Information Brokering:

A great deal of interest is currently being paid to those , who strike out on their own and take on the title of an "entrepreneur." While there are many benefits in going it alone and bein one'sown boss, there are risks as well. As one who has tried it, with some degree of success, it might be enlightening for others to get and understanding of exactly what is involved in becoming an independent "informarion Broker." Special attention will be ai ven to "telling it like it is" and to warning those considering such an endeavor that the path 10 success is not always an easy one. In this regard, readers will not only come to understand what it takes to pursue such a career path, but how they, as fellow professionals, can avail themselves of the services of such individuals. It is hoped that if librarians, researchers and information specialists know more about how we operate, their own demanding jobs will be easier. By gaining insight into the valuable services their colleagues provide, they too will be better able to help today's public who now appreciates that the information age is here.     

Should editors influence journal impact factors?

The journal impact factor is widely used as a performance indicator for single authors (despite its unsuitably in this respect). Hence, authors are increasingly exercised if there is any sign that impact factors are being manipulated. Editors who ask authors to cite relevant papers from their own journal are accused of acting unethically. This is surprising because, besides publishers, authors are the primary beneficiaries of an increased impact factor of the journal in which they publish, and because the citation process is biased anyway. There is growing evidence that quality and relevance are not always the reasons for choosing references. Authors' biases and personal environments as well as strategic considerations are major factors. As long as an editor does not force authors to cite irrelevant papers from their own journal, I consider it as a matter of caretaking for the journal and its authors if an editor brings recent papers to the authors' attention. It would be unfair to authors and disloyal to the publisher if an editor did not try to increase the impact of his/her own journal.     

Standing orders: considerations for acquisitions method

Even though a substantial amount of the library materials budget may be allocated for standing orders, this method of acquisition is frequently not given the same attention as those used for traditional monographs and serials. This article describes some of the differences in standing order material, including their shared characteristics with both monographs and serials. It also reviews factors that make some standing orders a good candidate for an approval plan. The article also enumerates some considerations in vendor selection decisions, regardless of which acquisitions method is used. The author concludes that it is definitely time to assess how these materials are acquired and which type of vendor is used and to make decisions that extend our purchasing power.     

Learn something new in 20 minutes: Bite Size sessions to support research and teaching

The School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) at The University of Sheffield run an innovative series of informal 20‐minute Bite Size sessions to help staff and students teach, research, collaborate and communicate more effectively. The sessions have two clear strands: one focused on teaching and the other on research. The remit is not to teach people how to use something in their work or study, but to let them know why they should use it and how they can employ it. By introducing participants to the possibilities and how they can apply ideas and technologies in their work and study in an enthusiastic manner, it is possible to send them away with at least the intention to explore and experiment. The evidence shows that this organic approach is working – staff and students are starting to use many of the tools that Bite Size has covered. Any kind of widespread change within organisations can be hard to deliver, but by bringing champions on your side and delivering sessions in a convenient, informal and timely manner; good practice and ideas can spread naturally. H.S.     

Product review summarization through question retrieval and diversification

Product reviews have become an important resource for customers before they make purchase decisions. However, the abundance of reviews makes it difficult for customers to digest them and make informed choices. In our study, we aim to help customers who want to quickly capture the main idea of a lengthy product review before they read the details. In contrast with existing work on review analysis and document summarization, we aim to retrieve a set of real-world user questions to summarize a review. In this way, users would know what questions a given review can address and they may further read the review only if they have similar questions about the product. Specifically, we design a two-stage approach which consists of question selection and question diversification. For question selection phase, we first employ probabilistic retrieval models to locate candidate questions that are relevant to a given review. A Recurrent Neural Network Encoder–Decoder is utilized to measure the “answerability” of questions to a review. We then design a set function to re-rank the questions with the goal of rewarding diversity in the final question set. The set function satisfies submodularity and monotonicity, which results in an efficient greedy algorithm of submodular optimization. Evaluation on product reviews from two categories shows that the proposed approach is effective for discovering meaningful questions that are representative of individual reviews.     

Approaches to Studying Public Library Networked Community Information Initiatives: A Review of the Literature and Overview of a Current Study

In a world characterized by the use of rapidly advancing technology, public libraries are championing the rights of the individual to equitable public access to information provided over the Internet. But beyond general connectivity, libraries are also facilitating citizens' access to networked community information (CI) by actively linking users with relevant sites, by hosting pages for other service providers, and by participating in community networking initiatives. For individuals, the availability of networked CI means that they can access it at anytime and from any place, including the home, office, and public library. This article reviews recent trends in the networked CI literature, including public library involvement, and then discusses a major study underway for which multiple methods are being used to collect data from users, librarians, and service providers in three states. Particular attention is given to explaining the use of theory specification to apply Dervin's sense-making framework in an online environment.     

