Purpose: Information sharing is a relatively unexplored part of the information behaviour. The aim of this paper is to examine the research on the concept, as it appears in other bodies of literature and to draw out the key variables that appear to influence information sharing in different contexts. Methods: A literature review was carried out…

Introduction: We define the results list problem in information search and suggest the "associative index model", an ad-hoc, user-derived indexing solution based on Vannevar Bush's description of an associative indexing approach for his memex machine. We further define what selection means in indexing terms with reference to Charles Cutter's 3…

Introduction: We examine how residents and citizens of The Netherlands perceive open access to acquire preliminary insight into the role it might play in cultivating civic scientific literacy. Open access refers to scientific or scholarly research literature available on the Web to scholars and the general public in free online journals and…

Introduction: Investigates how effectively Web search engines index new sites from different countries. The primary interest is whether new sites are indexed equally or whether search engines are biased towards certain countries. If major search engines show biased coverage it can be considered a significant economic and political problem because…

Introduction: In this paper we propose a multi-agent Selective Dissemination of Information service to improve the research community's access to digital library resources. The service also provides a new recommendation approach to satisfy researchers' specific information requirements. Method: The service model is developed by jointly applying…

Introduction: Explores the approach to communication of memory in archives, libraries and museums in European Union research projects in 2000-2005. The main objectives were: to identify predominant aspects of heritage communication; to determine whether and how heritage communication was related to memory; to establish patterns of participation in…

Introduction: This paper constitutes part of a series of studies intended to establish "Literature and Art Informatics". The paper describes the conceptual background of multiple correspondence analysis and its use in visualizing conceptual spaces to describe the values that motivate the use of information technology by literary authors. An…

Introduction: The relationship between hypothesised behaviour resulting from a personality test and actual information behaviour resulting from a group-based assignment process is addressed in this paper. Methods: Three voluntary groups of ten librarianship and information science students were followed during a project assignment. The long…

Introduction: This paper studies the situation of research on Catalan literature between 1976 and 2003 by carrying out a bibliometric and social network analysis of PhD theses defended in Spain. It has a dual aim: to present interesting results for the discipline and to demonstrate the methodological efficacy of scientometric tools in the…

Introduction: The rapid growth of the Internet has modified the boundaries of information acquisition (tracking) in environmental scanning. Despite the numerous advantages of this new medium, information overload is an enormous problem for Internet scanners. In order to help them, intelligent agents (i.e., autonomous, automated software agents…

Introduction: We estimate the total yearly volume of peer-reviewed scientific journal articles published world-wide as well as the share of these articles available openly on the Web either directly or as copies in e-print repositories. Method: We rely on data from two commercial databases (ISI and Ulrich's Periodicals Directory) supplemented by…

Introduction: The study contributes to the conceptual investigation of information use by reviewing the conceptions of epistemic work proposed by Cook and Brown, and knowing in practice proposed by Orlikowski. The above conceptions are developed in the field of organization science. Method: The key articles by Cook and Brown, and Orlikowski were…

Introduction: Sharing of information across cultural boundaries does not always live up to expectations. Information behaviour is an underlying factor, which can contribute to poor use or non-use of the information or information services at the disposal of indigenous people in a development context. Method: A literature study of information…

Introduction: We define a collection of metrics for describing and comparing sets of terms in controlled and uncontrolled indexing languages and then show how these metrics can be used to characterize a set of languages spanning folksonomies, ontologies and thesauri. Method: Metrics for term set characterization and comparison were identified and…

Introduction: Publishing research findings in open access journals is a means of enhancing visibility and consequently increasing the impact of publications. This study provides an overview of open access publishing in premier research institutes of India. Method: The publication output of each institution from 2003 to 2007 was ascertained through…