Online Information Review

Purpose The purpose of this study is to improve the egocentric search speed for important documents in neighbouring blogs. Design/methodology/approach This paper presents a rapid egocentric search scheme that narrows down the search space to more important blogs. To determine which blogs are more valuable among a user's neighbouring blogs, a heuristic function is developed that predicts the authority scores on the basis of the local information of the blog. The proposed approach improves the speed of the egocentric search process and the quality of retrieved documents. Findings A blog is a new medium that is receiving considerable attention. Its links enable one to acquire information about social relations between bloggers in a blog space, and these relations reflect bloggers' interests. Therefore, the ability to search documents in linked blogs is significant for bloggers. An egocentric search method is proposed to search for documents in such neighbouring blogs. However, it takes considerable time to find the most valuable documents in a user's neighbouring blogs when many blogs are linked to that user's blog. Originality/value This study shows that the number of neighbouring blogs, which are linked to a blog with trackbacks and comments, is important for estimating the authority of a blog. In the experimental results this method performs about five times faster than the egocentric search using a breadth‐first search strategy in searching for the top 5 per cent of the most important documents in the neighbouring blogs.

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the feasibility of using web‐mining technology on learning object (LO) usage information to discover the LO relation pattern and provide valuable recommendations on related learning resources. Design/methodology/approach – This paper proposes three kinds of learning object relation patterns and gives a specific definition of each pattern based on analysing the learners' usage data stored in the learning object repository. These relation patterns can be used to make effective recommendations to learners. Findings – LO usage data indicate the potential relation patterns between LOs. By using web‐mining technology on the usage data, it is possible to discover valuable relation patterns. Originality/value – The authors propose a set of LO relation patterns and indicate how they are closely related to users' learning behaviour.

Purpose – The web application presented in this paper allows for an analysis to reveal centres of excellence in different fields worldwide using publication and citation data. Only specific aspects of institutional performance are taken into account and other aspects such as teaching performance or societal impact of research are not considered. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Based on data gathered from Scopus, field-specific excellence can be identified in institutions where highly-cited papers have been frequently published. Findings – The web application (www.excellencemapping.net) combines both a list of institutions ordered by different indicator values and a map with circles visualising indicator values for geocoded institutions. Originality/value – Compared to the mapping and ranking approaches introduced hitherto, our underlying statistics (multi-level models) are analytically oriented by allowing the estimation of values for the number of excellent papers for an institution which are statistically more appropriate than the observed values; the calculation of confidence intervals as measures of accuracy for the institutional citation impact; the comparison of a single institution with an “average” institution in a subject area: and the direct comparison of at least two institutions.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss the new scientific search service Google Scholar (GS). It aims to discuss this search engine, which is intended exclusively for searching scholarly documents, and then empirically test its most important functionality. The focus is on an exploratory study which investigates the coverage of scientific serials in GS. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on queries against different journal lists: international scientific journals from Thomson Scientific (SCI, SSCI, AH), open access journals from the DOAJ list and journals from the German social sciences literature database SOLIS as well as the analysis of result data from GS. All data gathering took place in August 2006. Findings The study shows deficiencies in the coverage and up‐to‐dateness of the GS index. Furthermore, the study points out which web servers are the most important data providers for this search service and which information sources are highly represented. The paper can show that there is a relatively large gap in Google Scholar's coverage of German literature as well as weaknesses in the accessibility of Open Access content. Major commercial academic publishers are currently the main data providers. Research limitations/implications Five different journal lists were analysed, including approximately 9,500 single titles. The lists are from different fields and of various sizes. This limits comparability. There were also some problems matching the journal titles of the original lists to the journal title data provided by Google Scholar. The study was only able to analyse the top 100 Google Scholar hits per journal. Practical implications The paper concludes that Google Scholar has some interesting pros (such as citation analysis and free materials) but the service cannot be seen as a substitute for the use of special abstracting and indexing databases and library catalogues due to various weaknesses (such as transparency, coverage and up‐to‐dateness). Originality/value The authors do not know of any other study using such a brute force approach and such a large empirical basis. The study can be considered as using brute force in the sense that it gathered lots of data from Google and then analysed the data in a macroscopic way.

The Greenstone digital library software is an open-source system for the construction and presentation of information collections. Collections built with Greenstone offer effective full-text searching and metadata-based browsing facilities that are attractive and easy to use. Moreover, they are easily maintainable and can be augmented and rebuilt entirely automatically. The system is extensible: software "plugins" accommodate different document and metadata types. Greenstone incorporates an interface that makes it easy for people to create their own library collections. Collections may be built and served locally from the user's own Web server, or (given appropriate permissions) remotely on a shared digital library host. End users can easily build new collections styled after existing ones from material on the Web or from their local files (or both), and collections can be updated and new ones brought online at any time.

The recently appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) is discussed. A complete list of business and law (BSL) databases is given in the 13th issue of this directory. The recently developed products consists of various media such as: CD-ROM, diskette, handheld, magnetic tape and online. The new online database being offered is Aero Safety & Maintenance, and for Diskette it is Australian Petroleum Statistics. It is pointed that for each of these product the newly implemented BSL databases are listed in the GDD issue.

Outlines new database products appearing in the Gale Directory of Databases, a two-volume work published twice a year. Provides figures for the distribution and percentage of new and newly implemented business and law databases, together with a lits of the databases including name, vendor and medium. Briefly discusses these by each medium.

