The presentation was part of The 6th European Networked Knowledge Organization Systems (NKOS) Workshop at the 11th ECDL Conference, Budapest, Hungary September 21st 2007 http://www.comp.glam.ac.uk/pages/research/hypermedia/nkos/nkos2007/progr amme.html / In 2004, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research funded a major terminology mapping initiative at the GESIS Social Science Information Centre in Bonn (GESIS-IZ), which will find its conclusion this year. The task of this terminology mapping initiative was to organize, create and manage â crossconcordancesâ between major controlled vocabularies (thesauri, classification systems, subject heading lists) centred around the social sciences but quickly extending to other subject areas. This project is the largest terminology mapping effort in Germany. The number and variety of controlled vocabularies targeted provide an optimal basis for insights and further research opportunities. To our knowledge, terminology mapping efforts have rarely been evaluated with stringent qualitative and quantitative measures. This research should contribute in this area. For the NKOS workshop, we plan to present an overview of the project and participating vocabularies, an introduction to the heterogeneity service and its application as well as some of the results and findings of the evaluation, which will be concluded in August.

For some years now, Indian Universities and Colleges have been deprived of access to journals and other professional literature. About two decades ago, University libraries were able to subscribe to a decent number of journals in various subjects. The subscriptions have steadily eroded since funds available to universities have not been able to cover the rising cost of the literature, and today access to journals is all but impossible, except from a handful of major university libraries. It is clear that this trend cannot be reversed in the conventional fashion by providing increased funding. The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recently undertaken a major new initiative called the UGC-INFONET, which seeks to provide high speed internet connections, electronic access to professional literature, and the development of multimedia content to supplement conventional learning and teaching. In the present paper we describe the part of this project which deals with the provision of electronic access to journals and other literature for the University sector. Major organizations like the CSIR, DAE, AICTE etc have set up consortia involving institutes under the aegis of the respective department to have electronic access. The arrangement here involves incremental payments to be made to publishers to supplement an already large print subscription base. This arrangement is not possible for the Universities, since the present subscription base is very poor, and therefore arrangements which involve electronic subscriptions only are being made with publishers. In our paper we will discuss details about the initiative, the novel aspects of the programme, the great benefits that it will bring to the University sector, its present and future relationship with other consortia, and the role of INFLIBNET in the planning and long term implementation of the scheme.

Initial articles have posed difficulty for end-users since the first online library catalogs. This study examines the way users search using left-anchored title searches for items that contain insignificant initial articles in a library catalog. It also investigates how users react when they do not find an item because their search phrase included an insignificant initial article. The results show that a considerable number of users do not find existing titles that have insignificant initial articles because their search strategy does not coincide with the way the Library Management System was designed to handle index and retrieve these titles. Suggestions for further research are offered.

This is Module 2 of the ICT for Library and Information Professionals (ICTLIP) Training Package for Developing Countries. This Package is intended to provide knowledge and skills dealing with the application of ICT to library and information services. It is meant for library and information personnel who may become trainers in the area. The Package has been developed by the UNESCO Asia & Pacific Regional Office with funding from the Japanese Fund in Trust for Communication and Information. It contains six modules: Module 1 - Introduction to Information and Communication Technologies Module 2 - Introduction to Integrated Library Systems Module 3 - Information Seeking in an Electronic Environment Module 4 - Database Design, and Information Storage and Retrieval Module 5 - The Internet as an Information Resource Module 6: Web page concept and design: getting a web site up and running.

The rapid development of information technology in the recent years has added a range of new featuresto the traditional information environment, which has a profound impact on university library services and users. The Quality of Service parameter in library services has reached a broader consensus,which directly reflects customer satisfactions and loyalty. Exploring the evaluation frameworks for service quality in university libraries cannot be undermined in this context. Besides, existing evaluation frameworks of service quality of university library services are also facing numerous challenges due to their imperfections. Thus,there is an urgency and necessity to explore and enhance the efficiencies of the evaluation frameworks of service quality. To this end, this thesis conducts a systematic analysisof evaluation frameworks with a motivation of identifying the core components that needs enhancements for achieving effective service quality in Chinese university libraries through empirical methods. Furthermore, the inferences extracted from the analysis has been exploited to provide suitable recommendations for improving the service quality of university libraries.

