Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

What Does Usage Tell Us About Our Users?, Carol Tenopir, Eleanor Read, Maribeth Manoff, Gayle Baker, David Nicholas, Donald W. King

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Web 2.0: Our Cultural Downfall?, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Librarians, including American Library Association president Loriene Roy, are finding new ways to reach their constituents with social networking (see "Living the Virtual Library Life," LJ 10/1/07, p. 24). [...]after I heard Keen's keynote presentation at the recent International Association of STM Publishers in Frankfurt, Germany, and read his book on the long flight home, I recognized a kernel of truth in his arguments, which resonate with librarians' continued challenge to help users find accurate, reliable information. Keen might see this as one of the most pervasive dangers of social networking-the seductive power that leads even those professionals tasked with …

Perceptions Of Value And Value Beyond Perceptions: Measuring The Quality And Value Of Journal Article Readings., Carol Tenopir, Donald W. King

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

When measuring quality and value of journals, what is being measured, to whom does the value accrue, and why the measurement is being done must be considered. Both implicit and explicit measures of quality and value are possible. Preliminary results of ongoing readership research show that academic library e-journal collections have both purchase and use value to academic faculty. They spend their time reading, read many articles each year, and reading benefits their work in many ways.

Celebrating A&I Longevity., Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Continual pressures-including competition from free web search engines, the escalating costs of keeping up with human-based indexing of proliferating journal articles, and customer desires for online system interconnections and bells and whistles-have arguably made this past ten years more challenging than the 90 before. Matthew J. Toussant, CAS senior VP of editorial operations, notes that "patents are now the leading source of new substance information in the CAS REGISTRY database and accounted for 63 percent of new substance records by CAS in 2006."

The Impact Of Scholarly Communication On Lis Education, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Living The Virtual Library Life., Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Sites such as Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, and Second Life provide a personal, but virtual, library presence to link librarians and library patrons. Many think that Second Life, peopled by avatars and created by Linden Research Inc, could be a way for librarians to reach each other and maintain social connections, as well as serve continuing education.

Measuring Impact And Quality, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

For many decades it was the only major commercial system to use citation measures. Since 2004, Elsevier's Scopus and Google Scholar have also provided various citation measures, including impact factor and number of cited references. Authors may cite something they disagree with, rather than believe is of high quality; an author who publishes a lot may accumulate the same number of citations as an author with one seminal and highly cited paper. Because citing patterns vary by subject discipline, journal impact factors should not be used across disciplines nor to measure quality of individual authors.

Billions And Billions, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Reuters brand is associated with its international multimedia news services, but a larger part of its business is in financial services, including online trading and financial information. Dunn is a familiar face in the information industry, as former president of the Information Industry Association and CEO of Thomson Learning's Academic and International group. Products like ISI Web of Knowledge, Dialog, DataStar, and Westlaw, all major offerings in academic, law, and other corporate libraries, will become part of Thomson-Reuters Professional.

Engineers And Scholarly Journals: Reading Patterns In The Electronic Era, Carol Tenopir, Donald W. King

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Scholarly journals are an important source of trusted information, although the engineering professional reads fewer journal articles on average than do members of the scientific and engineering academic communities. Studies have shown that engineers spend a smaller proportion of work time reading from scholarly journals and that they read fewer articles than scientists and physicians. Nonetheless journals are useful and valuable to engineers, who also read many types of information resources, including standards, technical reports, books, and articles.

Remaining Relevant Online, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

For Library Journal's annual database marketplace survey, vendior were asked what major trends will most affect the future of online products and services. Worries about declining library budgets topped the list in 2002 and 2004. Budgets are still up there, but even bigger issues dominate in 2007.

Not Your Family Farm: The Information Industry Added Value With Unique Content And Custom Tools As Large Search Engines Entered The Market, Carol Tenopir, Gayle Baker, Jill E. Grogg

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

The information industry continues to consolidate, just as agribusiness has consolidated and now dominates farming. Both the family farm and the small information company still exist but are becoming rarer in an age of mergers, acquisitions, and increased economies of scale. Small companies distinguish themselves by high quality, special themes, or useful tools to keep and build their customer base.

The database marketplace this year was dominated by the news of several large acquisitions. Wiley's purchase of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. drew concerns from members of the Information Access Alliance (IAA), made up of representatives from SLA, the American Library Association, …

Quality Still Matters, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Most librarians agree that quality matters, but the ongoing debate recently raised about the quality (or lack thereof) of Wikipedia entries and the falsified credentials of some Wikipedia editors referenced in a New Yorker article have spawned another round of discussions, particularly from instruction librarians, about the need to preach quality to students.

When You Just Need A Part, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Sometimes a user really only needs part of an article or part of a chapter--a table, a photograph, a map, or another item. Electronic journals and books make all of these levels of granularity possible.

A Flurry Of Sales, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Last year ended with a flurry of major sales in the information industry. Just as 2006 holiday shopping started, primary and secondary publishers announced acquisitions, mergers, and sales opportunities.

Can Johnny Search?, Carol Tenopir

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

Federated searching seems obvious in the age of Google: students, faculty, and the public have what they have come to expect--a simple search box for one-stop shopping for information. The jury is still out on federated search systems, even though more libraries now have them. There are murmurings that federated search has lower-than-expected use and may not be the magic search bullet librarians were led to believe.

Figure And Table Retrieval From Scholarly Journal Articles: User Needs For Teaching And Research, Robert J. Sandusky, Carol Tenopir, Margaret Casado

School of Information Sciences -- Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper discusses user needs for a system that indexes tables and figures culled from scientific journal articles. These findings are taken from a comprehensive investigation into scientists' satisfaction with and use of a tables and figures retrieval prototype. Much previous research has examined the usability and features of digital libraries and other online retrieval systems that retrieve either full‐text of journal articles, traditional article‐level abstracts, or both. In contrast, this paper examines the needs of users directly searching for and accessing discrete journal article components – figures, tables, graphs, maps, and photographs – that have been individually indexed.