This is the ninth article on social science, humanities, news, and general databases in a continuing series of articles summarising and commenting on new database products. There are two companion articles: one covering science, technology and medicine (STM) appeared in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 1 and the other covering business and law (BSL) will appear in Online & CDROM Review vol. 21, no. 3. The articles are based on the newly appearing database products in the Gale Directory of Databases. The Gale Directory of Databases (GDD) was created in January 1993 by merging Computer-Readable Databases: A Directory and Data Sourcebook (CRD) together with the Directory of Online Databases (DOD) and the Directory of Portable Databases (DPD).

The article describes a digitisation project in which Göteborg University Library, Sweden, is publishing a collection of eighteenth century manuscripts on the Internet, in collaboration with its history department. The aims of the project are to make one virtual collection of documents owned by different institutions, to give free and open access to the collection, to save heavily used documents from wear and tear, and to let users enrich the collection by subject indexing and by their own research findings. The texts are the scattered remains of the archives of the Swedish East India Company (1732 -1813). These documents, which are in great demand by academic users as well as by the general public, are being digitised as high quality images. Instead of text encoding, indexing is used to provide searchable entries for words in document titles, names of people, and subjects.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which Web 2.0 applications are prevalent in government web sites, the ways in which Web 2.0 applications have been used in government web sites, as well as whether the presence of Web 2.0 applications correlates with the perceived quality of government web sites. Design/methodology/approach Divided equally between developing and advanced economies, a total of 200 government web sites were analysed using content analysis and multiple regression analysis. Findings The prevalence of seven Web 2.0 applications in descending order was: RSS, multimedia sharing services, blogs, forums, social tagging services, social networking services and wikis. More web sites in advanced countries include Web 2.0 applications than those in developing countries. The presence of Web 2.0 applications was found to have a correlation with the overall web site quality, and in particular, service quality. Research limitations/implications This paper only covers government web sites in English. Emerging genres of Web 2.0 applications such as mashups and virtual worlds have not been included. Moreover the data were drawn solely from the public domain. Practical implications Decision makers and e‐government web developers may benchmark their own efforts in deploying Web 2.0 applications against this study. The numerous exemplars cited here serve as a springboard to generate more ideas on how Web 2.0 applications could be used and harnessed to improve the overall quality of government web sites. Originality/value This paper unites two research interests: Web 2.0 and web site quality. It also extends previous studies by investigating the suite of Web 2.0 applications found in government web sites around the world.

Purpose There has been considerable discussion of various aspects of the “Web 2.0” concept in the past several years. However, the Web 2.0 concept as a whole has not been analysed through the lens of the Web 1.0 metrics on which managers rely heavily for planning and evaluation. This paper aims to analyse the relationships among a site's audience metrics and its degree of Web 2.0‐ness. Design/methodology/approach Data collected from an online panel's clickstreams were aggregated to derive the web audience metrics. A web site's degree of Web 2.0‐ness was evaluated through a three‐step procedure by a series of binary criteria as to whether the site accommodates popular Web 2.0 applications. Pearson and Spearman correlations were conducted for the empirical analysis of data consisting of clickstreams gathered from an online panel coupled with expert scoring of web sites. Findings It was found that the size of a web site's visitor base is positively associated with the average number of page views per visitor. The average number of page views per visitor is in turn positively associated with the speed at which the visitors consume the site's content. Furthermore, a site's degree of Web 2.0‐ness is positively associated with the average number of page views per visitor and the speed of content consumption on the site. Practical implications First, the “double jeopardy” phenomenon of small brands found in the consumer package goods market is also observed for small sites in cyberspace in terms of audience metrics. Second, the accommodation of more Web 2.0 applications in a web site enhances the site's attractiveness so that its visitor base grows and its visitors will have a deeper relationship with the site. Originality/value This paper examines the Web 2.0 phenomenon through the Web 1.0 lens by exploring the relationships among web audience metrics and the degree of Web 2.0‐ness across web sites. It characterises the relationships among a web site's audience metrics and those between such metrics and the site's degree of Web 2.0‐ness. In addition this study fills an important gap in the literature and could serve as a stepping‐stone for further exploration of Web 2.0 issues from the market perspective.

Purpose This paper aims to explore the roles Web 2.0 applications play in niche cultures such as rock music diffusion. Design/methodology/approach This paper aims to examine the influence of online forums on fans of rock music and to validate the intermediating roles of the cognitive variables. Findings The results show that the three factors associated with innovation diffusion theory play different intermediating roles in the relationship between the stickiness of online forums (their ability to make users stay longer and return) and the levels of appreciation displayed by fans of rock music. While stickiness shows a significant positive impact on an individual's perception and image of a rock band, visibility has a significant negative influence on the individual's level of enthusiasm for the band. Research limitations/implications Additional data and measures are required for in‐depth investigations of other cultural contexts. Practical implications The study could be helpful for determining the influence of online forums on rock music diffusion and for planning innovative promotions and sales strategies for rock bands. Moreover the findings could be applicable to the marketing and promotion of other niche culture items. Originality/value This study's originality lies in confirming the intermediating roles of the cognitive variables based on innovation diffusion theory between online forums' stickiness and appreciation of rock bands by using a mixed qualitative and quantitative approach and then by showing the opportunities and challenges provided by networking to rock music.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss new approaches for managing personal knowledge in the Web 2.0 era. The paper questions whether Web 2.0 technologies (social software) are a real panacea for the challenges associated with the management of knowledge. Can Web 2.0 reconcile the conflicting interests of managing organisational knowledge with personal objectives? Does Web 2.0 enable a more effective way of sharing and managing knowledge at the personal level? Design/methodology/approach Theoretically deductive with illustrative examples. Findings Web 2.0 plays a multifaceted role for communicating, collaborating, sharing and managing knowledge. Web 2.0 enables a new model of personal knowledge management (PKM) that includes formal and informal communication, collaboration and social networking tools. This new PKM model facilitates interaction, collaboration and knowledge exchanges on the web and in organisations. Practical implications Based on these findings, professionals and scholars will gain a better understanding of the potential role of Web 2.0 technologies for harnessing and managing personal knowledge. The paper provides concrete examples of how Web 2.0 tools are currently used in organisations. Originality/value As Web 2.0 has become integrated in our day‐to‐day activities, there is a need to further understand the relationship between Web 2.0 and PKM.

