The Impact of Library Support on Education Faculty Research Productivity: An Exploratory Study

The authors surveyed college and university faculty members in the field of professional education to gauge their perceptions pertaining to the impact of library services on their research. The purpose was to illuminate faculty perceptions in a postsecondary education environment that emphasizes research productivity and requires libraries to provide ever more compelling evidence of their institutional value. Survey results showed that faculty members continue to rely on traditional discovery and collections-based library services, but that additional support for grant activity, data management, intellectual property management, and bibliometric analysis is needed. Implications for transforming library research support are discussed, and areas for further study are proposed.     

The Motivations of Book Publishers in Germany and Australia: An Empirical Comparison

Our study compares the motivations of Australian and German book publishers. The results demonstrate remarkable similarities, but also a significant difference regarding the effects of the publishers’ self-concept. In the German case the publishers with a dominant economic orientation are more proactive than the publishers with a dominant cultural orientation. In the Australian case, this correlation does not exist. The same difference holds for the relationship between the economic orientation and extrinsic motivation. We discuss these results and examine empirical evidence and theoretical suggestions to explain the differing findings. The data stem from surveys conducted in the two countries with responses of 196 (Germany) and 54 publishers (Australia).     

The Bertelsmann AG: An Exploratory Case Study on Synergy Management in a Globally Acting Media Organization

By the multiple usage of immaterial resources across organizational and national market borders, globally acting media conglomerates are able to achieve outstanding synergies. For this reason, they are expected to realize higher margins of profit than smaller-size, nondiversified media firms. However, no empirical evidence has been found for a positive correlation between a firm's size or its presence in many businesses of the media industry and its economic performance until now. Consequently, possible synergies do not seem to be fully exploited in many cases. This article analyzes how to institutionalize and implement synergy management in decentralized media organizations. For these purposes, we first develop a basic understanding and then conduct an exploratory case study on Bertelsmann's approach, which overcomes the stress ratio between corporate coordination and independent action at the operational level. Distinguishing various product types and triggers, this case study renders the process of synergy management more precisely and illustrates how to arrange responsibilities between organizational units. Finally, by relating the results of the case study to the body of literature, we work out patterns of responsibility assignment and drivers of success for strategic integration. In contrast to operational integration, the latter may lead to synergies due to cross-divisional cooperation and business development.     

Mapping Ethical Arguments in Journalism: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the potential of a cognitive mapping variant called argument mapping for representing the process of ethical reasoning in journalism. The assumption is that some ethical reasoning journalists do on the job may be observable in the ethical argumentation that takes place among peers in newsroom discussions about ethically problematic situations. After some background on cognitive mapping and the novel aspects of its application in this study, an extended example is presented to illustrate the usefulness and limitations of the argument mapping technique in this context.     

探索式搜索行为的眼动研究

采用眼动探测的实验方法研究网络用户探索式搜索行为的特点。实验综合运用眼动记录、问卷调查与访谈法,设计一个事实型（提问-应答式）搜索任务和两个复杂程度不同的探索式搜索任务,并根据被试检索能力分两组进行实验。对实验中搜索、链接、关闭等搜索行为,基于任务及兴趣区的眼动指标进行组间与任务间差异性比较,结果表明任务类型与搜索能力均对探索式搜索行为产生不同程度的影响。     

Mobile Phone Use in AA Networks: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of mobile phone use for mutual support within social networks of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA). A sample of mobile phone owners and non-owners in AA was surveyed to assess their perceptions and uses of this technology. Mobile phone owners reported very positive perceptions of the technology as a resource for recovery and heavy use of the mobile phone for this purpose. Non-owners also reported positive perceptions of the mobile phone as a resource for recovery and that expense was the primary reason for not using a mobile phone in their recovery efforts. Heuristic, theoretical, and practical implications of the study are included in the discussion.     

