Offers searching and browsing strategies to efficiently retrieve required information from online databases, online library catalogues, CD-ROMs, and the World Wide Web. The core of the book explains the link between information seeking and language, the role of controlled vocabularies, the way database indexes are structured, and the difference between searching and browsing. Principles are illustrated with practical examples drawn from a variety of platforms. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
This guide to information science and technology presents a clear, concise, and approachable account of the fundamental issues, with appropriate historical and theoretical background. Topics covered include information needs, seeking, and use; representation and organization of infomation; computers and networks; structured information systems; information systems applications; users' perpectives in information systems; social informatics; communication using information technologies; information policy; and the information professions.
Everybody knows what relevance is. It is a "ya'know" notion, concept, idea–no need to explain whatsoever. Searching for relevant information using information technology (IT) became a ubiquitous activity in contemporary information society. Relevant information means information that pertains to the matter or problem at hand—it is directly connected with effective communication. The purpose of this book is to trace the evolution and with it the history of thinking and research on relevance in information science and related fields from the human point of view. The objective is to synthesize what we have learned about relevance in several decades of investigation about the notion in information science. This book deals with how people deal with relevance—it does not cover how systems deal with relevance; it does not deal with algorithms. Spurred by advances in information retrieval (IR) and information systems of various kinds in handling of relevance, a number of basic questions are raised: But what is relevance to start with? What are some of its properties and manifestations? How do people treat relevance? What affects relevance assessments? What are the effects of inconsistent human relevance judgments on tests of relative performance of different IR algorithms or approaches? These general questions are discussed in detail.
The 25 contributions to this volume, largely reprinted from recent special issues of three information science journals devoted to historical topics, address an array of topics including Paul Otlet and his successors; techniques, tools, and systems; organizations and individuals; theoretical issues; and literature. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Techniques of mathematical and statistical analysis of books and other media of communication are applied to such works as research reports and scientific journals. About half of the 15 articles are from a special issues of Communication research 16(5), 1989. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
Dealing with information is one of the vital skills in the 21st century. It takes a fair degree of information savvy to create, represent and supply information as well as to search for and retrieve relevant knowledge. How does information (documents, pieces of knowledge) have to be organized in order to be retrievable? What role does metadata play? What are search engines on the Web, or in corporate intranets, and how do they work? How must one deal with natural language processing and tools of knowledge organization, such as thesauri, classification systems, and ontologies? How useful is social tagging? How valuable are intellectually created abstracts and automatically prepared extracts? Which empirical methods allow for user research and which for the evaluation of information systems? This Handbook is a basic work of information science, providing a comprehensive overview of the current state of information retrieval and knowledge representation. It addresses readers from all professions and scientific disciplines, but particularly scholars, practitioners and students of Information Science, Library Science, Computer Science, Information Management, and Knowledge Management. This Handbook is a suitable reference work for Public and Academic Libraries.
As fast-paced technical changes are transforming the field of information science, this book explores in depth the early stages of the field through the history of the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), which began in 1937 as the American Documentation Institute (ADI). ADIs early years coincided with the period when the organization, communication, and retrieval of information began to undergo critical changes. At this time, its appointed members represented the scientific and scholarly elite of the country. ADI offered innovative services that allowed research workers to obtain published information from remote sources and initiated a new channel for distribution of unpublished data. Only in the early 1950s did ADI become a membership organization. Examining this period, Irene Farkas-Conn raises important questions: How did the ADI come about? Did its founding signal the beginning of a new profession? Was it then, or still now, a technology-driven organization? Bringing together her knowledge of organizations, insights gained from interviews with key actors, and analysis of archival collections and private papers, she reconstitutes the emergence of the field as the history of ASIS is covered. Beginning with a detailed survey of the post-World War I period that preceded the creation of ADI covering topics such as the impact of national science, the introduction of microfilm for dissemination of scientific and scholarly information, copywright and documentation in the mid-1930s, she leads up to a discussion of the establishment and early years of the institute. The next sections covering World War II and the post-war period bring out the tie between the organization of wartime research and development and scientific communication, which contributed to the winning of the war. The concept of a Scientific Information Institute that would embrace bibliography, announcement, and distribution of scientific work, which Watson Davis developed in the 30s, was being realized in the postwar period when the cumulated results of wartime research had to be made avaliable to the public under presidential order. The remaining chapters chart international interests, restructuring of the institute, and the role of government and the profession in a changed society. The book includes a selected bibliography embodied in the endnotes and an index.
Part 1 introduces metadata concepts(i. e. understanding metadata and its schemes; metadata and bibliographic control). Part 2 focuses on several metadata schemes such as Dublin Core.
Libraries, archives and museums have traditionally been a part of the public sphere's infrastructure. They have been so by providing public access to culture and knowledge, by being agents for enlightenment and by being public meeting places in their communities. Digitization and globalization poses new challenges in relation to upholding a sustainable public sphere. Can libraries, archives and museums contribute in meeting these challenges?
"The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science provides an outstanding resource in 33 published volumes with 2 helpful indexes. This thorough reference set--written by 1300 eminent, international experts--offers librarians, information/computer scientists, bibliographers, documentalists, systems analysts, and students, convenient access to the techniques and tools of both library and information science. Impeccably researched, cross referenced, alphabetized by subject, and generously illustrated, the Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science integrates the essential theoretical and practical information accumulating in this rapidly growing field."