Purpose This article seeks to propose a new vision for public libraries in the digital age. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper is based on an understanding of the recent developments in ICT, internet and digital libraries; and also on the authors' personal experience in research and development in library and information science – especially in relation to public libraries – and digital libraries. Findings The study argues that currently there are no proper mechanisms for capturing, preserving and disseminating community knowledge, and proposes that public libraries in the digital age should take a new role whereby they should act not only as a gateway to knowledge, but also as a platform facilitating the creation of, and access to, local community knowledge. Proposes a model for PL2.0 where public libraries can take on this new role to build a network of community knowledge. Research limitations/implications The paper proposes a conceptual model for the second generation of public libraries, and further studies are required to test and implement the model. Practical implications The paper proposes that the new role of public libraries will be to shift from solely providing access to knowledge to acting as a platform for the storage and dissemination of local community knowledge within the global context created by twenty‐first century digital technologies. Originality/value The proposed model will bring in a “cultural change” by giving a new role to public libraries in preserving and disseminating community knowledge.

The European Mathematical Information Service (EMIS) is a cooperative venture between several international partners under the umbrella of the European Mathematical Society (EMS). The main purpose of EMIS is to provide access to freely available information on mathematics in the Web. As an important part of EMIS an electronic library is stored on the main server and its mirrors, collecting all freely accessible electronic journals in mathematics combined with electronic versions of printed journals. It also contains electronic proceedings, volumes and monographs. This core content is embedded in, and linked with, an environment of comprehensive facilities for accessing mathematical research papers: literature information databases, projects for one-stop shopping sites for mathematics on the Web, freely available digital content of classical mathematical publications and access to electronic grey literature. The aim of this article is to describe this part of EMIS in some detail.

Purpose The blogging phenomenon has become a primary mode of mainstream communication for the Web 2.0 era. While previous studies found that campaign web sites did not realise two‐way communication ideals, the current study aims to investigate potential differences in communication patterns between campaign blogs and web sites during Taiwan's 2008 general election, with the aim of exploring whether the blogging phenomenon can improve the process of online political communication. Design/methodology/approach The study used a content analysis approach, the web style analysis method, which was designed specifically for analysing web content, and applied it to an online campaign context in a different political culture, using Taiwan's general election as a case study. Findings Results indicated that the themes of both campaign blogs and web sites focused on “attacking opponents” rather than focusing on political policies or information on particular issues. However, campaign blogs and web sites significantly differed in all other dimensions, including structural features, functions, interactivity and appeal strategies. Overall, in terms of the online democratic ideal, campaign blogs appeared to allow more democratic, broader, deeper and easier two‐way communication models between candidates and voters or among voters. Research limitations/implications The current study focused on candidates' blogs and web sites and did not explore the other vast parts of the online political sphere, particularly independent or citizen‐based blogs, which play significant roles in the decentralised and participant‐networked public spheres. Originality/value The study illuminates the role of hyperlinks on campaign blogs. By providing a greater abundance of external links than campaign web sites, campaign blogs allowed more voters, especially younger ones, to share political information in a manner that is quite different from the traditional one‐way communication model. The paper also argues that interactivity measures should be incorporated into the web style analysis method.

Reuters 3000 Xtra is a real-time and interactive global news and financial information service that covers the equity market, bond market, foreign currency and money market, and various derivative markets. While there are hundreds of business schools in the USA, only a handful of schools have established real-time financial and trading services for educational purposes. Currently only six schools are equipped with such services in the USA. The Subotnick Financial Services Center at the Zicklin School of Business of the City University of New York is the only real-time trading facility for education in New York City. Given the many advantages of educating and training students using simulation of real-time trading, the number of business schools that are considering acquiring such services is bound to increase. The emerging issue is how to use services such as Reuters 3000 Xtra to provide financial information education for students, faculty members, and potential traders. This article covers some important features of Reuters 3000 Xtra and illustrates how it may be used to provide financial information education. This article specifically discusses the use of Reuters Instruction Code (RIC), Speed Guide, Model Browser, and PowerPlus Pro to access, retrieve, organise, display, and analyse real-time data. Furthermore, this article demonstrates taking advantage of the real-time data feed to test the portfolio diversification theory by developing a diversified portfolio in the equity market. It is our hope that students, faculty members, business librarians, business information specialists and financial portfolio managers who are involved in Reuters 3000 Xtra training and teaching will benefit from this article.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyse factors influencing subscribers' usage of 3G mobile services in Taiwan. Design/methodology/approach The research model, based on a technology acceptance model (TAM) and added perceived enjoyment, was tested by means of a two‐stage structure equation modelling approach. Data were collected from 532 respondents via a web questionnaire survey. Findings The findings indicate that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and perceived enjoyment are positively related to attitude, and perceived enjoyment has a positive influence on perceived usefulness. Practical implications The findings suggest users of 3G mobile services need to be provided with more diverse and entertaining ways of communicating, which are at the same time easily accessible and convenient to use. Originality/value A new correlation from perceived enjoyment to perceived usefulness was found to have a significant effect. This finding indicates enjoyment as a key factor influences customers' adoption of 3G services.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to discuss open access to scholarly indexing/abstracting information. Design/methodology/approach – Discusses open access to scholarly indexing/abstracting information. Findings – Open access versions of the traditional ready reference tools cannot always substitute for the commercial, subscription‐based indexing/abstracting databases, but they can complement them. Originality/value – The paper offers insights into scholarly indexing/abstracting.

