bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The importance of SDI for current awareness in fields with severe scatter of information
Authors: Packer Katherine H. , Soergel Dagobert 
Published: June 2007

AbstractScope: The purpose of this study was to explore the use and effectiveness of current awareness (CA) methods, especially SDI, among chemists at Canadian universities. Method: We used a questionnaire which was mailed to a sample of 170 (response rate 80%). The variables studied include perceived scatter of information, use of various CA methods, time spent on CA, perceived success in CA, and CA efficiency = success/time spent. The results of this explanatory study are tentative. Major results: Keeping up‐to‐date is more difficult in specialties with high scatter of information (hypothesis 5). SDI seems to be the only method capable of counteracting scatter (hypotheses 5–7). In contrast, if scatter is low, SDI use decreases CA efficiency (hypothesis 6a); scanning journals, the most prevalent CA method, seems to be sufficient for low‐scatter specialties. High scatter does not lead to increased SDI use, in some cases due to perceived difficulty of profile construction (hypothesis 3a). Conclusions: SDI services should concentrate efforts on serving scientists in specialties with high scatter of information by developing systems that are capable of searching across conventional disciplines and specialties, by providing assistance in profile development, and by conducting a marketing campaign directed toward these scientists.
The cybernetics of bibliographic control: Toward a theory of document retrieval systems
Authors: Wellisch Hans H. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThe concept of bibliographic control (BC) is explored from its origin to its development into Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC). It is analyzed as to its functions and operations, namely (a) the form‐oriented or descriptive function, (b) the transcription of descriptive data onto a document surrogate, (c) the sequential ordering of these surrogates, and (d) the content‐oriented or exploitative function. It is shown that as a control system, BC is subject to the laws of cybernetics. Only the descriptive, transcriptive, and ordering functions of a BC system can be subjected to full control governed by generally applicable rules, while the content‐oriented retrieval function, being based on subjective judgments of relevance by indexers and ultimate users, are not completely controllable. The attainable limits of BC and UBC can thus be established.
Automated indexing versus kwoc: A performance comparison
Authors: Burress Elaine P. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThe retrieval performance of a technique for automated indexing using a controlled vocabulary (machine‐aided indexing) is compared with that of a Key Word Out of Context Index (KWOC). Twenty subject searches were performed using a data base of 635 summaries of Defense management data. Results show an average recall measurement of 0.73 for machine‐aided indexing and 0.79 for the KWOC index. The average relevance measurements were 0.62 for machineaided indexing and 0.60 for the KWOC index.
The distribution of scientific productivity and social change
Authors: Rao I. K. Ravichandra 
Published: June 2007

AbstractResults in the literature concerning the probability that an author publishes r articles in time t are reexamined, and it is found that a negative binomial distribution fits scientific productivity data (by the chi‐squared goodness‐of‐fit test) better than many other distributions such as geometric, logarithmic, zeta, cumulative advantage, etc. It is shown analytically that the negative binomial distribution describes a pattern of scientific productivity under the “success‐breeds‐success” condition in a wide variety of social circumstances.
Comparing Psychological abstracts and Index medicus For coverage of the journal literature in a subject area in psychology
Authors: Smalley Topsy N. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThe journal literature on a subject area in psychology—operant conditioning—as indexed in the 1978 issues of Psychological Abstracts (PA) and Index Medicus (IM) is compared. Considerable overlap is found for this subject in the coverage of journal titles by the two indexing tools, but use of both is necessary to assure a comprehensive search. The extent of overlap corresponds closely with the findings of the Bearman‐Kunberger overlap study. Considerable differences between PA and IM in their recency of coverage of the literature are found. Core journals for articles on operant conditioning are identified. Scattering of the articles among journal titles is found to conform to Bradford's law.
An examination of differences between two studies of highly cited old papers
Authors: Hurt C. D. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractReported differences in summary data between two studies dealing with the citation of old papers are examined. No statistically significant differences were discovered using a t test of means and a liberal type I error level. The practical versus the statistical significance of examining extremely small differences between the two means of the two studies is discussed and an estimator of the size of effect being tested for is computed.
The technology of library and information networks
Authors: Epstein Hank 
Published: June 2007

