This research examines the use of external information by managers in larger industrial companies, with special reference to use of electronic information services. Five different industries are selected for study - oil, pharmaceutical, construction, electronics and retail. Evidence on the areas and sources of external information of most importance to managers, including electronic sources, was sought by means of a questionnaire survey distributed to managers in marketing, finance, corporate planning, computer systems and management services and to company librarians! information officers. The questionnaire was completed by 122 managers from fifty-one companies and followed up by case study interviews with eleven selected respondents. All respondents agree on the importance of industry market trends and competitor activities as the main areas of external information and on the personal communications network and industry publications as the prime sources. Information of the organization's broader environment is viewed as less important, Company libraries, where they exist, are not always highly regarded or fully exploited as sources of information by managers. The research shows that electronic information services are not in general rated highly as an information source. The main reason for the lack of use by managers appears to be lack of content relevance, but lack of awareness, pricing structure and accessibility are also contributory factors. Videotex services are held in low regard by their users and non-users alike. Commercial databases, on the other hand, are valued by their main user group, which consists of librarians from the pharmaceutical industry and from larger oil companies. Type of industry, type of respondent and size of company are all important variables in use of electronic information services. The research identifies four different approaches to external information use - individual, library, systems and information management. In spite of the acknowledged importance of external information, the informal approach is still prevalent. There is no extensive use of electronic services in companies which do not have an established library structure and there are few examples of a properly structured 'information management' approach which combines both internal and external sources.

This thesis looks at the information component of the research endeavour at a particularly interesting point in time, when strikingly new developments in both the scholarly world and its information environs cast doubt on the validity of anything and everything we have traditionally been holding true as to academic researchers' information needs and practices. Indeed, the host of societal demands driven transformations in the organisation, values and practices of scholarly knowledge production of recent years, coupled with the technology-enabled, rapidly evolving opportunities for creating, accessing and communicating information suggest that neither researchers' information needs, nor their attempts at meeting these needs could conceivably remain untouched. This state of affairs has been the impetus for undertaking the re-examination reported here of our long-established notions concerning scholarly information needs and practices. The study sets out, therefore, to investigate, analyse and systematically describe the information work of researchers in academe of the knowledge society. This, with the express aim of achieving a comprehensive, state-of-the-art portrayal of the generic, as well as the disciplinary and/or age specific information needs and corresponding information behaviour of today's university-based researchers. Towards this purpose, the thesis integrates three inter-related elements: a user-centred theoretical perspective, proposed by Nicholas (1996,2000), which views an information need as having eleven different dimensions; a state-of-the-art review, based on the literature; and a hybrid, field research project, conducted at the University of Haifa, Israel, comprising two consecutive stages, a two-phase qualitative stage of interviews, and a quantitative stage of a questionnaire survey. Thus, the theoretical perspective and the insights offered by the published literature in the field combine with the data collected for the present undertaking to inform the research questions. Unravelling the complex picture of contemporary academic researchers' information needs has proven to be an undertaking of exceptionally wide scope. Not only does it look at an entire information community, but also, utilising as it does the eleven-pronged analytical framework for assessing information needs, developed by Nicholas (1996, 2000) on the basis of his conceptual approach, it also took a far more comprehensive view of the concept of research-related information need than other field-based investigations. Endeavouring to draw an overarching portrayal of the information needs characterising today's academic researchers, the thesis opens, therefore, with the rationale for the investigation, its aims, scope and setting. Then it proceeds to recap our traditionally held notions concerning scholarly work and its information component by reviewing the literature depicting the socio-cultural context of the scientific enterprise. Next the theoretical foundations of the investigation are delineated, followed by a detailed account of the field-work based insights gleaned into the information component of academic research work. Then all of the information presented is interpreted in the light of the research questions, for a comprehensive portrayal of contemporary researchers' information needs and practices to materialise. As surmised, many elements of the present-day, research-associated in formation work, as they emerge from the findings of this investigation, comprise changed or changing features. Nevertheless, the overall picture bears testimony to the continued existence and relevance of those core scholarly information needs, which are dictated by the basic professional values of academics and their discipline-specific research work conventions. Thus, today's researchers may define their information needs in terms of the changing realities of conducting research in academe of the knowledge society, may more or less happily embrace information work practices,w hich involve novel responses to the new challenges posed to them, but their fundamental information needs seem to have remained by and large unaffected by the recent upheavals in the scholarly world and its information environs. Indeed, the present study re-affirms yet again that the inter-disciplinary differences in analytic processes and research work-habits, stemming as they do from the very nature of the way knowledge grows in each of the knowledge domains, entail discretionary information needs and uses both on the inter-individual and the intra-individual level. These needs, summarised here as a generalised profile of scientists, socials scientists, and humanists, whilst clearly indicative of changing elements in contemporary research-associated in formation work, nevertheless bear testimony to the ongoing vital importance of heeding the research-work conventions rooted specific information needs of the different communities comprising the academic population.

