Library and Information Science Commons^™

Online Issues Are Global, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

THE INFORMATION INDUSTRY is international. With major English-language online publishers based in the Netherlands, Germany, and Canada (not to mention Alabama and New York), the information you lease may be generated and designed anywhere in the world. Likewise, the issues and challenges facing libraries as they move to large-scale digital collections are global in nature.

Conferences about digital libraries are also international; in September I attended "Digilib: Towards a User-Centered Approach to Digital Libraries" in Finland. Two hundred attendees from over 20 countries discussed how to gather user information for the purpose of designing more useful digital libraries. Sessions were …

Database For Information Professionals, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Dialog version of ISTA was part of Dialog's full-text linking program, and ISTA indexers include URLs in ISTA records when they have them. ISTA's Donald Hawkins explains that "many users don't have accounts with Dialog. ITI cannot offer One-stop shopping.' EBSCO, on the other hand, has a wealth of resources and a large complement of databases...[including] a large collection of full text, which it hosts and has rights to."

What User Studies Tell Us, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Valid conclusions about user behavior should only be made within the research method used by each study. For example, if a researcher interviews academic faculty to determine if they prefer print or electronic sources, the conclusions should only state what faculty prefer, not what faculty actually use.

Remaking An Online System, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

ONLINE COMPANIES continually tinker with their systems. Commercial aggregators need to accommodate new databases or new features such as linking. Search engines must change ranking algorithms to subvert rogue web sites or hackers who seek to manipulate ranking. Systems need to improve performance and keep up with the competition or the current fashions in interface design.

It isn't often that a system can afford to do a total makeover, including architecture, new programming code, and new functionality. Factiva did this over the last few years; recently the H.W. Wilson Company has totally revamped its system. Ed Tallent, Boston College, reviewed …

Predicting The Future Of Databases, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

FORETELLING THE FUTURE has never been easy, but even the smartest futurist could not have foreseen the recent economic woes. Each year for the annual Database Marketplace feature (see LJ 5/15/03, p. 38ff.), we ask companies what are the most important trends for the upcoming year. Not surprisingly, economic gloom dominated this year's forecasts. Worrying about library budgets is only part of the picture, however, as libraries and information companies alike seek ways to bring additional high-quality digital information to users in more convenient ways.

Designing Systems For All Of Us, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Designing systems that serve both librarians and end users remains a necessity because information content providers rely on librarians to make their products available to the public. [John Barnes] reminded the audience that nearly half of all academic or public libraries are facing budget cuts-which directly affects publishers whose main customers are libraries. Barnes emphasized that publishers and libraries are part of a shared community and in a longterm relationship.

Are Online Librarians Teachers?, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

In my column "The Age of Online Instruction (LJ 9/1/02, p. 36,38), I made the bold assertion that "in this age of online libraries, librarians in all types of libraries are online educators." I should know better than to make an assumption without facts. John Ferguson, instructional services and systems librarian at Richland College Library in the Dallas County Community College District, immediately challenged the statement. Ferguson, who has survey results to support his assumptions, found that not quite half of academic libraries in the United States are currently "teaching libraries" and far fewer are "teaching proactively, rather than just …

Farewell To Metaphors, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

I HAVE ALWAYS LIKED metaphoric interfaces. When the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Engineering Information Village (Ei Village) first came out in the mid-1990s, they both made good use of metaphors. IPL used the metaphor of a small library reference/reading room, complete with reference librarian sitting behind the desk, ready-reference books on the desktop, bookshelves arranged in subject categories, and a study area.

Reflections On Two Decades, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1983, the hottest issue was the entry of the end user. Throughout the previous decade, expert searchers were the only ones with their hands on the keyboard. The widespread acceptance of the personal computer in the early 1980s spurred new expectations. End user versions of major intermediary systems heralded the beginning of the end user revolution. By 1993, end users were accomplished searchers but most likely on CD-ROM versions of databases.