Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Florida, 2002. / Title from PDF of title page. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Journalism and Media Studies Centre / Master / Master of Journalism

The purpose of this survey is to describe how selected United States Government agencies provide information to the public via Internet services. With more than 2,000 Federal library and information centers located throughout the world this effort, of necessity, is selective and findings neither represent all libraries nor do they identify all approaches currently used to present information via the Web. An effort has been made to describe services without attributing values to particular site characteristics. This report provides a brief snapshot in time of a complex and rapidly evolving world. While not definitive in scope, it is hoped that this report will provide a baseline for anyone who may wish to revisit some of these sites in the future to determine how services may have been expanded, reduced, or refined.

Document in French / Cet article présente brièvement notre projet de recherche doctorale. à travers le rôle et les fonctions des bibliothèques universitaires, nous cherchons à comprendre les facteurs sociaux, économiques, institutionnels et documentaires ayant un impact sur lâ intégration des dépôts institutionnels dans lâ infrastructure informationnelle des universités canadiennes. ___________________________________________________________ This paper briefly presents our doctoral project. Throughout the role and the responsibilities of academic libraries, we aim to understand the social, economical, institutional and documentary factors influencing the integration of institutional repositories into the information infrastructure of Canadian universities.

Running scholarly presses as profit centers is becoming increasingly unsustainable as many are barely able to stay solvent in todayâ s market economy. Under increasing financial pressures university presses are creating a bottleneck for the publishing of scholarly articles, making less of it available more slowly. By restricting access and limiting outlets for publication, todayâ s commercially structured scholarly publishing system runs counter to the aims of scholarly publishingâ to circulate discourse and research findings through academic institutions and into the world. The open access movement is one response to a general failure of the for-profit scholarly publishing system. This paper looks at what it would mean to reconfigure scholarly publishing away from commerce and toward an open access model, and the potential role of libraries within an open access publishing system.

Thesis (M.A.)--Baylor University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 104-117)

Thesis (MPhil (Journalism))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / The arrival of the Internet and digital technology the past decade has revolutionised the media industry worldwide. Newspapers cannot exist separately from other media forms any longer. Newspaper companies have increasingly started to experiment with the incorporation of the electronic media, such as the Internet, in their newsrooms. The term media convergence originated in an attempt to give meaning to the phenomenon whereby different media forms come together or exist in synergy with each other. The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of media convergence from a newspaper perspective. The focus is firstly on developments on the international media front, whereafter the emphasis is on South Africa. A Research/field study is aimed at determining the knowledge and perceptions of media convergence of the editorial teams of Media24’s three Afrikaans sister newspapers – Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad. Different definitions of media convergence were considered in an effort to formulate an appropriate definition for the purpose of this study. In terms of this definition media convergence entails the coming together or synergy between different media entities within the same company. A technologically advanced environment with digital multimedia content management systems is conducive to successful convergence. The characteristics of the digital and multimedia newsroom are discussed in a separate chapter. A literature study was undertaken to give an overview of international media convergence practices and existing research on the topic. The focus is not only on how media convergence manifests itself in different parts of the world, but also on the attitudes toward and perceptions of the phenomenon by journalists. The South African media landscape and examples of convergence is discussed, with specific reference to Media24, owner of Beeld, Die Burger and Volksblad. Non-empirical research by means of a survey amongst 60 respondents was conducted to test the knowledge and perceptions of the editorial teams of these three newspapers on media convergence. Multimedia newsrooms operated with the assistance of digital technology is a common phenomenon in many countries. Cooperation across media also exist in the majority of newsrooms in South Africa, but the phenomenon is not as conceptualised locally as in the rest of the world. Differences in the structures of media companies, as well as divergent legislation, have a significant effect on how media convergence manifests itself in a specific country or newsroom.