The research for this thesis has been concerned with defining and demonstrating the existence of certain semantic elements in English natural language science text which can be called metainformation. Meta-information is described as being the organisational-, rather than the conceptual properties of an author's 'message' in text. Conceptual information is that subject-related output from a document which readers assimilate or synthesise with their current state-of-knowledge. Meta-information reflects the organisation or structural format used by an author to present conceptual information for transfer from text to readers. The example used here to demonstrate the existence of meta-information, is a format for the presentation of empirical argument in science text. At its most simplep a meta-informational element could be a report section-heading like, INTRODUCTION, which describes (we assume), the contents of the subsequent text. At a lower level of analysis the phrase, 'This paper describes contains some semantic inference that the complete statement is one of an introductory nature; thereforep such a statement could be labelled as one of INTRODUCTION for meta-informational purposes. A 'grammar' or set of meta-informational elements, has been developed as a means of identifying certain semantic aspects of text. This grammar is based on some experimental evidence and the consensus view of readers and writers of science text who produced what has been called a conventional format for empirical argument presentation. An initial set of rules for implementing this grammar have also been developed. The rules have been tested for replicability with positive results. Although analysis of full text hasshown deviation from a 'conventional argument structure readers' summaries of the same text conform to this structure. Thus, a model of the phenomenQn of information transfer from text to readers, which includes a structural transformation process based on the experimental results, has been built. A computer simulation is given to demonstrate the model in an inter-active program-user system designed to produce summaries of whole text. The thesis is that evidence exists for the presence of meta-information in science text and that if a grammar appropriate to the kind of output information required by users is built, highly structured text could be produced so that the process of information transfer is optimised.

Understanding and improving subject searching in online library catalogues is the focus of this study. Against the backdrop of current research and developments in online catalogues an analysis of the problems and prospects for subject access in the expanding online catalogue is presented. Developments in recent information retrieval theory and practice are reviewed, and a case is made for a new model of information seeking and retrieval that more closely describes much of the subject searching and browsing activity actually conducted by library users. The center piece of this study is the experiment that was conducted using an experimental online catalogue developed to investigate and evaluate the effect of alternative browse and navigate search methods on overall retrieval effectiveness and subject searching performance. The objectives, methodology, and findings of this online catalogue search experiment are discussed. The primary aim of the experimental study was to evaluate the usability and retrieval performance of a pre-structured "navigation" approach to subject searching and browsing in library catalogues. The main hypothesis tested was that the provision and use of a navigation search and browse function would significantly improve overall OPAC retrieval effectiveness and the subject searching performance of OPAC users. The OPAC used in the study was designed and implemented by this author using the database management and retrieval software known as "TiNMAN", provided by Information Management & Engineering, Ltd. TINMAN employs an entity-relational database structure which permits the linking of any field in the stored bibliographic record to any other field. These linkages establish browse and navigation pathways among data fields ("entities") and citations to support guided but flexible searching and browsing through the collection by users. Thus, a rudimentary form of hypertext is provided for the users of the OPAC. The test database consisted of 30,000 Library of Congress MARC bibliographic records selected at random from all LC catalog records for publications through 1988 in the English language in the LC classes HB-HJ (Economics, Business, etc.). For each record, the verbal description of the assigned LC class number found in the printed schedules was added as a subject descriptor to augment the subject cataloging provided by the Library of Congress. Three different OPACs were tested for comparison purposes. The control OPAC lacked the navigation feature. The other two OPACs supported related-record navigation, one on title words only, the other on subject headings only. Searchers were encouraged to use the OPAC's features and search options in whatever manner they wished. Subjects in Group-I were permitted to navigate only on the subject headings from the controlled subject vocabulary assigned to the work cited (augmented by the verbal meanings of the Library of Congress class number). Subjects in Group-2 were permitted to navigate, but only from title words of the work cited and displayed. Navigating from one of these title words would result in the retrieval of all works whose titles had at least one occurrence of the selected word. Subjects in the control group were