Mobile Phone Use in AA Networks: An Exploratory Study

The purpose of this study was to explore the role of mobile phone use for mutual support within social networks of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA). A sample of mobile phone owners and non-owners in AA was surveyed to assess their perceptions and uses of this technology. Mobile phone owners reported very positive perceptions of the technology as a resource for recovery and heavy use of the mobile phone for this purpose. Non-owners also reported positive perceptions of the mobile phone as a resource for recovery and that expense was the primary reason for not using a mobile phone in their recovery efforts. Heuristic, theoretical, and practical implications of the study are included in the discussion.     

The Emergence of a News Website Ecosystem: An Exploratory Study of Hespress

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the emergence of a news ecosystem, focusing on Hespress, Morocco’s first, largest, and most popular news website and its current economic success. My analysis investigates Hespress’s emergence and growth into a significant source for news content, reaching an unprecedented number of readers in Morocco and abroad. This paper argues that the success of Hespress’s business model is grounded in a particularly well-developed understanding of social media, the changing habits of digital readers, and a strategic combination of investigative reporting and curated user-generated content. My findings, then, show how Hespress used a strategy that can serve as a sustainable revenue model which was diversified to include other sources of revenue such as e-commerce, branded events, and native advertising, combined with distribution strategies that rely heavily on social and other digital platforms.     

The Impact of New Student Housing on Library Usage: A Case Study

A quantitative analysis of campus housing figures and library usage statistics suggests a stronger correlation than library usage compared to other enrollment figures. New residents on a university campus were surveyed on their frequency and reasons for utilizing the library's physical and online resources, before and after moving in.     

The Personal Organization of Electronic Mail Messages in a Business Environment: An Exploratory Study

In the business world, electronic mail (e-mail) has emerged as a widely used communication tool for transmitting knowledge between managers. As a result, these messages will require organization should future access to this trapped knowledge be expected and desired. A manager's e-mail classification scheme should be logically constructed in anticipation of future need, but future need may be driven by the information needs of other people within the organization such as superiors or subordinates. This researcher explored the nature of e-mail classification and documented the emergence of a high utility, multi-stage, classification process. The resulting framework consists of four categories that help explain how managers classify business-related e-mail. The first category reflects the immediate needs of the manager and the behavior of establishing relationships between messages. The second category reflects the manager's use of the in-box as a crude task-manager. The third category aligns with the manager's interest in scanning the environment. The fourth category reflects the managers perceived future need for the captured knowledge. The subjects rejected automatic classification and preferred an enumerative scheme. The researcher illustrates how the results of this study align with Marco and Navarro's three stage cognitive process that leads to stored knowledge (On some contributions of the cognitive sciences and epistemology to a theory of classification, Knowledge Organization, 20(3), 126–132). The cognitive processes that underlie classification are an essential component in understanding knowledge organization and have remained in focus during this study.     

WorldCat,the Other ETD Database: An Exploratory Study

Many librarians perceive ProQuest’s Dissertations and Theses as the key resource for searching dissertations and theses. However, the Online Computer Library Center’s (OCLC’s) WorldCat also provides a means for locating electronic dissertations and theses. This study compared these two databases and found two key observations. First, both databases provided access to a similar number of citations. Second, WorldCat consistently had twice as many citations for which ProQuest had no records. WorldCat provides an important means of locating electronic theses and dissertations.     

Understanding Information-Seeking Behavior for Conducting Tasks: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to investigate the information-seeking behaviors of police officers who work in police stations in the context of conducting tasks. In this study, Leckie et al.'s model of the information-seeking behavior of professionals is tested. The findings indicated that police officers initially consulted their personal knowledge and experience. However, contrary to the expectation, they rarely consulted informants. In addition to this, police officers rarely consulted printed journals, libraries, books, and conferences as information sources. Surprisingly, there were no significant differences in the information sources used by police officers based on their educational level. While bivariate relationships show significant difference for age, service years in police stations, and service years in policing, the same variables do not hold as significant when introduced into multiple regressions. Possible implications of the study were discussed in the conclusion section.     

