Describes how the strategies we use to locate information have begun to change as a result of computers and telecommunications technology.

Contains essays in which the authors explore the ways in which children and young adults seek, process, and use information, especially from electronic resources, focusing on young people who have developed beyond the picture book stage.

Explore the issues that are changing user/librarian interactions in today’s evolving electronic libraries This book examines the rapid advances in technology and scientific discovery that have changed the way sci/tech library users seek informationchanges which have also necessitated increasingly high levels of skill in information technology and advanced subject knowledge from librarians. From negotiating the intricacies of working with e-journals to simplifying the data collection process, anyone involved in allocating library resources or prioritizing research agendas will find relevant, useful information here, as will those involved in library education. Emerging Issues in the Electronic Environment: Challenges for Librarians and Researchers in the Sciences begins with Scientific Communication: New Roles and New Players, a detailed examination of the evolution of the information-seeking behavior of scientists, from the days of print-based resources to today’s electronic media. Next, you’ll find techniques designed to maximize the ability of scientists to make lucky connections in their electronic search for information in Too Important to be Left to Chance: Serendipity and the Digital Library. Four chapters in Emerging Issues in the Electronic Environment bring you up-to-date information on various aspects of working with e-journals: For Better or Worse: The Joys and Woes of E-Journals, investigates the impact of electronic-only journal holdings on collection development decisions and the accompanying issues of archiving, economics, content, and research use Scan It and They Will Come . . . But Will They Cite It? provides citation data on the usefulness and impact of retrospective digitization projects for journal contents The Use of Online Supplementary Material in High-Impact Scientific Journals raises vital questions as to whether the print or electronic article should be regarded as the primary archival resource Challenges and Opportunities for Bibliometrics in the Electronic Environment: The Case of the Proceedings of the Oklahoma Academy of Science investigates how issues of access, copyright, and fair use, as well as differences among online file formats may impact bibliometric analysis Two chapters in Emerging Issues in the Electronic Environment are designed to help simplify the data collection process. Information Overload: Keeping Current Without Being Overwhelmed will show you how to identify needed sources by using current awareness services and e-mail filtering technologies The Impact of Electronic Bibliographic Databases and Electronic Journal Articles on the Scholar’s Information Seeking Behavior and Personal Collection of Reprints reviews organizational methods for managing large collections of electronic articles. In addition, this forward-thinking book contains four chapters that point out possible avenues for increased librarian-facilitated service to users: Biology Databases for the New Life Sciences discusses the new sequence, microarray, and protein structure databases, the emergence of bioinformatics, and the opportunities available to librarians in this developing area Map and Spatial Data Acquisitions in the Electronic Age shows how the traditionally complicated and time-consuming process of acquiring cartographic information can be simplified by efficient use of the Internet Webinar Technology: Applications in Libraries reviews the operation, application, and features of Webinars and compares this technology with Web tutorials, virtual reference, and courseware management systems, videoconferencing, and Webcasting Preserving Digital Librari

This volume summarizes the author’s work on social information seeking (SIS), and at the same time serves as an introduction to the topic. Sometimes also referred to as social search or social information retrieval, this is a relatively new area of study concerned with the seeking and acquiring of information from social spaces on the Internet. It involves studying situations, motivations, and methods involved in seeking and sharing of information in participatory online social sites, such as Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, and Twitter, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. The first part of the book introduces various foundational concepts, including information seeking, social media, and social networking. As such it provides the necessary basis to then discuss how those aspects could intertwine in different ways to create methods, tools, and opportunities for supporting and leveraging SIS. Next, Part II discusses the social dimension and primarily examines the online question-answering activity. Part III then emphasizes the collaborative aspect of information seeking, and examines what happens when social and collaborative dimensions are considered together. Lastly, Part IV provides a synthesis by consolidating methods, systems, and evaluation techniques related to social and collaborative information seeking. The book is completed by a list of challenges and opportunities for both theoretical and practical SIS work. The book is intended mainly for researchers and graduate students looking for an introduction to this new field, as well as developers and system designers interested in building interactive information retrieval systems or social/community-driven interfaces.

The amount and range of information available to today’s students—and indeed to all learners—is unprecedented. If the characteristics of “the information age” demand new conceptions of commerce, national security, and publishing—among other things—it is logical to assume that they carry implications for education as well. Little has been written, however, about how the specific affordances of these technologies—and the kinds of information they allow students to access and create—relate to the central purpose of education: learning. What does “learning” mean in an information-rich environment? What are its characteristics? What kinds of tasks should it involve? What concepts, strategies, attitudes, and skills do educators and students need to master if they are to learn effectively and efficiently in such an environment? How can researchers, theorists, and practitioners foster the well-founded and widespread development of such key elements of the learning process? This second edition continues these discussions and suggests some tentative answers. Drawing primarily from research and theory in three distinct but related fields—learning theory, instructional systems design, and information studies—it presents a way to think about learning that responds directly to the actualities of a world brimming with information. The second edition also includes insights from digital and critical literacies and provides a combination of an updated research-and-theory base and a collection of instructional scenarios for helping teachers and librarians implement each step of the I-LEARN model. The book could be used in courses in teacher preparation, academic-librarian preparation, and school-librarian preparation.

Information retrieval is a central and essential activity. It is indeed difficult to find a human activity that does not need to retrieve information in an environment which is often increasingly digital: moving and navigating, learning, having fun, communicating, informing, making a decision, etc. Most human activities are intimately linked to our ability to search quickly and effectively for relevant information, the stakes are sometimes extremely important: passing an exam, voting, finding a job, remaining autonomous, being socially connected, developing a critical spirit, or simply surviving. The author of this book presents a summary of work undertaken over several years relative to the behaviors and cognitive processes involved in information retrieval in digital environments. He presents several examples of theoretical models and studies to better understand the difficulties, behaviors and strategies of individuals searching for information in digital environments.

With the increasingly complex and ubiquitous data available through modern technology, digital information is being utilized daily by academics and professionals of all disciplines and career paths. Information Seeking Behavior and Technology Adoption: Theories and Trends brings together the many theories and meta-theories that make information science relevant across different disciplines. Highlighting theories that had their base in the early days of text-based information and expanding to the digitization of the Internet, this book is an essential reference source for those involved in the education and training of the next-generation of information science professionals, as well as those who are currently working on the design and development of our current information products, systems, and services.

Information retrieval (IR) is a complex human activity supported by sophisticated systems. Information science has contributed much to the design and evaluation of previous generations of IR system development and to our general understanding of how such systems should be designed and yet, due to the increasing success and diversity of IR systems, many recent textbooks concentrate on IR systems themselves and ignore the human side of searching for information. This book is the first text to provide an information science perspective on IR. Unique in its scope, the book covers the whole spectrum of information retrieval, including: history and background information behaviour and seeking task-based information searching and retrieval approaches to investigating information interaction and behaviour information representation access models evaluation interfaces for IR interactive techniques web retrieval, ranking and personalization recommendation, collaboration and social search multimedia: interfaces and access. Readership: Senior undergraduates and masters' level students of all information and library studies courses and practising LIS professionals who need to better appreciate how IR systems are designed, implemented and evaluated.