A confederate Agricultural Knowledge System

Abstract

Previous, analytical-empirical case studies of national Agricultural Knowledge Systems (AKSs) have produced a list of factors which are typical for successful AKSs. The aim of the present paper is to investigate (1) in how far these factors exist in the Swiss AKS, (2) in what ways the unique, confederal system of Switzerland has had an influence on its AKS, and (3) whether additional, generalizable factors can be identified, which could add to the efficiency of the national AKSs.

The federal system of Switzerland with its relatively small cantons which are responsible for law enforcement and agricultural extension (but not for research) imposes special conditions on its AKS and makes it difficult to manage them. Informal communication devices help to overcome this drawback.

The investigation of the Swiss AKS corroborates the list of criteria for well functioning AKSs that were identified in earlier research, and added two new points: (1) the need for “relais” stations to overcome interfaces between research and extension, especially when these two subsystems function at different organisational levels, or when extension is split up into small units; (2) the value of networking among different national AKSs.     

In their very own words: authors and scholarly journal publishing

This paper presents the results of a major investigation by questionnaire of author attitudes towards scholarly publishing, which was funded by the Publisher's Association. Altogether, the views of nearly 4,000 authors were obtained and this paper concerns just those thousand or so authors who accepted the invitation to write freely about their own personal feelings and experiences. Using QSR N6 textual analysis software, their comments were processed and themes extracted. While the rest of the questionnaire, which was formed of closed‐question, tick‐box type questions, clearly must have had some impact on their thinking, the authors had considerable latitude in regard to what they could say. The paper provides a unique opportunity to hear their views directly. The pressing topics turned out to be (in rough order of concern): the peer‐review system, copyright, journal prices, alternative business models for journal publishing, big deals, Elsevier, electronic publishing and digital journals.     

Bookselling—book buying: The European perspective of the online market

The book market in European countries is different than the U.S. market for various political, geographical, and cultural reasons. The authors outline these differences and provide background on the move to electronic commerce and future. The article includes many electronic and print sources of and bibliographic tools for locating books in the European market.     

Analysis of publications of the pilot issue of the data collection of the All-Russia Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Industry of Nanosystems and Nanomaterials”

The pilot issue of the data collection of the All-Russian Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Industry of Nanosystems and Nanomaterials” gives an approximate view of the state of this field of science at the beginning of 2007. The topics of articles in the pilot issue are analyzed. The directions of development of nanotechnologies are shown. The basic types of nanomaterials, the methods of their production, and their properties and applications are given.     

Diversity in the Information Seeking Behaviour of the Virtual Scholar: Institutional Comparisons

The logs of four universities using the OhioLINK journal system were evaluated for a period of fifteen months using deep log analysis methods in order to compare and contrast the information seeking behaviour of their users. Large differences were found, especially between the research and teaching universities. Methodological problems associated with making the comparisons are discussed in some detail especially in terms of defining online sessions.