Scholarly communication trends — voices from the vortex: a summary of specialist opinion

The views of specialists (academics, librarians, publishers and information scientists) on trends in scholarly communications were canvassed by means of structured questions. A greater commonality of views was found than might have been expected.     

Editorial zum Themenheft: ?‘Software-Reengineering“’

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Analysis of Statistical Question Classification for Fact-Based Questions

Question classification systems play an important role in question answering systems and can be used in a wide range of other domains. The goal of question classification is to accurately assign labels to questions based on expected answer type. Most approaches in the past have relied on matching questions against hand-crafted rules. However, rules require laborious effort to create and often suffer from being too specific. Statistical question classification methods overcome these issues by employing machine learning techniques. We empirically show that a statistical approach is robust and achieves good performance on three diverse data sets with little or no hand tuning. Furthermore, we examine the role different syntactic and semantic features have on performance. We find that semantic features tend to increase performance more than purely syntactic features. Finally, we analyze common causes of misclassification error and provide insight into ways they may be overcome.     

State of the art of expert searching: results of a Medical Library Association survey.

OBJECTIVES: Medical Library Association (MLA) members were surveyed to gather background about the current state of expert searching in institutions. The survey results were intended to guide the recommendations of the Task Force on Expert Searching for promoting the importance of expert searching and implementing those recommendations. METHODS: MLA members were surveyed, and data obtained from the survey were compiled and analyzed to answer three general questions: what is the perceived value of searching skills to the institution, how do health sciences librarians maintain and improve their searching skills, and how are searching services promoted and/or mandated in the institution. RESULTS: There were 256 responses to the survey. Over 95% of the respondents saw their expert-searching skills were of value to their institutions, primarily through performing mediated searches and search consultations. Over 83% of the respondents believed that their searching skills had improved over the past 10 years. Most indicated that continued training was very important in maintaining and improving their skills. Respondents promoted searching services most frequently through orientations, brochures, and the libraries' Web pages. No respondent's institution mandated expert searching. Less than 2% of respondents' institutions had best practice guidelines related to expert searching, and only about 8% had guidelines or policies that identified situations where expert searching was recommended. CONCLUSIONS: The survey supports the belief that health sciences librarians still play a valuable role in searching, particularly in answering questions about treatment options and in providing education. It also highlights the need for more expert searching courses. There has been minimal discussion about the perceived need for expert-searching guidelines in the institutions represented by survey respondents.     

Lighting the Shroud of Turin for Exhibition in 2015

ABSTRACT

Lighting a cultural heritage artifact requires balancing visual perception with preventive conservation, by providing the best lighting (in terms of spectral distribution and quantity) to enable the viewer to appreciate details and color, while limiting photo-induced degradation. The paper outlines the methodology applied by a multi-disciplinary team while lighting the Shroud of Turin at its last public exhibition in 2015. The methodology considered the special requirements of the Shroud, including exposure to ultraviolet light, while providing appropriate display conditions that would meet audience expectations. The desired appearance (readability of the body image and color) was defined with the help of Shroud researchers and confirmed by subjective tests, while appropriate light levels for preservation were set in agreement with standard requirements and using knowledge of the degradation of linen in visible and UV light. The installation provided a controlled environment and a managed visitor route to the Shroud, assuring excellent perception of both details and color, with the lowest illuminance level about 15?lx.     

Research trends and collaborations by applied science researchers in South African universities of technology: 2007–2017

This paper analyses the publication patterns of researchers in the field of applied sciences at Universities of Technology in South Africa. Aspects investigated include publications in SCOPUS-listed journals; number of citations and countries of publication. Collaborative research patterns at national and international levels were also investigated. A bibliometric analysis approach was followed using SCOPUS as the main source of data and analysing the articles published in selected applied science disciplines. Results show that researchers in the field of applied sciences in universities of technology have increased their number of publications over the past 10?years and are also working in conjunction with other researchers both nationally and internationally. The analysis is an important addition to the field in South Africa which helps in measuring how institutions are positively responding to government incentives in research. The results are also important to information professionals who are increasingly playing an important role in research impact assessments.     

Google Scholar's Coverage of the Engineering Literature 10 years Later

In 2008 Meier and Conkling first tested Google Scholar's coverage of the engineering literature against citations gathered from the Compendex database. Since that time, other studies have used the same methodology and found improvement in Google Scholar's coverage. This study uses engineering dissertations from Proquest Dissertations & Theses to create a data set of citations for the comparison of fee-based databases, Compendex and Scopus, against Google Scholar. From 1950 to 2017 Google Scholar outperformed both Compendex and Scopus in discoverability of citations in nine engineering subjects. These results have implications for collection management and information literacy program planning for librarians.