not permitted to navigate; that is, it was not possible for them to point to a selected data element in a displayed citation to move on to related terms or citations associated with that data element. The positive value of related-record navigation in improving subject searching in OPACs was not clearly determined. The navigation groups performed significantly better than the control groupon the first search task, but all three groups performed nearly equally well on the second search task. Navigation on subject headings or title keywords resulted in higher recall scores, especially among first time, novice users of the system, but precision suffered significantly in title-word navigation. In fact, the control group achieved higher precision scores on both search tasks. Navigation did not seem to aid subject searching performance after greater familiarity with the system was achieved, except perhaps to increase recall in persistent searches without much decrease in precision. Online bookshelf browsing seems to improve recall without a significant decrease in precision, and may be a more positive factor than navigation on either subject headings or title words.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of academic digital libraries from a user-oriented approach. For this purpose, end-users were invited to describe how they perceive and make use of academic digital libraries. The study was focused on Subject Based Information Gateways (SBIGs) and Electronic Journals Services. Specifically, two gateways were examined: the Social Science Information Gateway (SOSIG) and the Art, Design, Architecture and Media (ADAM) gateway, and an electronic journals service: the Electronic Journals Service of the Library and Information Service (LIS), the University of Patras, Greece. The target group was the academic community: academic staff, research staff and students (undergraduate and postgraduate). The research methods used were online questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and transaction logs analysis (TLA). Concerning the perception of academic digital libraries, users were invited: to provide the advantages and/ or disadvantages of electronic information over print, to compare the electronic and print version of a piece of information, to evaluate services or features as very important, important, or not important and to specify factors that would discourage them from accessing a digital library. Regarding the use of academic digital libraries, users were asked to specify: how frequently they use digital libraries, what reasons they use digital libraries for, what place they gain access from, what their preferred method of searching for information is, what their preferred method of storing and reading electronic information is, whether they use the support services provided, what types of information they want to be provided with and what the role of communication in a digital library is. The study concluded that end-users seem to appreciate the implementation of academic digital libraries. However, there are still some disadvantages that might prevent them from accessing them. A typical user would access them from their office or home for a variety of reasons, such as: for writing up a term paper/project or a thesis/dissertation, writing up a paper for publication, e. g. journal article or conference/workshop paper, keeping up with progress in the relevant subject area, supporting a lecture or for personal reasons. Concerning their search behaviour, they would adopt a relatively unsophisticated, simplistic approach to searching and limited use of Boolean operators or other commands. Notwithstanding their low search abilities, they would be reluctant to consult the online help function that could support their searches. Sometimes, they prefer to ask a person rather than attempt to use the online help. When they have identified information and want to read it, they print it out. But, when they want to store information for the future, they either print it out, or save it on disk. This information might differ in its formats, including electronic journals, reports and papers, digitised books, scholarly mailing lists and archives and educational software. Finally, some users would appreciate the opportunity to communicate with information scientists, authors, or other users who share the same interests with them. Some others emphasized the importance of the communication between users and digital library systems.

Historical interest in the information society and the tools and techniques of information processing and management has been the subject of much recent scholarship. In contrast, this research examines understandings of information from a social and cultural perspective and offers new insights into the chronology of `modern' information. The focus is on nineteenth century England and how contemporary society thought of and understood information. As a consequence of this, this work also investigates the role and manifestation of information according to these perceptions. The research explores perceptions from a variety of nineteenth century viewpoints, including etiquette and behavioural literature, Victorian periodicals, events such as the Channel Tunnel panics of the 1880s and discrete individual case studies. The thesis concludes that the nineteenth century formed the crux point between premodem understandings of information, and the start of what we would now term a period of modernity so far as information is concerned. The foundation of the research is nineteenth century published and archival material, contemporary newspapers, journals and private papers.

