Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / In information facilities such as libraries, finding documents that are relevant to a user query is difficult because of the indeterminism involved in the process by which documents are indexed, and the latitude users have in choosing terms to express a query on a particular topic. Reference librarians play an important support role in coping with this indeterminism, focusing user queries through an interactive dialog. Based on thirty detailed observations of user/librarian interactions obtained through a field experiment, we have developed a computational model designed to simulate the reference librarian. The consultation includes two phases. The first is handle search, where the userâ s rough problem statement and a user stereotyping imposed by the librarian are used in determining the appropriate tools (handles). The second phase is document search, involving the search for documents within a chosen handle. We are collaborating with the university library for putting our model to use as an intelligent assistant for an online retrieval system.

A usability evaluation was carried out of the recently-launched South London and Maudsley NHS Trust library web site using a variety of standard methodologies: content and design evaluation of selected comparable sites, focus groups, a questionnaire survey of library and web development staff, heuristic evaluation, observation testing, card sorting/cluster analysis, and label intuitiveness/category membership testing. All test participants were staff of or providers of services to the trust. Demographic information was recorded for each participant. Unsuccessful attempts were made to evaluate user feedback, and to compare usability test results with usage statistics. Test participantsâ overall responses to the site were enthusiastic and favourable, indicating the scope and content of the site to be broadly appropriate to the user group. Numerous suggestions for new content areas were made by testers. Usability problems were discovered in two main areas: in the organisation of the site, and in the terminology used to refer to information services and sources. On the basis of test results, proposals for a revised menu structure, improved accessibility, and changes to the terminology used within the site are presented.

This paper describes how scientists utilize specific journal article components, the tables, figures, maps, photographs, and graphs contained in journal articles, to support both their teaching and research. These findings are taken from a comprehensive investigation into scientistsâ satisfaction with and use of a prototype retrieval system that indexes tables and figures culled from scientific journal articles. Rather than focusing on seeking and searching, this paper summarizes four ways in which scientists utilize the information they find in tables and figures obtained from journal articles. While the first type of use described here, creating new fixed documents, confirms the findings of previous research, the other three types of use reveal emerging practices with journal article components: creating documents to support performative activities; making comparisons between a scientistâ s own work and the work of other researchers; and creating other information forms and objects.

This is a presentation at the ASIS&T 2005 Annual Meeting session on Progress in the Design and Evaluation of Digital Libraries: Implications for Research and Education (moderator: Kyung-Sun Kim). The presentation discusses the creation, design, and management of dLIST, an open access archive for the Information Sciences, and the affiliated DL-Harvest, an open access aggregator and federated search engine. As an Eprints-based open access archive, dLIST is a digital repository but it is a cross-institutional and interdisciplinary repository built on the concept of "sustainable information behaviors." Elements such as openness, transparency, information quality and interoperability are critical components along with a focus on connected communities of practice. Sustainable information behaviors can take us beyond the information-seeking-in-context agenda and enable a transformation of scholarly and research commmunity information sharing and communication that is more in tune with the values of a digitally flat (connected) world. Editor's Note: Some of the screenshots of the dlist web pages in the slides appear to have degenerated.

Artificial Intelligence Lab, Department of MIS, University of Arizona / In this era of the Internet and distributed multimedia computing, new and emerging classes of information systems applications have swept into the lives of office workers and everyday people. New applications ranging from digital libraries, multimedia systems, geographic information systems, collaborative computing to electronic commerce, virtual reality, and electronic video arts and games have created tremendous opportunities for information and computer science researchers and practitioners. As the applications become more overwhelming, pressing, and diverse, several well-known information retrieval (IR) problems have become even more urgent in this â networkcentricâ information age. Information overload, a result of the ease of information creation and rendering via the Internet and the World Wide Web, has become more evident in peopleâ s lives. Significant variations of database formats and structures, the richness of information media, and an abundance of multilingual information content also have created severe information interoperability problems-structural interoperability, media interoperability, and multilingual interoperability. The conventional approaches to addressing information overload and information interoperability problems are manual in nature, requiring human experts as information intermediaries to create knowledge structures and/or ontologies. As information content and collections become even larger and more dynamic, we believe a system-aided bottom-up artificial intelligence (AI) approach is needed. By applying scalable techniques developed in various AI subareas such as image segmentation and indexing, voice recognition, natural language processing, neural networks, machine learning, clustering and categorization, and intelligent agents, we can provide an alternative system-aided approach to addressing both information overload and information interoperability.

