Use and value of information sources by parents of child psychiatric patients

Objective: With Web 2.0, the variety of information sources for parents of paediatric psychiatric patients has increased dramatically. Information use theory suggests newer sources supplement rather than supplant traditional sources of health information. This study sought to determine the use and value of traditional and emerging sources of information and whether the subjects had access to highly valued sources of information. Methods: One hundred parents indicated the use and value of six sources of information on the child’s symptoms, diagnoses and treatment. The data were analyzed to determine if significant relationships existed between type of source and the use and value of the information sources. Results: Ninety‐four percent of the subjects had access to the Internet and almost half of those reported using the Social Web. Eighty‐five percent had at least one high‐value information source. The psychiatrist in the clinic, the Internet and the primary care physician were the most highly used and valued sources. Conclusion: Use of digital information sources was greater than found in other studies of similar populations. This use appears to complement rather than supplant more traditional sources. Further studies are needed to see if the negative impact of lack of Internet access is replicated.     

Use of multi-modal media and tools in an online information literacy course: College students' attitudes and perceptions

This project studies the use of multi-modal media objects in an online information literacy class. One hundred sixty-two undergraduate students answered seven surveys. Significant relationships are found among computer skills, teaching materials, communication tools and learning experience. Multi-modal media objects and communication tools are needed to strengthen course interactions and student engagement.     

Federal subventionary activities: Policy issues and information sources

Federal funding, a complex, multi-billion dollar enterprise, comprises many activities and forms, and is ineluctably influenced by political issues and national polity. Following a history of federal funding and a typology of research and development (R&D) programs, the article examines sources of information, the role of national laboratories in nuclear weapons research, the relationship between defense grants and university standards, and problems of accountability, duplication, and trivialization of subject matter. Implicit in these examples is the thesis that no realistic analysis of federally sponsored research is possible unless examined in the larger ideological and intellectual ambience in which R&D is allocated.     

Availability of accessible publications: designing a methodology to provide reliable estimates for the Right to Read Alliance

OBJECTIVES: To establish reliable estimates of the proportion of books available in formats accessible to visually impaired people; to recommend a practical method of updating the estimates. METHODS: The project had two stages. Stage one estimated the overall availability of all categories of books. The British National Bibliography (BNB) for 1999-2003 was chosen as the sampling frame. A sample of 2069 titles over the 5 years was selected using a systematic sample design. These titles were then checked for availability against the catalogues of four major producer/suppliers of materials in accessible formats. The second stage involved checking the availability of books in six genres; about 400 titles for each genre were examined. RESULTS: Of the titles selected for the overall estimate, 92 (4.4%) were found to be available in one or more accessible formats. Availability of titles in accessible formats varied greatly between categories. Adult fiction had the highest number of available publications (26.3%), least represented were cookery (1.9%) and gardening (1.8%). CONCLUSIONS: This study provided baseline figures and a methodology for the Right to Read Alliance to monitor their progress in campaigning for more books to be accessible to visually impaired people.     

Central and South America mass communication: Selected information sources

The current experiment employed a mixed design to assess word learning in 70 infants under the age of 2. Infants (4–24 months) were randomly assigned to watch 1 of 2 educational DVDs in their homes, 6 times over a 2-week period. The 2 DVDs were identical except that each contained 3 different low frequency words (e.g., lens). In addition, participants were randomly assigned to a mediation condition, where parents were told to watch with their child and call attention to the DVD and the words being taught; controls were instructed to allow their child to watch alone. The stimulus DVDs were designed to mimic a commercially available DVD such as Baby Einstein. Following the 2-week exposure period, participants were brought to the testing location and tested on all 6 words, both those that were included in the DVD they were exposed to and those that appeared in the other DVD. Results suggested that infants 17 months and older benefitted from repeat exposure to the DVD; whereas younger infants did not. In addition, mediation did not seem to aid in children's learning from the DVD; although not all parents in the mediation condition complied.     

Student perceptions of the information professions and their master's program in information studies

Library and information (LIS) education is undergoing a major transformation. During this time of change, there is a pressing need for data from all stakeholder groups to support strategic decisions within individual schools and across the discipline as a whole; students are a key stakeholder group. This paper reports on a 4-year study of master's students enrolled in an institution undergoing a transition toward an iSchool. The self-administered questionnaire was distributed to students enrolled in the Master of Information Studies program at the University of Toronto eight times: to incoming students in the fall term for 4 years, and to the entire student body in the spring term of those same years. The data collected from approximately 1000 questionnaires indicate that students arrive excited about the information professions and optimistic about employment opportunities. As they progress through the program, however, many are not satisfied with professional aspects of their program. They want courses that prepare them for their first professional position, and opportunities to gain experience, which they believe will increase their employability. The data from the 4-year period revealed fluctuations over the years, which indicates the value of examining longitudinal data.     

The mass media of Latin America: Selected information sources

For the past three or jour years, the Department of Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky has been constructing an undergraduate curriculum unlike most others in the country. A key concept in that development has been a seemingly simple definition of terms—what it is the department should be concerned with—and from that, how best to approach the teaching function. That the starting point of defining terms is not so simple is shown here by Dr. James E. Fletcher, assistant professor of telecommunications at Kentucky. Fletcher earned his Ph.D. at the University of Utah in 1910, taught there for a year, and then joined the faculty at Kentucky where he has since been active in the process he discusses.     

