The purpose of this research was to contribute to an important research and practice issue, how users use evaluative metadata (i.e., end-user ratings, annotations, opinions, usage, and experts' recommendations) when searching for documents in educational digital libraries. The dissertation built a model of the predictive judgment process to develop design principles for digital library systems with evaluative metadata. / Multiple methods were employed in the research design: (1) a questionnaire gathered demographic information, the subjects' computer/Internet/web knowledge, information needs (tasks), search keywords, and topic knowledge; (2) a think-aloud protocol was used to collect data about cognitive processes, in this case document selection; (3) semi-structured interviews gathered information about subjects' thoughts about their behavior; (4) the researcher wrote field notes (observation); and (5) Camtasia software was used to record the trace of each subject's metadata usage. / The participants were 14 graduate students from School of Library and Information Studies in Florida State University. Four tasks were given to them in a laboratory setting. Tasks were two types 1) for finding teaching materials as an instructor, and 2) study materials as a student. The analyses were based on data from surveys, searching experiments, and post interviews. The data included 366 reviewed items in the search results of 60 searches. The results showed the user's positive inclination toward the evaluative metadata during searching in MERLOT. The research identified the reasons for scanning and examining evaluative metadata elements in the predictive judgment process. In addition, three ways to use evaluative metadata in the predictive judgment process were showed. The research also found the factors which influence the usage of the evaluative metadata: Users' cognitive, Function of the Digital Libraries, Situational, and Task. Finally, the revised predictive process model was presented including three stages of the predictive judgment (Scanning/Examining, Judgment, and Decision), the factors which affect the usage of evaluative metadata, and relevance criteria when the participants searched documents in MERLOT. The findings of the research provide implications for advancing empirical research for evaluative metadata and user-centered relevance study, and improving the design of the educational digital libraries.

Contemporary young people are engaged in a variety of information behaviors, such as information seeking, using, sharing, and creating. The ways youth interact with information have transformed in the shifting digital information environment; however, relatively little empirical research exists and no theoretical framework adequately explains digital age youth information behaviors from a holistic perspective. In order to bridge the empirical and theoretical gaps in the field of Information Behavior, this study seeks to create a theoretical framework of digital age youth information behavior by applying and further developing the theory of Radical Change. / Adopting the Theory to Research to Theory strategy, Radical Change Theory guided development of the research questions and the research design incorporated the theory to provide structure to the systematic data collection and analysis; finally, the theory was informed and modified by the study results. The two-phase qualitative research design included Phase I: content analysis of research literature and Phase II: Sense-Making Methodology (SMM) group and individual interviews with youth. / In Phase I, the researcher conducted Directed Qualitative Content Analysis using Radical Change Theory, a technique that attempts to minimize potential bias by the pre-selected theoretical framework. Phase I results identified key patterns of contemporary youth information behavior reported in 40 cross-disciplinary research literature that covers a range of contexts. Phase II was implemented to test the findings from Phase I and to add new insights from the perspectives of youth. In Phase II, 12 young adults who engage in active digital media practices using Scratch, a graphical programming language, participated in either group or individual interviews. The SMM interview technique elicited innovative information behaviors embedded in the participants' collaborative information creation practices in the digital environment, such as interactive magazine production and youth initiated development of both an online media library and a Wiki website. / The study findings deepen current knowledge on the ways contemporary youth who have grown up immersed in digital media culture interact with information. The primary result of the study is the development of a typology of digital age youth information behavior that refines and further develops the original Radical Change Theory. The typology suggests a holistic perspective for observing youth information behavior as an interplay between various factors, including young people's (1) intrapersonal processes, (2) identity formation and value negotiation, and (3) social interactions. It also presents 14 specific characteristics related to these factors that operationalize key concepts of Radical Change Theory. / The exploratory study provides theoretical, empirical, and practical contributions to the field. It suggests that the enhanced Radical Change Theory with the newly added typology serves as a holistic framework that explains dynamic digital age information behaviors that are embedded in young people's activities at home, schools, public places, and online. The typology created in this study will become an instrument that can be utilized in future research further investigating digital age youth information behavior. Also, by expanding knowledge about the changing nature of youth information behavior, the potential impacts of the study include developments of relevant library and information services, information policies, and other educational approaches that better match digital age young people's unique patterns and approaches to information.