In their studies on student motivation in th4e 1990s, Gorham & Christophel and Christophel & Gorham found that students perceived their own demotivation to be caused by instructor behaviors. While there are studies that explore the topic of student demotivation and other studies that illustrate the great influence instructors have on student information seeking behaviors, research focusing on the connection between these two concepts is almost nonexistent. Using Gorham & Christophel's concept of instructor-owned student demotivation, this mixed-methods study sought to identify which instructor behaviors doctoral computer science and information science students found demotivating and to what extent their perceptions of these demotivating instructor behaviors influenced their information seeking behaviors in a face-to-face classroom. Demographic and student-perceived demotivating instructor behavior surveys along with semi-structured interviews and follow-up questions were used to collect data. The surveys will be analyzed using descriptive statistics in Excel, and the semi-structured interviews and follow up questions were analyzed using content analysis and Colaizzi's method of phenomenological enquiry in NVivo. The findings showed that instructor demotivating behaviors not only influence student information seeking behaviors in the classroom, but they also can lead to lasting effects on the student. In addition, the participants have expectations of instructor behaviors, which come from their own experiences. These expectations also influence the level of demotivation they feel in a face-to-face classroom.

This paper argues that the distinction between grey and non-grey (or white) literature will become less relevant over time, as online discovery options proliferate. In the meantime, the political success of the open access publishing movement has valuable lessons for proponents of increasing access to grey literature.

The behavior and patterns of recovery and processing of digital information by users is a recurring theme in the literature. The study of these behaviors are carried out through observation techniques and analysis of processes, actions and decisions undertaken by users in different situations. This paper presents the data resulting from the study of patterns of recovery and management of reference information of three consecutive courses of a specialized subject. The findings obtained showed a clear difference between patterns of information retrieval and obtained prior to the end of the training process, but there has been a significant change in the ultimate goal of users or appreciable changes in their prospects for application in other environments.