Learning from Our Mistakes: Reflections on Customer Service and How to Improve It at the Reference Desk

Libraries have to compete with a barrage of online resources for patrons’ attention and with other campus departments for scarce funding and resources. In this competitive environment, customer service is one of the best strategies librarians can employ. Satisfied patrons will continue to use our services, thereby providing support for libraries’ budget requests. Even though librarians understand the importance of customer service, we do not always succeed in putting it into practice. Drawing on experiences from teaching a reference course, the author reviews examples of poor service and offers some ideas and guidelines for improving service on the front lines.     

An inquiry-based learning approach to teaching information retrieval

The study of information retrieval (IR) has increased in interest and importance with the explosive growth of online information in recent years. Learning about IR within formal courses of study enables users of search engines to use them more knowledgeably and effectively, while providing the starting point for the explorations of new researchers into novel search technologies. Although IR can be taught in a traditional manner of formal classroom instruction with students being led through the details of the subject and expected to reproduce this in assessment, the nature of IR as a topic makes it an ideal subject for inquiry-based learning approaches to teaching. In an inquiry-based learning approach students are introduced to the principles of a subject and then encouraged to develop their understanding by solving structured or open problems. Working through solutions in subsequent class discussions enables students to appreciate the availability of alternative solutions as proposed by their classmates. Following this approach students not only learn the details of IR techniques, but significantly, naturally learn to apply them in solution of problems. In doing this they not only gain an appreciation of alternative solutions to a problem, but also how to assess their relative strengths and weaknesses. Developing confidence and skills in problem solving enables student assessment to be structured around solution of problems. Thus students can be assessed on the basis of their understanding and ability to apply techniques, rather simply their skill at reciting facts. This has the additional benefit of encouraging general problem solving skills which can be of benefit in other subjects. This approach to teaching IR was successfully implemented in an undergraduate module where students were assessed in a written examination exploring their knowledge and understanding of the principles of IR and their ability to apply them to solving problems, and a written assignment based on developing an individual research proposal.     

Collaboration: Paradigm of the Digital Cultural Content Environment

ABSTRACT

Government grant-funding agencies have spawned an explosion of images from historical collections on the Internet. They have encouraged collaborative projects in which institutions share resources for capital-intensive digitization projects. These Web “exhibits” are neither publications nor exhibits in the traditional sense, most often without identified authors, curators, designers, or sources. Reviews in journal literature are one mechanism for accountability, but not all humanities journals offer exhibit reviews. In those that do, the space allocated in history and archival studies journals reveals the relative importance they place on peer review of these exhibits, compared with that for book reviews. The type of analysis in these reviews is nearly always strictly textual and does not address the interplay of text, image, and design in Web exhibits. The lack of historical context for visual sources in digital media is of concern for those in the archival, art history, and other cultural studies disciplines and professions. Sheer numbers of digitized items may be a worthy goal for textual materials; visual sources require interpretation and context to render the complexities of their meaning. Collaboration on digitization projects must go beyond financial resource sharing to include involvement of experts in content areas for visual resources.     

Informing the public health

Why with an increase in the amount of health information, and ways of accessing it, so many people experience poor health? What is the role of health library and information professionals in improving public health? These questions are of great interest to me. There are many examples of initiatives, particularly in the public library sector, which address health issues, however they are often very local and best practice is not always shared. Clearly changing the health status of a population requires more than information, but information is clearly an essential component. If health information is to be effective in improving public health then we need to address health literacy, and this is where health library and information professionals can play a significant role. Through this journal and the other activities of the Health Libraries Group I hope we can share good practice and explore new ways that health library and information workers can improve the health of individuals and communities.     

Summary

In this article, workplace communications and training consultant Ginny Barnes highlights the workplace tensions as Generation Y young adults replace their baby‐Boomer parents on the job. The author points out that Gen Y staff bring different expectations to the workplace. These young people are, for example, cynical about current leadership and want to be able to trust their workplace leaders; they need parent‐style coaches to help them face the intractable problems that always show up in the workplace; and they are more expert at electronic than interpersonal communication. Barnes says that Gen Y'ers can become good workers but only with some innovative management efforts to help make them so.     

Welcoming Spaces: Supporting Parenting Students at the Academic Library

Academic libraries serve many student constituents, but one often overlooked group is students who are parenting children. Students who, by necessity or volition, bring their children with them to the library have specific needs. Serving these students, who often have difficulty succeeding and graduating at college, should be a priority for academic libraries. Offering assistance can help this group focus on their studies, achieve their academic goals, and thus decrease universities' attrition rates. This article begins by drawing on anecdotal evidence, then reviews existing literature on parenting students. Next, it examines and analyzes policies on children in academic libraries at large American universities. Half of all academic libraries don't have clearly accessible policies, and some have policies that discourage bringing supervised children to libraries, while a few have welcoming policies and facilities. This research shows that academic libraries can still make progress to serve a key constituency. Finally, it offers solutions for how academic libraries can serve parenting students, given varying spatial and financial constraints, as well as diffusing potential concerns that might hold academic libraries back from serving this part of the academic community. This analysis could be supplemented by further inquiry and interviews with libraries on how their policies were developed and are being implemented or with parenting students on what they desire and need from the academic library.     