Providing a single access point to an information system from multiple sources is helpful in many fields. As a case study, this research investigates the potential of applying information fusion techniques in biodiversity area since researchers in this domain desperately need information from different sources to support decision making on tasks like biological identification. Furthermore, there are massive collections in this area and the descriptive materials on the same species (object) are scattered in different places. It is not easy to manually collect information to form a broader and integrated one. / As one of the most important descriptive materials in this field, floras are selected as the target of this research. This research tests a hypothesis concerning the organization of text and the constancy of fact-based information in text. It is observed that individual descriptions may not contain sufficient information to differentiate the target species from others, and different information sources might contain not only overlap information but also complementary information that is helpful. We also observe non-trivial complementary information could also be from different-level descriptions [family, genus, or species level] from the same source. By using the sample dataset from Flora of North America (FNA) and Flora of China (FOC), we found that about 50% information could only be found in single source and another 25% complementary information could be identified by fusion. And the most importantly, confliction information could only be detected by direct comparison. / The question is how could we fuse the records in an automatic or semi-automatic manner, so that each resulting record provides a broader while non-redundant description of each species? The proposed system demonstrates the feasibility with currently available techniques. The prototype system contains 4 modules: Text segmentation and Taxonomic Name Identification, Organ-level and Sub-organ level Information Extraction, Relationship Identification, and Information fusion. By using the sample descriptions from Flora of North America and Flora of China, we demonstrate that the method gain promising fusion result based on Cross-Description Relationships. With the evaluation results, we identified the key factors contribute to the performance of fusion. Some methods that might lead to further improvement on fusion performances are discussed. / This study also demonstrates that to a certain extent, this fusion approach is generalizable. The generalizability of this fusion approach is a challenging problem due to the typical domain- and task-oriented nature of the fusion methods. We identified the challenges while applying the approach to different data set.

This study is about the information-seeking behavior that bilingual users---specifically, native Chinese speakers whose second language is English---exhibit when performing an online search. Bilingual online searching occurs when bilingual users submit queries to search for information in two languages. This study seeks to explore the information-seeking behavior of bilingual users in an attempt to discover possible ways of improving bilingual users' online searching experience. The study focuses on defining the characteristics of bilingual users' information-seeking behavior on the web. / This research employed questionnaire and interview methods to determine (1) The information-seeking behavior of bilingual users; (2) Language's influence on online searching; (3) Bilingual users' opinions on the online searching support they need. The sample was recruited from Chinese native-speaking students in Pittsburgh. / The researcher found that bilingual users tend to select the language that best fits their information needs rather than doing multilingual online searching and that they used search engines as multilingual tools. The researcher also identified five types of search strategies preferred for bilingual online searching. They include: directly linking, keyword searching, browsing, comparison, and externally linking. Directly linking means that the participant has a specific website in mind so he/she just go to the website directly or search for the website in the search engine. Browsing means that they retrieved a list of resources first and browse through them. Comparison means that they obtained several search results first and compare them. Externally linking strategy means that participants link from the website they accessed originally. This is a descriptive study of users completing four specific tasks and it only emphasizes on users' opinions about the search support given by the bilingual online searching interface.