Congressional hearings: Neglected sources of information on American Indians

Over the past three decades, discussion of government documents on American Indians has emphasized federal agency documents and archival records. Despite the fact that Congress has the ultimate authority in Indian affairs, document librarians have not explored the considerable research potential of hearings as a format for information. This article will show, with examples from early twentieth century legislative and oversight hearings, that there is significant untapped research content on American Indians in congressional hearings.     

信息源的发展及其对情报学研究的影响

文章分析了信息源的主要发展阶段及其发展趋势 ,探讨了信息源的主要研究领域及其研究规律 ,最后提出了关于信息源发展与研究的几点思考。     

Interpersonal communication motives and perceptions of humor among elders

This study explored the relationship between interpersonal communication motives and perceptions of humor use among elders. Elders (N = 143) ranging in age from 50 to 94 completed questionnaires assessing their interpersonal communication motives (ICM), perceived uses of humor (UHI), and demographics. The hypotheses predicting differential relationships among uses of humor and motives for communicating were supported. Elder men and women differed in their ICM and UHI.     

Question-answering systems as efficient sources of terminological information: an evaluation

Background: Question‐answering systems (or QA Systems) stand as a new alternative for Information Retrieval Systems. Most users frequently need to retrieve specific information about a factual question to obtain a whole document. Objectives: The study evaluates the efficiency of QA systems as terminological sources for physicians, specialised translators and users in general. It assesses the performance of one open‐domain QA system, START, and one restricted‐domain QA system, MedQA. Method: The study collected two hundred definitional questions (What is…?), either general or specialised, from the health website WebMD. Sources used by the open‐domain QA system, START, and the restricted‐domain QA system, MedQA, were studied to retrieve answers, and later a range of evaluation measures (precision, Mean Reciprocal Rank, Total Reciprocal Rank, First Hit Success) were applied to mark the quality of answers. Results: It was established that both systems are useful in the retrieval of valid definitional healthcare information, with an acceptable degree of coherent and precise responses from both. The answers supplied by MedQA were more reliable that those of START in the sense that they came from specialised clinical or academic sources, most of them showing links to further research articles. Conclusions: Results obtained show the potential of this type of tool in the more general realm of information access, and the retrieval of health information. They may be considered a good, reliable and reasonably precise alternative in alleviating the information overload. Both QA systems can help professionals and users can obtain healthcare information.     

同质化竞争下新闻网站信息资源经营策略探析

从1995年中国出现第一家网络媒体到现在不到10年的时间,新闻网站迄今已有长足的发展,但是问题也逐渐增多。据千龙研究院的调查,现在新闻网站每天更新的内容重复率高达60%。另外,网站重复建设的现象仍然存在。和商业网站相比,媒体新闻网站具备雄厚的新闻采编力量,在新闻信息资源方面具有相当大的优势,但是这些资源到底在多大程度上得到了开发利用、在市场竞争中能够发挥多大的潜力,尚值得探讨。     

The information market for research and higher education: How to integrate all relevant information in a network of repositories?

Publishing Research Quarterly -     

Ranking of library and information science researchers: Comparison of data sources for correlating citation data,and expert judgments

This paper studies the correlations between peer review and citation indicators when evaluating research quality in library and information science (LIS). Forty-two LIS experts provided judgments on a 5-point scale of the quality of research published by 101 scholars; the median rankings resulting from these judgments were then correlated with h-, g- and H-index values computed using three different sources of citation data: Web of Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar (GS). The two variants of the basic h-index correlated more strongly with peer judgment than did the h-index itself; citation data from Scopus was more strongly correlated with the expert judgments than was data from GS, which in turn was more strongly correlated than data from WoS; correlations from a carefully cleaned version of GS data were little different from those obtained using swiftly gathered GS data; the indices from the citation databases resulted in broadly similar rankings of the LIS academics; GS disadvantaged researchers in bibliometrics compared to the other two citation database while WoS disadvantaged researchers in the more technical aspects of information retrieval; and experts from the UK and other European countries rated UK academics with higher scores than did experts from the USA.     

出版物缴送情报源的开发与利用

我国图书馆出版物缴送情报源缺失,出版物资源流失严重。网络环境下的出版物缴送情报源可分为主体类型、书目类型、载体类型。图书馆界应尽快采取有效措施,积极建设出版物缴送情报源。     

网络参考信息源的划分与评价

本文从网络信息资源的整理利用出发,对现有的网站给予评价和分析,力图制定出一定的评价标准,以便于参考馆员和信息用户高效地查找所需的信息,也为网站的设计投资者提供一定的参考意见.     

信息弱势群体:信息权利、信息消费和信息扶贫

在我国信息化进程中,信息弱势群体在信息权利保障方面仍存在很多问题.文章拟从信息弱势群体的信息消费和信息权利保障角度,在对信息弱势群体、信息权利、信息政策、信息消费等概念间的关系进行梳理后,分析了在信息消费过程中,我国信息弱势群体在信息权利保障方面存在的问题及原因,并针对这些问题提出了信息扶贫的对策.