scholars have long articulated the importance of physical and social settings—the environment—when examining how individuals acquire, store, organize, maintain, dispose of, and use information in one of their home or work lives. Yet, few have raised the question of how these information practices are altered and affected in home office spaces, fused living and working environments that lie at the intersection of the personal and the professional. This thesis resulted from an exploratory, ethnographic research study centred upon describing and analyzing the habits of information management and information use that characterize home office settings—specifically, professional home offices that each serve as their user’s only workplace. It argues that the professional home office differs from both traditional professional offices in corporate or institutional settings and from personal home offices used for non-professional tasks and pursuits. The professional home offices of four printing company account managers provided the field from which data was gathered, collected by way of guided tours, diagramming, photography, interviews, and observation. Findings suggest that information practices in professional home offices are a continual negotiation between the two spheres of household and organization, but that this will not necessarily imply a compromise of one for the other.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a technology used in many applications for the identification of objects. This thesis presents a concept of how libraries could use RFID technology to locate physical items within the library. The ability to locate items within the library changes the way users interact with physical material, creates new ways of user collaboration, and influences the ability to browse the shelves for physical items. Several implementation scenarios are presented in detail and implications on collaboration and browsing are analyzed.

Officially founded in 1997, the Pride Library is a pioneering Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer (LGBTQ) Canadian information-based organization. Although located within D.B. Weldon Library at the University of Western Ontario, the library maintains a primarily grassroots framework. The Pride Library case study reflects a tradition within LGBTQ communities towards preserving and disseminating information otherwise marginalized by larger society. Operating outside of conventional professional informed and institutionally-dominated models, LGBTQ communities create unique grassroots information organizational contexts. In order to develop a deeper understanding of LGBTQ information organizations, an ethnographic study of the Pride Library was developed. The thesis addresses the library’s use patterns, and approaches to space, materials and labour relations. Findings demonstrate that the Pride Library is not only valued for providing LGBTQ-specific information resources, but also for creating a symbolically significant, socially-oriented and community-based LGBTQ environment.

In recent years, technological advances in creating, storing, and accessing digital facsimiles of print and manuscript documents has resulted in an explosion of digitization initiatives. While such initiatives commonly endorse the viewpoint that digital facsimiles either replace or successfully stand in for their physical originals, textual scholars, whose principle interest is in the text as material artifact, do not share this perspective. Thresholds of Engagement explores the ways textual scholars engage with textual artifacts, tests the limits of representation of digital facsimiles and of the interfaces that house them, and proposes a model for the relationship between physical texts and their digital counterparts that privileges the requirements of textual scholars. The digital-facsimile interface proposed in this study is designed to facilitate methods described by textual scholars in interview—methods of comparison, material analysis, pattern recognition, and modelling—using an open-source web-based approach that is accessible for individuals to innovate and build upon.