Provides an introductory look at what savvy users should know about the implications of having information about cited references in I/A records. Looks at the more sophisticated, link-enabled cited references and the novel citation scores in full-text collections, then discusses the alternatives for searching efficiently by elements of cited references: cited author, cited title, cited source and cited year in I/A databases and full-text archives.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to look at measures of e‐mail use and e‐mail management among academic faculty in relation to research productivity. The aim is to report only on e‐mail use and management. Design/methodology/approach – For this quantitative study, productivity data were gathered from information management systems of Bar‐Ilan University in Israel and a survey questionnaire was distributed in order to measure e‐mail use. The scholarly community of Bar‐Ilan University was surveyed via a web‐form – of the 781 survey copies disseminated, 412 (52.8 per cent of the total) were received and the final usable number was 390 (49.9 per cent of the total). Findings – With younger biological and/or professional age, there are correspondingly higher levels of e‐mail usage. It is clear that the younger a user is, the higher the perceived skill level and quantitative measures of e‐mail use, as well as a higher perception of one's capacity to use e‐mail. It would also seem that with older professional age, there is less perceived benefit to using e‐mail. With increased levels of perception as to the benefit of e‐mail to productivity, there is increased use of e‐mail. Originality/value – This paper provides a depth of study (in its range of disciplines covered, in a single location, with a broad population) with a range of e‐mail measures not previously seen in this decade. While Israel is small in size, it accounts for 1 per cent of global scientific journal articles, emanating mainly from the universities and its achievements are such that the global community can indeed learn from the behaviour patterns of Israel's scholars, represented by the findings at one of the largest research universities.

Adoption of technology in academic libraries sets up circumstances for collection of personal patron information and records of patron information seeking behaviour not possible in the pre-digital library. Even if collected unintentionally, this information may then be seized by law enforcement officials for criminal investigations. Passage of the USA PATRIOT Act has lowered the standards for obtaining search warrants that had previously been set by American legal precedent. This article describes potential situations where patron privacy can be endangered by the presence of information technology and how librarians can protect patron information and prepare patrons for safe information seeking in the online world.

With the requisite IT infrastructure now becoming commonplace in academic institutions, electronic journals are becoming an established component of academic life, but the management of electronic journals can not yet be considered trouble-free. This latest research project at Liverpool John Moores University focuses on the evaluation and promotion of electronic journals in academic libraries in the UK and in North America. The aim is to highlight any significant differences in the way that electronic journals are managed and to identify successes in order to establish “best practice”. Several issues emerge from the research. For electronic journals to become a significant alternative to the print version, there needs to be a recognition that the introduction of electronic journals will impact on working practices and staffing requirements, requiring more technical skills and competencies and changes in management priorities. Furthermore, electronic journals are still a “moving target”, making realignment even more difficult and posing awkward questions for decision makers as to the best way forward. The whole process of electronic journal development requires effective management of change. Interoperability would seem to provide the key to many of the issues involved. All of these factors influence the changing arena of LIS education.

The integration of the Internet has affected all functions of the library, particularly reference services. In the reference department, this integration has led to the utilisation of new tools and methods for providing information to library users. This study investigates the effect of the Internet on reference services in Malaysian academic libraries. The objective of the study was to find out how the integration of the Internet has affected reference professionals and services. The study also investigated respondents’ perceptions of the importance of the Internet in reference work. A total of 40 library professionals working in the reference department of nine Malaysian academic libraries participated in the study. Respondents felt that the Internet has contributed positively to reference work and has enhanced their effectiveness and efficiency. However, a majority of them disagreed that the Internet should completely replace traditional reference tools. Respondents also felt that reference librarians should possess good computing and Internet use skills for providing effective reference services.

The economic impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on the academic library and on the academic institution are discussed in terms of changes in the value chain of scientific information induced by the use of ICT. Argues that ICT is a very strong engine for change as it has the potential not only to transform the research information system, but also the educational information system or even the education system at large. Academic institutions will have to create their own publishing and archiving environments using the same technology as in research publishing. These developments will have a profound impact on the value chain of scientific information as it leads academic institutions to assume entirely new roles in this chain and to develop new capabilities. As well as a digital collection strategy, academic libraries will develop strategies for supporting e-learning and e-publishing. This leads to changes in the economic conditions at the institutional and also industrial level. The developments will be discussed in general.