This thesis investigates the connection between open access - the free online availability and distribution of scientific and scholarly publications - and the 'developing world' from a post-development perspective. It takes a discourse analytical approach, drawing predominantly on Michel Foucault's understanding in discourse. It aims to answer the following questions: - Which notions of science, of development and progress, of knowledge as well as of information and technology are capitalised on in the open access debates and in which way are they shaped as a consequence? - Which discursive effects can be established, what are the results and of which kind are they? The thesis is divided into six chapters, chapters 2 to 5 are grouped into two parts. In the introduction (chapter 1) the general problem space is outlined, the connection between the open access movement and the 'developing world' is established; the research approach is briefly sketched, followed by a presentation of the research questions. Furthermore, the relevance of the study for Library and Information Science is discussed. Chapter 2 introduces the notion of discourse. It contains a discussion of the Foucauldian concept of discourse in relation to the notions of knowledge, truth, and power, as well as resistance, governmentality, and pastoral power. The manifestation of discourse in language is discussed with reference to Michel pecheux. The way in which discourses are dispersed unevenly in society is examined. It concludes with a presentation of the concept of the discursive procedure, which forms the basis for the analyses. Chapter 3 introduces post-development theory, specifically focusing on development discourse. It presents and problematises the concept of devt;lopment, of poverty and ignorance, as well as of science. The historical foundations of dev~lopmentdiscourse and the role of science and technology in it are examined. Chapter 4 investigates the representation of open access in its relation to development. It is based on a corpus consisting of 38 articles and similar publications and 5 statements and declarations. The latter are also examined from a genre perspective. The following discursive procedures are identified: (1) Leaving a blank or defining the undefinable: 111e elusiveness of the 'developing world', (2) Technologism and technological determinism, (3) Economism, (4) Scientific centralism and scientism, (5) Temporal distancing. It concludes with a discussion of the guiding metaphor, the divide. Chapter 5 investigates how open access is debated in the context of development. It draws on a two-week long email debate organised by a development institution in 2006. 146 postings by 49 participants are included in the analysis. The following discursive procedures are identified: (1) Technologism, (2) The role of the profession: mediation, translation, and control, (3) Rural people and the lack of education, (4) Developmentalism and antidev~ lopmentalism: Positioning oneself in and against development. It concludes with a discussion of the guiding metaphor, the barrier, as well as ofidentity construction. The concluding chapter 6 is concerned with providing a sum-up of the analyses with a view to answering the research questions. It considers a possible future for the open access movement in its relation to the 'developing world' and concludes with a brief discussion of issues relevant for future research. The main findings suggest that the 'developing world' is constructed around the coordinates provided by mainstream development thought. Open access is inserted into its discursive repertoire as a problem of development, a tool for its delivery, and its measure. The dominant understanding of information adheres to a sender/receiver model. However, ruptures occur in significant places. This requires a partial re-positioning of the way in which development is framed and of open access' role in it.

Information systems that are available today do not optimally address the information-seeking behaviour of scholars, particularly those who belong to scientific communities; as a result, scholarly discovery is often cumbersome and incomplete. The hypothesis of this study is that an information-seeking system that is designed to address the nature of scholarly materials and the information seeking behaviour of scholars, particularly the members of one scientific community, will increase the effectiveness of the scholars’ searches and enable them to find and obtain relevant materials with greater ease and precision than current practices do. The information-seeking behaviour and search practices deployed by high-energy physics (HEP) researchers are explored through a series of interviews and observations. More than 2,100 responses obtained from a HEP survey are also examined; in particular, the participants’ open-ended responses are analysed. On the basis of qualitative and quantitative research regarding the characteristics of HEP scientists and their information-seeking practices, a set of six personas, representing typical members of the HEP community, is constructed. An original model is developed that leverages existing models of information behaviour, information seeking, and information searching and reflects the full pectrum of active information-seeking and information-searching practices of HEP scholars and the nature of the data that these researchers seek. The model is then evaluated by means of seven scenarios involving the personas constructed earlier. On the basis of the information-seeking model, a software user interface is designed as the future interface for the HEP INSPIRE information system. The user-interface design is corroborated through the model, and the personas are used to evaluate the design. Methods are suggested for long-term quantitative and qualitative monitoring of the ways in which this design supports HEP researchers. It is argued that the proposed user interface, which provides an information environment that accommodates the information-seeking practices of the HEP community in a friendly and efficient manner, will support HEP academic research—and research of other scholarly communities that share some of the HEP community’s characteristics—by shortening the search process and improving the findability of quality materials. This thesis contributes to the body of information-science knowledge in the novel modelling of information-seeking behaviour of a well-defined scientific community, the use of personas for the modelling, and the concretization of the model into a new user-interface design.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-11, Section: A, page: 4523. Adviser: Caroline Haythornthwaite. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 164-174) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Library and Information Science, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-09, Section: A, page: 3205. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 30, 2008). Adviser: Elin K. Jacob.