Cueing the Visitor: The Museum Theater and the Visitor Performance

There are an estimated 17,500 museums in the United States. If people think these institutions are pretty much the same once you get inside or that the differences between them are unimportant, it might be hard to persuade them that all 17,500 are needed. Exhibitions can have great transformational power; why don’t they exercise that power more often? Have museums not fully understood exhibitions as a medium? Have we not devoted enough attention to the full repertoire of visitor feelings? Have visitors been telling us this and we have failed to listen? For many people, museums play many roles in their lives; for most others few or none. How can this be? “Museum‐adept” visitors seem to prize museums as theaters in which their own emotional and spiritual journeys can be staged, but what about the non‐museum‐adept? Can the museum‐adept teach us how to realize our medium’s full potential?     

女性阅读与图书馆服务探微

阅读是获取信息和促进人类文明进步的方式之一,女性阅读自古有之,但一直不受重视。随着女性社会地位的提高,女性阅读活动成为业界关注的热点。文章探讨了女性阅读的特点,分析了女性阅读的现状,以及图书馆关注女性阅读的必要性,并在此基础上对图书馆为女性读者服务提出若干建议。     

An Analysis of Visitor Circulation: Movement Patterns and the General Value Principle

Abstract How visitors circulate through museums determines what they will see, where they will focus their attention, and, ultimately, what they will learn and experience. Unfortunately, the consistency of these movement patterns is not readily apparent. This article reviews the literature on visitor circulation in light of the general value principle which predicts choice behavior as a ratio of perceived experience outcome (benefits) divided by perceived costs (time, effort, and so on). Although this principle at first appears obvious, its implications may be more profound.     

Economic Analysis and Copyright Law: Are New Models Needed in the Digital Age?

Summary

Economic analysis has played a central role in the development of intellectual property policy. Since information exhibits characteristics of a public good, both non-rival consumption and non-exclusivity, information markets are prone to market failure. This requires a policy response in the form of a subsidy or direct government provision. The monopoly rights granted to owners of intellectual property can be viewed as a form of subsidy intended to avert market failure. But in the digital environment, the tendency to market failure increases as information is more susceptible to copying and distribution with neither significant additional cost nor loss of quality.

While a wide range of policy tools are available to meet the challenges of the new digital environment, the range of current legislative proposals shows that the expansion of property rights in information is the only approach being given serious consideration.

This paper reviews these proposals as well as the wide variety of other approaches that could be considered including an increased role for the public provision of information. It is concluded that the traditional model of positive economic analysis is unable to explain the current policy environment and that a broader approach rooted in political economy would be appropriate.     

Scientific impact assessment cannot be fair

In this paper we deal with the problem of aggregating numeric sequences of arbitrary length that represent e.g. citation records of scientists. Impact functions are the aggregation operators that express as a single number not only the quality of individual publications, but also their author's productivity.We examine some fundamental properties of these aggregation tools. It turns out that each impact function which always gives indisputable valuations must necessarily be trivial. Moreover, it is shown that for any set of citation records in which none is dominated by the other, we may construct an impact function that gives any a priori-established authors’ ordering. Theoretically then, there is considerable room for manipulation in the hands of decision makers.We also discuss the differences between the impact function-based and the multicriteria decision making-based approach to scientific quality management, and study how the introduction of new properties of impact functions affects the assessment process. We argue that simple mathematical tools like the h- or g-index (as well as other bibliometric impact indices) may not necessarily be a good choice when it comes to assess scientific achievements.     

Communication Strategies for Instant Messaging and Chat Reference Services

Summary

Instant messaging (IM) reference is gaining in popularity but still faces resistance. Some librarians agree with some researchers in the field of computer-mediated communications (CMC) that it can never approach the complexity of face-to-face communication, and is therefore an unsuitable medium for reference. Librarians in face-to-face reference use nonverbal communication skills such as a welcoming expression and an interested tone of voice to encourage patrons to approach the desk and discuss their topic; they also interpret the nonverbal cues of patrons. This analysis of online reference conversations shows how online skills can substitute for many of these nonverbal cues. Some skills are unique to computer-mediated communication while others involve written language skills to encourage exploration of the topic, increase clarity, demonstrate approachability and empathy, and instruct. The study illustrates communication problems and solutions using actual conversations, giving particular attention to the reference interview.