Purpose – E‐books are an important and growing type of digital resource. Academic libraries have traditionally had a major role in selecting books and making them available to learners, scholars, and researchers. Therefore the processes and criteria that they apply in the selection and acquisition of e‐books may potentially have significant consequences for the future viability of e‐books as a product. This paper aims to report on research into the criteria and processes that academic libraries use to choose e‐books. Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 27 librarians in seven academic libraries in the UK. Findings – Academic libraries purchase e‐books from a portfolio of different vendors. In order to select the books and packages that they acquire they apply a number of criteria, including business models, licence, price, platform, interface, subject coverage, and match to reading lists. High on the list of librarians' concerns are: the variation in and complexity of business models for purchasing, licence variety and digital rights management (DRM) restrictions, and perceived high prices. Originality/value – This study focuses directly and in depth on the buying and selection processes and criteria. Insights offered by this study may be of value to publishers, aggregators and librarians.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the percentage of recently published books provided with tags drawn from LibraryThing for Libraries, the nature of these tags, the relation of the tags with keywords in the record and the percentage of records actually enhanced by tags. Design/methodology/approach A random sample of 600 records from a catalog of a large academic library was examined to determine whether or not they carry tags. A random sample of 160 records was taken to assess their nature and added value for retrieval purposes. Findings It was found that: about one third of the records are provided with tags; 80 percent of the tags are subject terms; 50 percent of the subject tags are covered by a keyword in the record; 25 percent are broader than a keyword and another 25 percent are related, narrower or new. Almost 40 percent of the records with tags can be considered as enriched. Research limitations/implications In some cases the determination of the added value required a subjective judgement. It was not examined whether the tags properly reflect the content of the book. Originality/value Unlike earlier studies, this study is based on a large and random sample. Tags are compared not only with subject headings, but also with other keywords and differences between disciplines are examined.

Renardus is a collaborative project of the EU’s User-friendly Information Society programme with partners from national libraries, university research and technology centres and subject gateways Europe-wide. Its aim is to build a single service allowing users to search and browse existing Internet-accessible scientific and cultural resource collections distributed across Europe. Renardus builds on the successes of subject gateway initiatives in Europe and elsewhere, and is evolving a collaborative model for addressing the increasingly difficult issues of sustainability and scalability facing individual gateway services. Describes the project’s context, progress to date and outstanding issues. Also outlines the opportunities and benefits for future collaboration with other organisations in developing the fully operational service.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on internet use, with particular respect to academics. The literature on academic uses of the internet is littered with empirical studies, which analyse aspects of the broad spectrum of uses to which the internet can be put, by academics anywhere in the world. This paper begins an initial attempt to provide a broad theoretical framework for internet adoption and utilization by academics, irrespective of rank. Design/methodology/approach – Paper based largely on literature survey and an assessment of the existing models of internet use by academics. Findings – The paper postulates an internet adoption model for academics. The Internet Adoption Model for Academics (IAMA) was conceptualized as an abstract object with five main components: internet for teaching, internet for research, internet for consultancy, internet for administration, and internet for policy making. The Internet Adoption Model for Academics (IAMA) provides a framework for internet use, and has the potential for being instructive for academics who have currently not integrated the internet fully into their professional activities. Originality/value – The paper presents a modest theoretical contribution to the academic internet‐use literature, and might influence new research streams in this important conceptual area.

Purpose This paper aims to study information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Compares information behaviour of British university academics in three disciplines – computer and information sciences, business/management, and English literature. Design/methodology/approach Discusses information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Findings English academics make higher use of printed information resources, such as text and reference books, than academics of any other discipline included in this study; they generally tended to be the least frequent users of electronic resources such as full‐text databases, indexing and abstracting databases, search engines, and internet sites. CIS academics generally tended to make greatest use of electronic‐based information resources, and the least use of print‐based information resources, and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIS academics were generally the most enthusiastic about the benefits of electronic resources, whereas English academics were the least enthusiastic about them. Nearly a quarter of English academics disagreed to some extent that electronic information was easier to use than printed resources, which might go some way to explain their lower use of electronic materials, and higher use of printed materials. Research limitations/implications Results of the quantitative study should have been supported and substantiated by quantitative analyses. Similar studies involving users from many more disciplines could show better discipline‐wise differences in user behaviour. Originality/value This is a research paper based on a nation‐wide survey of academics in British universities.

Purpose – The purpose of this article is to review and comment on the Australian Government's entry into the journal ranking domain. Design/methodology/approach – A review and reflection on the approach and potential impact of the direction taken. Findings – This project is arguably the largest of its type and the effects on academic publishing and the survival of journals could be far reaching. Originality/value – The article draws together current material on the Australian Government's activities and provides details of the scope of the journal ranking project.