Relationships among Working Experience, Information-Seeking Behaviors and Job Satisfaction ¡Ð taking the MBAs as examples Abstract As the domestic economy develops and international managerial environment becomes more complicate and competitive, managerial and administrative educations in universities grow a lot. Thousands of newly-graduated MBAs take their jobs in various industries. These MBAs are becoming more and more important in Taiwan. Under the impact of the fast growing internet applications and knowledge economy, companies that hire MBA graduates expect them to adjust to their working environment as soon as possible so that they can apply what they have learned to their jobs. Therefore, issues related to organizational socializations are often discussed. However, most researches often explore the influence to the adjustments upon works from the point of view of organizations. However, Studies of organizational socialization based on personal behavior factorial analysis are few. Nevertheless, newcomers¡¦ previous working experience and information-seeking behaviors do affect their working experience and socialization in the company where they stay. And, this point is getting focused. Thus, MBA newcomers in companies are the objects of this study. The study will focus on the personal factors, behaviors, specific contents of socialization levels that affect directly or indirectly the MBAs as newcomers¡¦ working experience before and after they work in the firms. Also, the study hopes the results can bring some help for companies to manage those MBA newcomers of administrative experts. Numerous recently-graduated MBAs who had worked for 3-4 months and 10-12 months in their first jobs were asked to fill in the questionnaires. After analyzing the data , the results are stated as below: ¢¹. Differences of organization socialization due to different working experience. 1.Those who have part-time work more than 25 months can understand practices in an organization more easily then those of 1-12 months. 2.The newcomers who have formal working experience before studying in graduate school can understand professional terms about their current jobs and the meaning behind them better than the ones without formal working experience. 3.If there is partial similarity among current job and previous ones, the results would be: (1) the possibility of maintaining satisfying working relationships with others is higher than the one whose current and previous job have there is no similarity at all. (2) Newcomers could understand the organizational goals and values better than those whose current jobs are totally different from previous ones. ¢º. Differences of job satisfaction due to different working experiences 1.Intrinsic and extrinsic satisfaction will be higher if the newcomers don¡¦t have part-time working experience previously. 2.The extrinsic satisfaction that current job is totally different from previous ones is higher than the extrinsic satisfaction that it is only partially similar among current and previous jobs. ІІІ.The influences of working experience, information seeking upon levels of organizational socialization, job satisfaction and influences of organizational socialization upon socialization in organizations. 1.Newcomers could have better comprehension of organizational goals and values when their current jobs are similar with previous ones. 2.Intrinsic satisfaction is higher if current jobs are similar with previous ones. 3.If information-seeking is reached by ¡§ testing¡¨, the possibility to gain successful & satisfying working relationships with members in the organizations decreases and so do the level of understanding organizational goals and values. 4.Asking the third party can help bring more extrinsic satisfaction. Using testing as the method to reach information seeking may decrease levels of general satisfaction. 5.General satisfaction is higher when the newcomers understand the characteristics of organizational practices better. Extrinsic satisfaction will be higher when the newcomers have better comprehension of certain specific terms or languages within the organizations. Those who have better and more correct comprehension of organizational goals and values reach higher intrinsic, extrinsic satisfaction and general satisfaction. ¢¼. The mediating effect of organizational socialization content 1.The similarity among current and previous jobs affects the level of intrinsic satisfaction indirectly through the organizational socialization content. 2.The level of organizational socialization is the mediating effect when discussing the relations between information-seeking behaviors, general satisfaction and extrinsic satisfaction. ¢½. The moderating effect of role stress. Most role stress in the lower-grades groups influences the organizational socialization content and job satisfaction more than higher-grades groups, specially for the intrinsic and general satisfaction. Key words: newcomers, working experience, information-seeking behaviors, role stress, job satisfaction.

Abstract Background: There is insufficient research about the health information seeking, access, and usage among immigrants to the United States, who, face health disparities associated with their immigrant status. Health-information seeking behaviors and attitudes, unique to immigrants, need to be considered as one set of factors contributing to health disparities. Objective: This thesis focused on identifying differences in information seeking behaviors and attitudes between natal and immigrant US residents and the subset who had either themselves had been diagnosed with cancer or who had a family member diagnosed with cancer. Methods/Analyses: Nationally representative Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) data (HINTS4Cycle 3), collected from a sample of respondents (N=3185) by mail between September and December 2013, was used for these analyses. Sample weights were applied during SAS data analysis to account for the complex survey design. Analyses assessed the frequencies of health information seeking behaviors and attitudes of natal versus immigrant US residents. Results: Both natal and immigrant US residents indicated that the Internet was the most popular choice for seeking health or medical information (69.9% and 69.8%, respectively), with the next highest being doctor, healthcare provider, or cancer organization combined (14.3% and 17.1%, respectively). These differences in use of information sources were not significant. Both natal and immigrant US residents “strongly agreed” or “agreed” that they were frustrated (68.1% and 65.8%, respectively) and were concerned about the quality of the information (52.9% and 54.8%, respectively) during the last time they searched for health information. Again, these differences in attitudes toward information were not significant. On the other hand, compared to natal US residents, immigrant US residents were more likely to state that their most recent search took a lot of effort (35.2% and 46.1%, respectively, p=.01). There were also moderate and significant differences between natal and immigrant respondents’ trust toward information from government health agencies (69.3% and 81.3%, respectively, p About one-third (30.2%) of immigrant US residents reported that they spoke English “not well” or “not well at all.” Among the immigrant US residents, the Internet was the source most commonly chosen by both groups (Speak English “very well,” or “well” and speak English “not well” or “not at all”) as the source they went to first during their most recent search for health or medical information (78.1% and 45.8%, respectively, p Conclusions: There are important differences between Internet-related health information seeking behaviors and attitudes of natal US residents and immigrant US residents.