Interactivity is a distinguishing feature of the online environment but online newspapers have been slow in recognising interactivity as an essential condition of effective Web communication. Existing research show online newspapers generally offer few and token interactive options. This research explored interactivity in online journalism using Nigeria's online Guardian as a case study exploring the nature, levels and utilisation of interactivity and interactive features on the site. This study found that few interactive options are offered in Nigeria's online Guardian and those interactive options on offer just produced an illusion of interactivity; it was apparent that little effort was made to give interactive options on the site the significant attention they deserve. The study highlighted the difference between the availability and use of interactive features on an online newspaper site: the mere presence of such features does not necessarily speak to the levels or nature of interactivity on the site. The difficulty in obtaining findings for the qualitative aspect of this study spoke significantly to the findings in light of the fact that these were attempts using interactive options provided by the newspaper site. They stress what relevant literature highlights: the mere presence of interactive features is not in itself interactivity . Factors contributing to the low levels of interactivity in Nigeria's online Guardian include lack of technical expertise plus human and financial resources and the persistence of a mindset that hinders the development and integration of new information communication technologies and interactivity in online journalism. Theoretically, the possibilities are vast but the likelihood of translating theory into reality appears slim. For Nigeria's online Guardian to become interactive in a participatory way, it must undergo changes and choices about values, goals and standards. There must be a shift in attitudes and approaches towards news-content production and delivery as well as the problematic commercial aspects of electronic publishing routines and the effect of such choices on management and newsroom organisation.

Scholarly communication of all types is changing dramatically with the introduction of electronic technologies. This new environment means that standalone print publishing risks being left behind, and as many STM journals acquired or launched by commercial publishers have been subject to dramatic price rises in the last few years, there has been much talk of ways to by-pass commercial publishers. The scholarly publishing market is fertile ground for innovation and there has been a lack of objective research regarding the UK university press. Despite the many changes that have occurred in the scholarly publishing industry in recent years, university presses in the UK that have not been in the forefront of innovation have remained minor players. The research focused on the university press, it's current situation and it's role in the electronic future. The research included: case studies that were conducted at both UK and USA university presses, along with the corresponding libraries, a questionnaire which was sent to academic authors that had published with both a university press and a commercial publishing house, and both qualitative and quantitative questionnaires sent to all operating UK university press directors. The thesis argues that university presses (in particular the smaller presses), as not for-profit organisations, are in a prime position to increase their power in the scholarly publishing system and can make changes to provide valued services to the Higher Education Community. Findings show that university presses, both in the USA as well as the UK, have faced, and continue to face change. Lack of funding and HEI support continues to make the traditional publishing role of the university presses difficult, and, in many cases, has caused the closure and sale of university presses in the UK. The university press continues to play an important role, and will continue to do so in the near future. However, in order for smaller university presses in the UK to remain sustainable, they must continue to adapt to, and take advantage of, change, recognise the value they add to the scholarly communication system and not rely on others to improve their situation. They cannot remain static in a changing environment. Through the work with university presses three potential business plans are proposed for a UK organisation of university presses, along with two business models to help the presses adapt to the changing environment and continue to play a role that is required by the HEI. Based on the results and conclusions of the research recommendations are made to stakeholders and ideas for further research are identified.

M. Inf. / It has become increasingly difficult for end-users to locate, select and organise information published via the World Wide Web. This is largely due to the scattered nature of the Web and its ever-increasing use as publishing infrastructure. More scholarly information is also being published in multimedia format through the Web. Throughout the years, current awareness services and later Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) have provided the means for scholars to keep abreast of the literature in print sources. Today such information is also published via the Web, hence scholars need to have a mechanism to keep abreast of the information published in digital format. Research was conducted to investigate guidelines scholars could use to stay abreast of new Web content. The investigation employed both a literature survey and an empirical method of collecting research data. The literature survey was conducted to establish trends in current awareness services and SDI, the use of the Web for disseminating and retrieving digital information, the impact of the Web on the scholarly communication process and current methods for keeping up to date with Web content. Empirical research in the form of structured interviews was executed to establish the needs of scholars regarding the spectrum of current awareness services that provide Web-based sources. The findings obtained from structured interviews and by means of the literature survey were used to develop a set of guidelines scholars could use to stay abreast of information published via the Web.