In Bangladesh, there are only 0.2 million Internet users out of a population of 140 million. Because there is a lack of academic research on Internet usage, the prime objective of this study is to report the level of Internet use by university academics for their information and communication needs. The study also sought to find out whether differences exist among the various levels of academics in terms of their use of the Internet. Six categories of information and communication needs were identified and a survey conducted among the lecturers of Rajshahi University where the Internet was introduced in 2001. Findings showed that Internet use by academics is useful for some common needs and that the academic rank of users is an important factor in determining the priority of needs. It also showed that there are some barriers to adequate use of Internet resources. Suggestions are made for increased use of the Internet, to benefit the nation as a whole.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to aim to identify the antecedents of both actual acceptance and future use of the internet as a tourism information source. In the tourism sector, the internet is a medium of growing importance. Nonetheless, very few studies have researched the antecedents of internet acceptance and use by tourists. Design/methodology/approach This purpose was pursued by extending the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and applying it to a broad sample of international tourists. Findings The main findings concern the antecedent role of actual use with regard to future use, as well as the roles of usefulness and ease of use as drivers of the acceptance of the internet as an information source by the tourist. Research limitations The study analysed the acceptance of the internet as an information source but not its use as a medium for purchasing tourism products or services. Practical implications While most research results suggest that businesses and institutions should direct their attention to the usefulness rather than to the ease of use of the internet, the results of this study imply that within the tourism sector ease of use plays an equally vital role in internet acceptance. Furthermore, the results show that the creation of an internet‐use habit in the tourist builds a barrier to change of information source. Originality/value Amidst the rather few existing studies focused on tourist internet use, there is a body of research (including the present work) that identifies significant differences between tourism and other contexts (e.g. work, e‐commerce) regarding the importance of the antecedents of internet use. Moreover, there is, to our knowledge, no research to date testing the inclusion of behavioural habit to explain technology use.

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate students' adoption of an open access online education service in higher education and their perceptions of its attributes as an innovation in an emerging market. Design/methodology/approach – Given the exploratory nature of the research a two‐phase qualitative approach was adopted. The first phase comprised 11 in‐depth interviews to examine the universities' internal and external attributes that directly enhance the rate of adoption of the open access online education service. The second phase involved three focus groups examining students' perceptions of the innovation attributes as well as the likelihood that they would adopt the innovation. Findings – The results indicate that, besides the perceived attributes of the innovation being the main determinant of the students' adoption of it, a number of internal factors within the university and external factors within the educational market in Egypt directly influence the adoption process. Originality/value – The originality of the paper is in its empirical work as it adapted a well‐known theory, the perceived attributes of innovation model, and empirically tested it in a specific context: the higher education market in a developing country.

Purpose – This research seeks to examine the relationship between the open access availability of journal articles in anthropology and their citation conditions. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies a statistical logistic regression model to explore this relationship, and compares two groups of articles, those published in high‐ranked journals and those in low‐ranked journals based on journal impact factor, to examine the likelihood that open access status is correlated to scholarly impact. Findings – The results reveal that open access articles in general receive more citations. Moreover, this research finds that articles in high‐ranked journals do not have a higher open access rate, and articles in lower‐ranked journals have a greater increase rate of citations if they are freely accessible. Originality/value – The findings are contrary to the existing theory that a higher citation rate of open access articles is caused by authors posting their best articles online. It is hoped that the research discoveries can help electronic publishers and digital project managers to adjust their strategies in open access advocacy.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the integration of digital library (DL) technologies with ontology‐based knowledge representation in providing semantic rich information access (IA) in e‐learning. DL technologies have powerful and flexible content management and access functionalities, whereas ontology helps teachers and students to link content materials to their learning objectives. This paper demonstrates that the integration provides a powerful and meaningful e‐learning environment. Design/methodology/approach DiLight is designed as an interactive e‐learning system that integrates DL and ontology technologies. By conducting comparative experiments involving DiLight in students' actual learning process, the authors examined the advantages and limitations of DiLight in e‐learning. Findings Compared to a widely used e‐learning environment, DiLight can provide significantly better support for students' complex IA tasks because DiLight is more useful for relationship discovery and problem solving. DiLight is also effective even when students were either less familiar with tasks or felt that they were more difficult. There is no single best access method for all learning situations. Therefore, multiple IA methods should be built into e‐learning systems. Although most of time the search was the first choice of the students, ontology‐based methods were useful in supporting them to complete their tasks too. Originality/value This is a comparative empirical study using an interactive e‐learning system called DiLight to explore the usage of integrated DL and ontology in e‐learning. The experiment results demonstrate the value of the multiple IA methods provided by DL, and the usefulness of integrating DL with ontology.

Purpose This study aims to summarise the information about open access publishing models and to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a review of the academic literature, to conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis and adopt the multiple case study approach to analyse the open access publishing model. Findings Useful results include the findings that the success factors of open access business models are: creating savings in publishing costs, increasing incomes, adoption of innovative technologies and controlling the quality of journals. The open access publishing model makes the research permanently visible and accessible, with sustainable development. Research limitations/implications While the findings may be applicable to open access journals for reasons other than impact factor, further research would be required to confirm this. Originality/value This study provides results that may enhance one's understanding of the open access publishing model, allowing both the reader and the author to benefit from it. Open access publishing leads to wider dissemination of information and greater advances in science.

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine open access ready reference suites. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses various reference sources represented in the open access domain of the web. Findings – The paper finds that, in spite of the variety of open access reference suites mentioned, it is still advisable to be on the lookout for new developments, as some highly relevant sources are not available in any of them, especially some of the best open access subject encyclopaedias in the sciences and social sciences. Originality/value – The paper provides useful reviews of various open access reference sources.

