This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006." There is great potential in the utilization of existing clinical data to assist in decision support, epidemiology, and information retrieval. As we transition from evaluating systemsâ abilities to accurately capture the information in the record, to the clinical application of results, we must incorporate the contextual influences that affect such efforts. A methodology is proposed to assist researchers in identifying strengths and weaknesses of clinical data for application to secondary purposes. The results of its application to three ongoing clinical research projects are discussed.

This is a submission to the "Interrogating the social realities of information and communications systems pre-conference workshop, ASIST AM 2006.

The purpose of this article is to contribute to our stock of knowledge about who uses networks, how they are used, and what contribution the networks make to advancing the scientific enterprise. Between 1985 and 1990, the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) ACCESS data facility at the University of Wisconsin-Madison provided social scientists in the United States and elsewhere with access through the electronic networks to complex and dynamic statistical data; the 1984 SIPP is a longitudinal panel survey designed to examine economic well-being in the United States. This article describes the conceptual framework and design of SIPP ACCESS; examines how network users communicated with the SIPP ACCESS project staff about the SIPP data; and evaluates one outcome derived from the communications, the improvement of the quality of the SIPP data. The direct and indirect benefits to social scientists of electronic networks are discussed. The author concludes with a series of policy recommendations that link the assessment of our inadequate knowledge base for evaluating how electronic networks advance the scientific enterprise and the SIPP ACCESS research network experience to the policy initiatives of the High Performance Computing Act of 1991 (P.L. 102-194) and the related extensive recommendations embodied in Grand Challenges 1993 High Performance Computing and Communications (The FY 1993 U.S. Research and Development Program).

In recent decades there has been a notable expansion of statistical data produced by the public and private sectors for administrative, research, policy and evaluation programmes. This is due to advances in relatively inexpensive and efficient data collection and management of computer-readable statistical data. Corresponding changes have not occurred in the management of data collection, preservation, description and dissemination. As a result, the process by which data become accessible to social researchers and others is frustrating, time consuming, and inefficient. This paper describes the reasons for this situation: the problem-solving workstyle of social data users, the nature of the data and their relationship to computer technology, and an inchoate social science information infrastructure. Since statistical data play an increasingly important role in social research and policy decisions, social science information specialists must be prepared to meet the computer-readable statistical data user's needs. Four strategies are recommended for improving utilization of these data: improving the quality of statistical evidence, educating information professionals and end-users in numerical information, using the existing information infrastructure to preserve and disseminate data, and developing retrieval tools for improving access to information about social data.

Sonnenwaldâ s evolving framework for human information behavior (1999) was systematically applied to a set of online community literature to examine whether the frameworkâ s propositions are supported or not, so as to uncover open problems for socio-technical studies of online communities and human information behaviorâ what aspects that are relevant to understanding the reciprocal relationships between technologically-mediated systems, communities and information resources should social informatics be examining, but hasnâ t? Findings are presented.

By 2000, the Internet became an information and communication medium that was integrated in our everyday lives. Following an interdisciplinary approach, the research reported in this article analyzes the wide variety of information that people seek on the Internet and investigates trends in Internet information activities between 2000 and 2004, using repeated cross-sectional data from the Pew Internet & American Life surveys to examine Internet activities that contribute to everyday life and their predictors. The objective is to deepen our understanding of Internet activities and everyday life and contribute to a growing body of research that utilizes large-scale empirical data on Internet use and everyday life. We ask: who is embedding the Internet into their everyday lives and what are the activities they pursue to facilitate everyday life? Findings demonstrate the differential returns for Internet use, particularly in key demographic categories. The study also contributes to emerging research on the digital divide, namely emphasis on the study of use rather than access to technology. Identifying trends in key Internet use dimensions enables policymakers to target populations who underutilize the potential of networked technologies.

In the paper the need to understand cultural differences is discussed. The authors show how cultural differences can be analyzed. They also describe how cultural information was exchanged and analyzed during the library and information studies course that was taught via the Internet simultanously in Finland and North Carolina. In addition, the authors discuss how libraries could use experiences of the common class when they act in a multicultural environment. In the paper, culture is defined to be a framework to our lives, something which affects our values, attitudes and behavior. In analyzing and understanding cultural differences it is important to pay attention to how members of various cultures see i) the nature of people, ii) a person's relationship to the external enviroment, iii) the person's relationship to other people, iv) the primary mode of the activity, v) people's orientation to space, and vi) the person's temporal orientation. These dimension will be explained in the paper. In addition, the authors pay attention to language and communication styles as a dimension of cultural differences. The paper describes differences in cultures of Finns, Sami People, North Carolians and Cherokee Indians. Sami People and Cherokee Indians were chosen to represent minor cultures in Finland and North Carolina. An interesting similarities can be found on the one hand between major cultures (Finland and North Carolina), and on the other hand between minor cultures (Sami and Cherokees). The authors propose that there are a few lessons learnt in the common class which can be useful also for libraries and librarians serving multicultural populations. They are i) to undertand people's behavior as a reflection of their cultural background, ii) to understand of differences in language and communication styles between cultures, iii) to understand that collaboration across cultural boundaries and sharing cultural informations occur together, and iv) to take advantage from the Internet in crossing cultural boundaries but not to forget that people have various attitudes toward the Internet and therefore some clients continue to prefer books and face-to-face interaction with library professionals. The authors emphasize that cross-cultural communication and collaboration does not occur effectively without understanding other cultures.

Nowadays, weblogs or blogs are important tools for personal or workgroup websites publication. These tools give the necessary performances to create, edit, evaluate, publish and file digital contents, in the framework of a standarized workflow, and for managing the digital information life cycle. Nevertheless, these tools must be complemented with existence of technical funcionalities necessary to get a correct implantation and use. The aim of the work is to assess the way in which weblogs implement the technical solutions necessary to utilize correctly classification tools. The evaluation took into account let to extract a collection of conclusions of great interest to analize the state of art of the content classification tools integration and the weblogs management systems. As a general conclusion, it can be assured that the current generation of weblogs management systems do not offer all the desired performances for the classical classification tools, offering also a very heterogeneous scene.

This paper revises different tools developed to manage digital information resources. First, it revises relations between information management and content management. Second, the paper analyses content management software componentes. Last, it proposes a practical classification of the tools.

This is a preprint of an article accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science © 2008. / By 2000, the Internet became an information and communication medium that was integrated in our everyday lives. Following an interdisciplinary approach, the research reported in this article analyzes the wide variety of information that people seek on the Internet and investigates trends in Internet information activities between 2000 and 2004, using repeated cross-sectional data from the Pew Internet and American Life surveys to examine Internet activities that contribute to everyday life and their predictors. The objective is to deepen our understanding of Internet activities and everyday life and contribute to a growing body of research that utilizes large-scale empirical data on Internet use and everyday life. We ask: who is embedding the Internet into their everyday lives and what are the activities they pursue to facilitate everyday life? Findings demonstrate the differential returns for Internet use, particularly in key demographic categories. The study also contributes to emerging research on the digital divide, namely emphasis on the study of use rather than access to technology. Identifying trends in key Internet use dimensions enables policymakers to target populations who underutilize the potential of networked technologies.