There has been a transformation in managers’ information seeking behaviour over the decades. Based on an extensive literature review, this article analyses the factors which have influenced managers’ choice of source preferences. The review reveals four key dimensions used to study source preferences, i.e. contextual, situational, personal/sociocultural, and informational and identifies common factors under each. The factors given main weight in the literature are accessibility, quality, and richness of the information, as well as individual and institutional characteristics. The article also reflects on the data collection techniques used in information needs studies.
This paper investigates the perceptions of the heads of 12 LIS schools about KM education. The heads from North America, Europe and Pacific region who consented to participate in this study had either been offering KM courses or had an apparent interest in these programs. Data about perceptions were gathered around the nature of their KM coursework, KM positions their graduates might target, interdisciplinary partnerships, strategic partnerships with industry, and practical difficulties in the introduction of KM courses. They were asked to pinpoint difficulties in the areas of faculty availability, student enrollment, resource availability, creation of partnerships, working with professional associations, and interactions with industry. There existed a strong interest in offering KM courses, cultivating collaborations with business and computing schools, and developing strategic partnerships with industry. These heads identified those problems that hindered their progress.
Terms drawn from DDC indexes and IEEE Web Thesaurus were merged with DDC hierarchies to build a taxonomy in the domain of computer science. When displayed as a directory structure using a shareware tool MyInfo, the resultant taxonomy appeared to be a promising tool for categorisation that can facilitate browsing of information resources in an electronic environment.
Derived from actual librarians' e-mail replies to clients' queries, this study investigated the clients' understanding of technical terms commonly used by librarians during reference interviews. Two sample groups of clients were used for the study. The first group consisted of clientele of the National Reference Library of Singapore. The second group, comprising acquaintances of the staff from the Library Support Services of the National Library Board of Singapore, might be potential or actual library clients. The participants were asked to complete a multiple-choice questionnaire, consisting of 20 technical terms, each accompanied by one correct and three incorrect definition options. The findings revealed that the participants were able to define the technical terms correctly three-quarters of the time. However, 65% of the participants faced difficulty in defining at least one technical term. The reasons underlying the participants' choices included the appearance of the term in the chosen option and greater familiarity with the selected definition. The methods that were frequently used by the participants to derive the answers were guessing and knowing the meaning in another context. It is recommended that librarians adopt a balanced approach towards the use of technical terms when communicating with clients. While there is no need to refrain from using technical language totally, librarians should exercise discretion and care when communicating. 2
Purpose -Potential and benefits of classification schemes and thesauri in building organizational taxonomies cannot be fully utilized by organizations. Empirical data of building an organizational taxonomy by the top-down approach of using classification schemes and thesauri appear to be lacking. The paper seeks to make a contribution in this regard. Design/methodology/approach -A case study of building an organizational taxonomy was conducted in the information studies domain for the
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.