Purpose Knowledge management (KM) is an important consideration in e‐government portals to ensure that knowledge flows efficiently between governments, individuals and organisations. A crucial aspect of e‐government portals that has not been addressed adequately is the extent to which KM mechanisms have been implemented. Specifically, the authors argue that appropriate KM mechanisms are necessary to support the access, creation and transfer of knowledge between these portals and their users. The paper aims to propose an evaluation model for this purpose by first defining the main KM mechanisms and then burrowing deeper into their constituent dimensions. Design/methodology/approach An evaluation model known as knowledge access, creation and transfer (K‐ACT) is presented which identifies three KM mechanisms for portals: knowledge access, creation and transfer. Each mechanism is characterised by a set of dimensions and sub‐dimensions representing the tools and features for supporting that mechanism. The model was derived from an analysis of the literature and validated by two independent reviewers who were trained in information science, were familiar with the objectives of the project and understood the concepts underlying KM implementation in portals. Using this model, a checklist was developed and applied to 60 e‐government portals in the Asian and North American regions to investigate the extent to which these KM mechanisms have been implemented. Findings The findings indicate that, on average, e‐government portals featured only about 36 per cent of the KM mechanisms described in the model. Furthermore, no significant differences in the implementation of the KM mechanisms were found between the two regions' portals. The evaluation also offered potential areas for improvement based on the K‐ACT model. Originality/value The present work has developed an evaluation model known as K‐ACT which can be used to assess KM implementation gaps in e‐government portals. This model can also be generalised to other types of portals. The evaluation also provides insights into the state of KM processes in the portals of the Asian and North American regions.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether user characteristics (including gender, age, education, ethnicity and employment) affect the frequency of access to community information networks (CINs). Design/methodology/approach – A user survey was conducted through selected New Zealand public libraries' web sites, and interviews with staff were conducted. Chi‐square (χ²) tests were used to test the research hypotheses in association with the research questions. Findings – CIN users come from various backgrounds in terms of education, ethnicity and employment, and they include females and males in every age group. However, more females access CINs than males, and the majority of CIN users are of European descent. Also more educated people tend to access CINs more. Respondents working in education, business/commerce, finance/banking and IT/telecommunications exhibited high CIN usage. Originality/value – The research findings are valuable resources for CIN developers in other organisations who are looking to improve their understanding of users' characteristics in association with the frequency of access to CINs, as well as to improve their services. Furthermore, such findings can be valuable to students and researchers who are interested in the fields of community information networks.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the continuous evolution of scholarly publishing and knowledge communication as a result of the internet revolution. Design/methodology/approach – Information was obtained from a literature review of the main contributions on “self‐archiving” – the broad term often applied to electronic publishing of author‐supplied documents on the web without commercial publisher mediation. The paper analyses the impact of the open access movement, which came to fruition after the OAI Metadata Harvesting Protocol was established, as it creates the potential for interoperability between e‐print repositories. It concludes by outlining the challenges for information managers in developing the full potential of open access. Findings – With regard to the future of self‐archiving, particularly in relation to peer‐reviewed journals, information managers have a very important role to perform within their organization. Originality/value – The paper highlights the benefits of publishing in e‐print repositories for authors and their institutions. It points to the roles and responsibilities of information managers, primarily within academic and research institutions, in devising clear institutional policies and assisting users to self archive their papers for the benefit of their own organizations and the global scientific community.

The Internet has become a favoured medium for the presentation and exchange of environmental and chemical data. To search for relevant information, the user either has to know the direct address of the Internet site, or has to use search engines and meta information repositories. In the latter case, the desired resource is described by a number of keywords, or descriptors. However, if too few descriptors are given, the answer set is immensely large. If too many or too specific descriptors are given, valuable information might be sorted out, because it lacks a particular descriptor. The Intelligent Cluster Index (ICIx) technology can remedy this situation. It generates a clustering of documents by their content characteristics. Applied in the described scenario this results in a grouping of Internet resources with comparable content. ICIx offers a similarity search facility based on the clustering. It allows the search for an arbitrary combination of descriptors. If an exact match is required, the result contains only documents matching all descriptors. In the similarity search, documents with comparable content – identified by the similarity clustering – can be included in the result set, even if they do not match all descriptors. Thus ICIx offers a wider range of relevant information in the answer than standard full text search provides.

Purpose – This paper aims at analysing the impact of open access (OA) on the creation, retrieval and transfer of scientific knowledge. In doing so, the focus is set on scientific research as one core function of higher education institutions. It also aims to identify potential advantages of OA over traditional subscription-based publishing models from the viewpoint of academic scientists. Design/methodology/approach – The approach of this study can be classified as analytical conceptual research. First the SECI model of organisational knowledge creation is applied to knowledge management in science (with the university as organisation). In a second step the resulting framework is used to describe influences of OA on the management of scientific knowledge. Findings – OA accelerates the creation and widens the dissemination of scientific knowledge. Subject-based repositories are suggested to provide the best conditions for retrieval of scientific knowledge. Furthermore, in terms of economic efficiency, OA has the potential to significantly decrease the costs of scholarly communication. Research limitations/implications – In this paper the focus of investigation is academic research. Thus in order to get the “big picture” the influence of openly accessible information on knowledge management processes in teaching and administration should also be evaluated. The approach used in this paper seems to be suitable for such an analysis. Practical implications – The findings of the paper are of interest for policy makers in higher education institutions – especially when facing decisions regarding the (financial) support of OA initiatives. Originality/value – The paper adds a theoretically sound approach of analysing OA impacts to the existing literature in this field.