The intent of this article is to describe how the social science data library responds to requests for particular data when the data are not cataloged in the data library's collection. The author defines those activities undertaken to locate a potential resource as the pre-acquisition process. The pre-acquisition process begins when the library staff and client have been unable to locate relevant data in the library. Depending upon the nature of the request, time constraints imposed on the client (to produce an analysis based upon these data), and status of the client in the university setting, both staff and client undertake a search to locate the data the client needs. Together they examine the library's reference collection and literature in the field, seek information from experts in the field, and correspond with libraries and institutions which might potentially hold the data or be able to provide assistance in locating the data. The decision to undertake these activities during the preacquisition process depends upon a number of factors. They include the library's mandate regarding the nature of the collection and of its clientele, the level of flexibility in its policies, the quality of the staff, the degree to which the staff is committed to providing user services. the quality of its reference collection and services, and constraints on library resources. Although constraints on the library's resources may indeed be a major factor in determining whether to undertake a search and at what level and to what extent the services shall be provided, the first part of this article presents a brief description of only five factors: the nature of the collection, the impact of an acquisitions policy upon the preacquisition process, staff, the interaction between staff and client, and reference services." The second part describes the preacquisition process carried out at the Social Science Data and Program Library Service (DPLS) at the University of Wisconsin Madison as an illustration of locating data to meet a special client request. The author believes that a description of these activities should have utility not only for data libraries, but for other libraries for formalizing the process of meeting special requests.

Thesis (M.S.)--Central Connecticut State University, 2000. / Thesis advisor: Yunan Ju. " ... in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in [the Department of Communication]." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-57).

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / On title page: Master of Philosophy (Information and Knowledge Management). Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

In today's highly competitive landscape, new product development strategies are imperatives for companies to create and sustain competitive advantages. The objective of this research is to develop an integrated approach to automate, or aid, the design problem solving process. An Integrated Design System (IDS) is proposed focusing on the parametric and detail design. In this system, generation and evaluation of new design problems occur quickly and easily by changing the inputs for the design model. The IDS provides an integrated platform to incorporate available application programs such as CAD and FEM tools into a single system. Four major frameworks, namely information handling, problem decomposition, design space characterization, and problem solving, are proposed and embedded in it to implement the product development process. The information handling includes five aspects. A naming protocol is devised to organize the historical design cases. A search algorithm is proposed to retrieve a design case. A system-generated report is used to distribute the design information. A constraint definition frame is presented to define the relationships between design parameters. Two schemas, information matrix and constraint tree, are developed to represent information in the IDS. A diagonal-centered decomposition scheme is developed utilizing a Genetic Algorithm to decompose a complex design problem. In addition to the conventional genetic operators, two novel genetic operators, unequal position crossover and insertion mutation, are proposed. To characterize the design space, two methods, Incremental Response Method (IRM) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN), are presented. The IRM is derived from response surface method, while the back-propagated ANN is coded to be self-evaluated. The presented problem solving algorithm constitutes the solving mechanism of the IDS. Based on the assessment of the design objectives, all design parameters are given a priority index to facilitate the parameter selection. An independent recursive method is introduced in this algorithm to handle the design constraints. The case studies are performed on two design problems: a hard disk drive actuator arm and a shaft. The results show that the system can automatically align parameter values towards the objective values in a reasonable manner, and thus verify the feasibility of the embedded frameworks.

This is a preprint published in Journal of Documentation 62 (4): 462-481. Purpose: This paper examines William Stetson Merrill, the compiler of A Code for Classifiers and a Newberry Library employee (1889-1930) in an attempt to glean lessons for modern information studies from an early librarianâ s career. Methodology/Approach: Merrillâ s career at the Newberry Library and three editions of the Code are examined using historical, bibliographic, and conceptual methods. Primary and secondary sources in archives and libraries are reviewed to provide insight into Merrillâ s life at the Newberry and his attempts to develop or modify tools to solve the knowledge organization problems he faced. The concept of bricolage, developed by Levi-Strauss to explain modalities of thinking, is applied to Merrillâ s career. Excerpts from his works and reminisces are used to explain Merrill as a bricoleur and highlight the characteristics of bricolage. Research Implications and Limitations: Findings show that Merrill worked collaboratively to collocate and integrate a variety of ideas from a diverse group of librarians such as Cutter, Pettee, Poole, Kelley, Rudolph, and Fellows. Bliss and Ranganathan were aware of the Code but the extent to which they were influenced by it remains to be explored. Although this is an anachronistic evaluation, Merrill serves as an example of the archetypal information scientist who improvises and integrates methods from bibliography, cataloging, classification, and indexing to solve problems of information retrieval and design usable information products and services for human consumption. Originality/Value of Paper: Bricolage offers great potential to information practitioners and researchers today as we continue to try and find user-centered solutions to the problems of digital information organization and services. Paper Type: Research paper