Using Technological Attributes to Study Online Media: The Case of User-Generated Content

This study offers empirical evidence of Mix-of-Attributes (MOA) approach's analytical benefits, and illustrates how the MOA approach can be utilized. The study begins by content analyzing the most popular Web sites containing political user-generated content (UGC) and documenting presence of search efficiency, customizability, manipulability, participation cost reduction, and community orientation technological attributes. A cluster analysis is then used to develop classification of political UGC Web sites based on their attribute scores. The conventional and the attribute-based classifications of UGC are shown to be different, providing evidence of the MOA approach's usefulness. Theory-building implications of the attributes, the attribute-based classification, and the MOA approach are discussed.     

实质性共链分析的实证研究——对全共链分析的修正

当前的共链分析研究主要沿用了共引分析的方法,但由于网络中充斥着大量的非实质性链接,就使这种共链分析的假设前提难以成立,分析结论的可信度低.在本文中,我们提出"实质性共链分析"作为对"全共链分析"的修正,认为"实质性共链分析"比"全共链分析"更有效,并以图书馆学情报学博客共链分析为实例验证了这一假设的正确性.     

Academic Library Leadership in South West Nigeria and Recession: An Exploratory Study

ABSTRACT

Academic libraries in developing countries are underfunded and require transformational leadership to manage the resultant changes and ensure organizational effectiveness. This study attempts to identify the prevalent leadership styles in academic libraries in South West Nigeria using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire. The study reflected that the library managers portrayed mostly a mix of transformational and transactional leadership styles. The library budget, equipment, and acquisition were most affected by recession. The library leaders preferred a mixture of investment and retrenchment (cost controlling) strategies to cope with recession. Leadership assessment using transformational model for coaching and recruitment is recommended for libraries.     

Divergent Perspectives on Language-Discordant Mobile Medical Professionals' Communication with Colleagues: An Exploratory Study

On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke apart as it re-entered the atmosphere. Months later, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board determined the immediate cause of the crash, but it also alluded to relationships NASA has with other organizations as being problematic, suggesting that Columbia was a painful symptom of a deeper disease. This paper uses resource dependency theory and structuration theory together to examine NASA's interorganizational network, illustrating that NASA is involved in multiple toxic relationships and that a pattern has developed through NASA miscues in the last 20 years. This case study demonstrates the advantages of using these two theories together, how such integration provides a useful perspective for understanding power and change in interorganizational relationships. The paper also discusses practical suggestions for NASA specifically, but also for others as organizations become more dependent on external stakeholders and interorganizational relationships.     

影响读者选择电子书行为因素初探

借由二元罗吉特模式探讨影响读者选用电子书的因素及其对选择行为所造成的影响。本研究回收有效样本数为392份,经由二元罗吉特模式的分析显示,电子书价格高低、职业与每周上网时间等对于选择行为有显著的影响。电子书价格变化对市场占有率影响较大,纸质书价格上涨对电子书市场占有率影响较小,电子书价格上涨对纸质书影响较大。研究结果还显示,学生对于电子书的接受度高,如果能继续保持其优势,包括数量庞大的电子书、功能强大的阅读器,在版面安排上设计更适合于笔电与阅读器上阅读的电子书,并且改善付费方式,若能辅以电子书价格的优势,必能有效提高电子书市场占有率。     

基于内容分析法的企业门户主页架构研究:以IT企业为例

页面架构是企业门户网站功能实现的载体。文章采取内容分析法,对20个IT企业门户网站的版式布局、导航系统、多媒体元素的构成情况和效果进行了分析,对各个部分之间的相互关系进行了探讨,并通过对比点击率最高的几个网站的主页架构情况,归纳出实用效果较好的架构及其特征,从而提出具体的企业门户网站主页架构选择建议。     

Cyberorganizing Everyday Heritage in and around Public Libraries: An Exploratory Study in Illinois

Trends from both within and without public librarianship create new opportunities for libraries to serve the public’s interest in heritage information. Based on a workshop series in Illinois, this article presents exploratory findings on existing public library heritage services and how cyberorganizing can enhance these services. Public libraries offer heterogeneous heritage services in local contexts composed of multiple actors and institutions. Improving this service area involves organizing within libraries, across local institutions, and among individuals with diverse interests. Part of this organizational work involves digital technologies, but people are the core element in organizing everyday heritage services.