Purpose – This article aims to understand the opportunities as well as the challenges posed by the methods for internationalized access to domain names. Design/methodology/approach – The paper first provides background information on how domain names are resolved in the domain name system (DNS). It then reviews the various methods for internationalized access to domain names with a focus on their technical implementation and potential problems. Finally, it discusses several important language and policy issues surrounding the methods. Findings – The methods proposed for internationalized access to domain names can be classified into two groups: ASCII‐compatible encoding; and multilingual keywords. ASCII‐compatible encoding methods, such as the internationalized domain name (IDN) standards specified by the internet engineering task force, seem technically sound since they do not affect existing DNS operations, but they have some structural limitations. Multilingual keyword methods are rather simple and intuitive to use but they are not compatible with one another and so may return different results from the same multilingual keyword query. Also, both ASCII‐compatible encoding and multilingual keyword methods can raise some important issues associated with languages and policies, such as linguistic problems, disputes over IDNs, and multilingual homographs. Originality/value – The issues discussed in this paper need to be addressed for broad and seamless implementation of the methods for internationalized access to domain names across various languages. The review of the methods and associated issues can prove helpful to those from internet users and domain name registrants to domain name registries and registrars.

This paper proposes the integration of tools to provide unified access to remote and heterogeneous archives, the contents of which can be grouped under the same subject, and which have been integrated to allow the user to navigate and conduct thematic searches. The information sources are locally frequently modified, added to, and removed, therefore attention has been paid to the permanence of their references. Source interoperability is supported at language, protocol and schema levels. The architecture is based on a new common schema of the archives which is defined in new representation and query languages on the basis of an ontology to avoid misunderstanding and ambiguity.

Describes some of the information retrieval issues faced by Arab libraries with bilingual (Arabic/English), biscript (Arabic/Latin) catalogues. Reviews earlier published work on multiscript bibliographic databases before focusing on controlled name and subject access points, including suggestions for how best to serve the information needs of a group of end-users who are predominantly native Arabic-speakers.

Purpose This paper aims to discuss a new tool for requirements gathering in the Web 2.0 era. It seeks to investigate the features that this kind of tool should have in order to be as widely applicable and useful as possible. Further, it aims to explore the extent to which business requirements for enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can be collected and discussed collaboratively in a worldwide community of business process experts. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a combination of empirical research, hermeneutics and design research. Findings The proposed Living Requirements Space (LRS) platform has the potential of becoming an international forum for collecting and discussing business requirements for ERP systems. Practical implications The LRS platform will allow ERP developers, ERP systems implementers, and academics to better understand the evolution of business requirements for ERP systems. It will create a knowledge base of ERP business requirements, that is, a repository that guarantees open and unrestricted access to content. It will thus allow for more international ERP systems and far more comprehensive education on and understanding of business processes and ERP systems. Originality/value LRS is an open access tool that allows for the gathering of ERP systems requirements in a vendor‐ and project‐independent approach that is unbiased towards any geographic region.

First generation scholarly research on the Web lacked a firm system of authority control. Second generation Web research is beginning to model subject access with library science principles of bibliographic control and cataloguing. Harnessing the Web and organising the intellectual content with standards and controlled vocabulary provides precise search and retrieval capability, increasing relevance and efficient use of technology. Dublin Core metadata standards permit a full evaluation and cataloguing of Web resources appropriate to highly specific research needs and discovery. Current research points to a type of structure based on a system of faceted classification. This system allows the semantic and syntactic relationships to be defined. Controlled vocabulary, such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings, can be assigned, not in a hierarchical structure, but rather as descriptive facets of relating concepts. Web design features such as this are adding value to discovery and filtering out data that lack authority. The system design allows for scalability and extensibility, two technical features that are integral to future development of the digital library and resource discovery.

While documents librarians are generally familiar with document usage through their circulation statistics, they have no idea of how publications are being accessed online. The University of Denver has developed a system for tracking online document access. By redirecting every URL in their OPAC for federal documents first to a ColdFusion database, recording the URL, and then sending the user to the online document, they were able to track each access to online documents. Then, importing these statistics into an Access database, they were able to provide an analysis by agency, date of document, and other features. This article presents the results of one year of tracking access through the University of Denver library OPAC.

Purpose The main purpose of this study is to assess the citation advantage for self‐archived Open Access (OA) agriculture research against its non‐OA counterparts. Design/methodology/approach At the article level, the paper compared the citation counts of self‐archived research with non‐OA articles based upon a sample of 400 research articles from ISI‐indexed (ISI, Institute for Scientific Information) agriculture journals in 2005. At the journal level the paper compared impact factors (IFs) of OA against non‐OA agriculture journals from 2005 to 2007 as reported by the ISI Journal Citation Reports. The paper also sought evidence of citation impact based on a random sample of 100 OA and 100 non‐OA publications from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in 2005. It used both ISI and Scopus databases for citation counting and also Google and Google Scholar for locating the self‐archived articles published in the non‐OA journals. Findings The results showed that there is an obvious citation advantage for self‐archived agriculture articles as compared to non‐OA articles. Out of a random sample of 400 articles published in non‐OA agriculture journals, about 14 per cent were OA and had a median citation count of four whereas the median for non‐OA articles was two. However, at the journal level the average IF for OA agriculture journals from 2005 to 2007 was 0.29, considerably lower than the average IF for non‐OA journals (0.65). Finally it found that FAO publications which were freely accessible online tended to attract more citations than non‐OA publications in the same year and had a mean citation count of 1.73 whereas the mean for non‐OA publications was 0.28. Originality/value Self‐archived agriculture research articles tended to attract higher citations than their non‐OA counterparts. This knowledge of the citation impact of OA agricultural research gives a better understanding about the potential effect of self‐archiving on the citation impact.