State libraries are important organizations within the library community in the United States, yet little has been written about them and students learn almost nothing about them in the course of graduate study in library and information sciences. State libraries’ contributions to their profession and the citizens they serve are not as well known as they should be nor are they appropriately acknowledged beyond their immediate constituencies. This study examines a sample of nine state libraries during the past twenty years – three that are highly successful (the California State Library, the New York State Library, and the Library of Michigan), three that are typical of the majority of state libraries (the Georgia Public Library Service, the State Library of Kansas, and the Tennessee State Library and Archives), and three whose survival was placed in jeopardy in the recent past (the Florida State Library and Archives, the Minnesota State Library, and the Washington State Library) – to highlight their role within the greater library community and to analyze their successes and challenges. Research was conducted in primary and secondary sources such as annual reports, strategic plans, newspapers, newsletters, library association periodicals, web sites, and other similar material produced by or written about the nine state libraries to determine what conditions or combination of conditions are conducive to state libraries flourishing and what other factors or combinations of factors might contribute to the weakening or decline of state libraries. Based on this research, this study offers recommendations concerning what state libraries might do in the future to make themselves more visible within their states and within the larger library community.

Library co-operation

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-223). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

<p> This study, which contributes to the scant research on personal values in the library profession, examines the core values and the related defining moments of 12 public library directors who work in rural, suburban, and urban settings throughout the United States. The participants, recognized as managerial leaders in public libraries, oversee some of the highest use libraries per capita in the country. They share common values of benevolence, self-direction, and universalism as identified by the Portrait Values Questionnaire (PVQIV).</p><p> The second methodology, narrative inquiry, examined life stories to identify common critical incidents and defining moments that challenged and instilled values. Core values shared among participants include integrity, respect, loyalty, fairness, equity, learning, adaptation, and responsibility. Probing defining moments also revealed that the participants use three distinct paths to resolve critical incidents. In each case, the defining moments resulted in these individuals experiencing more self-confidence, deeper commitment to core values, and the able to find meaning and purpose in their work. Participants indicated that, as organizational leaders, public library directors are responsible for meeting the needs of various stakeholders, including library personnel, governing authorities, library users, and the public. These responsibilities are motivated by a core value of seeking to enhance the intellectual welfare of others.</p><p> Researching personal values is salient because these values, in essence, define who we are, and they influence us whether or not we are consciously aware of them. This research contributes to the literature in organizational development by identifying techniques managerial leaders use to reduce challenges to values (mindfulness and self-regulation) and strategies to successfully navigate values conflicts (reflection, paths to insight, courage, and persistence). </p>

The purpose of this research is to define grounded theoretical models about factors that influence collection development and collection management of business information resources in public libraries. The study is based on data collected from a multi-site case study of public libraries along the U.S.-Mexico border where there is a critical need for information on starting and expanding small businesses. A framework of structuration theory and cultural hegemony theory informs an analysis of the data. This paper relates to the relevant literature and sets forth implications for research, practice, and further discussion. The three main categories identified from coding the data are library location, modes of production and distribution of business information resources, and the degree of external stakeholder pressure on library business collections. Three model statements defined and supported by the data are: (1) the attributes of funding, librarian qualifications, access to information and communication technologies, size and qualities of the business community, and client expectations that influence business collection development are related to library location in metropolitan or rural areas; (2) new practices in the production of content, formats, and modes of distribution of business materials are more problematic for small libraries due to limited information and communication technology (ICT) devices and insufficient professional training; and (3) external influences and initiatives, such as federal, state, and foundation programs, have more of an impact on business collection development in small libraries than in large libraries. The various properties of these factors are discussed with a focus on how daily routine, tacit awareness, and expectations draw on structural rules and resources to produce and reproduce, or change, library systems and their business collections. The consequences of location in metropolitan or rural areas are identified, and mitigating strategies are suggested. External influences and new modes of production and distribution of business information are implicated in supporting the cultural hegemony of globalization by encouraging the introduction and use of ICTs in public libraries; however, use of ICTs to expand the business collection is dependent upon librarian interest and abilities as well as competing demands for scarce resources.

This paper analyzes the Web and raises a significant question: "Does the Web save the time of the users?" This question is analyzed in the context of Five Laws of the Web. What do these laws mean? The laws are meant to be elemental, to convey a deep understanding and capture the essential meaning of the World Wide Web. These laws may seem simplistic, but in fact they express a simple, crystal-clear vision of what the Web ought to be. Moreover, we intend to echo the simplicity of Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science which inspired them.