AbstractCurrent online library network technology is described, including the physical and functional aspects of networks. Three types of networks are distinguished: search service (e.g., SDC, Lockheed), customized service that provide bibliographic files (e.g., OCLC, Inc., RLIN), and service center (e.g., NELINET, INCOLSA). It is predicted that as technology evolves more services will be provided outside the library directly to the user through his home or office.
Information flow and analysis: Theory, simulation, and experiments. I. Basic theoretical and conceptual development
Authors: Yovits M. C. , Foulk C. R. , Rose L. L. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThis series of articles describes research which has been underway at The Ohio State University in an effort to develop a fundamental and general theory of information flow and analysis. More specifically, the research attempts to (1) identify and quantify important variables and parameters in the information flow process; (2) establish relationships among these variables; (3) apply the theory to practical situations and to examine the resulting implications; and (4) develop models, both simulation and experimental, to utilize and validate the theory. The basis for our work treats information as data of value in decision‐making. This, in turn, leads to a powerful model of a Generalized Information System. We have now made considerable progress and have developed the basic elements comprising a generalized theory. In particular, we have been able to establish quantitative definitions for and relationships among: quantity of information, value of information, effectiveness of information, decision‐maker effectiveness, decision‐maker performance, and other terms. By dealing with “average” decision‐makers, we establish unique relationships for specific decision situations. Typical relationships and curves are presented in the articles. We describe a flexible, sophisticated simulation model which permits the examination of the interrelationship between information and decision‐making for a wide variety of different situations. We present detailed simulation results for two specific examples‐a typical farmer and a mathematical example. We describe prototype experiments which place human decision‐makers in an interactive decision‐making situation. We are able to obtain data on their decision‐making behavior in the light of our conceptual model. Preliminary analysis of the data is described.
The management and social science literatures: An interdisciplinary cross‐citation analysis
Authors: Neeley James D. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractA method is proposed for measuring interdisciplinary relations in scientific literature based on cross citation among core journals empirically selected on the basis of use and importance. The method is used to test hypotheses derived from a bibliometric definition of interdisciplinarity among the management and social science literatures. The results reveal that the management literature is dependent on the social sciences, that it is more dependent on them than vice versa, and that it is more dependent on them than they are on each other.
Examining design assumptions for an information retrieval service: SDI use for scientific and technical databases
Authors: Cole Elliot 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThis is a failure analysis for the SDI system. The study examined some of the assumptions which underlie the design of SDI systems: the context of use, the activities supported by SDI‐based information, and characteristics which made documents useful. It was found that the design assumptions underlying the system were not appropriate for the user community. This finding may help explain why SDI has been adopted by such a small percentage of the users it was designed to serve. However, this information tool is well suited for a broader population than that intended two decades ago. While SDI remains a valuable system, attaining a higher level of usage is likely to require changes in outreach and related activities of the service providers.
Similarity measures for boolean search request formulations
Authors: Radecki Tadeusz 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThe aim of this article is to propose a means of determining the similarity between search request formulations, which are Boolean combinations of descriptors. The similarity measures introduced can be used to cluster Boolean search request formulations. The search request formulation clusters can in turn be utilized in methods for clustering document representations. The initiation of the work on the methodology for determining similarity measures for Boolean search request formulations has been encouraged by hitherto performed experimental research into information retrieval systems with search request formulations in the form of sets of certain descriptors, i.e., in the same form as document representations. These experiments have shown a preponderance of those methods for clustering document representations that use previously formed clusters of search request formulations. We can expect that by using the proposed methodology for determining the similarity between Boolean combinations of descriptors, we might obtain similar results for the case of Boolean search request formulations. The introductory part of the article provides the background for undertaking the research reported. The underlying notions are then presented, and the proposed measures of similarity between Boolean search request formulations are justified and illustrated by examples. In addition, some experimental results concerning the suggested similarity measures are given.
Information resources as “Goods” in the life cycle of information production
Authors: Levitan Karen B. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThis article addresses the importance of information resources in the foundation of an information‐ and knowledge‐based society and aims to encourage research in this area. An information resource is defined as a stock of information that has been societally institutionalized for reuse by one or many classes of users. An information‐based society depends on information production for its overall welfare, but information production requires continuous reuse of information, and therein lies the dependence of such a society on its information resources. After a review of definitions and models of information production, a life cycle model is presented as a way to clarify and conceptualize information resources. The life cycle phases consist of generation, institutionalization, maintenance, enhancement, and distribution. An information resource stands at the midpoint of the life cycle, integrating and coordinating the various actors and activities of these phases. The article attempts to show that information resources as economic “goods” do not reflect the assumptions on which economic models have been built in the past because they involve nonlinear, nonequilibrium, evolutionary processes. Various types of research are needed to disaggregate the economic and institutional infrastructures of information resources.
Printer's Devil and reprint requests
Authors: Onuigbo Wilson I. B. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractPrinting errors may creep into reprint requests. This affected my papers on Joseph Coats in the Scottish Medical Journal and on childhood cancer in the Medical Journal of Australia. Thus, their titles, as listed in Current Contents, were afflicted by the printer's devil and thereby contained respectively one insertion and one deletion error. Analysis of the faulty requests revealed that as high as 85% displayed each error printed in Current Contents. Furthermore, fully 53% of all requests were from the United States. Both trends are of interest in the field of information science.
The effect of subject matter on the automatic indexing of full text
Authors: Rowbottom Mary E. , Willett Peter 
Published: June 2007

AbstractA recently suggested method for the automatic indexing of full text is applied to extracts from the Brown Corpus. Scientific and technological extracts are found to give rise to a much larger number of index terms than humanities and social science extracts. These results would appear to arise from differences in the word frequency distributions for each type of subject.
A perspective on secondary access services in the humanities
Authors: Mackesy Eileen M. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractSecondary access services for the humanities have been in existence since 1910 and six of these indexes are also now available for online searching. Profiles of these services are drawn from information supplied either by their editors or from available literature. The evolution of some of these services from print to online availability is discussed as are the user and database characteristics which make humanists reluctant to use these services in their machine‐readable forms. The resulting lack of use of humanities databases is discussed as are the marketing responsibilities of both vendors and producers. The current state of the humanities database producers' view of themselves as a unique group with unique problems and concerns and current trends toward standardization in humanities databases are reviewed.
Some reflections on federal policy for secondary information systems and services, 1945–1981
Authors: Berninger Douglas E. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThis article comments on Federal policies for secondary information systems and services since World War II. Federal policies have encouraged the development of in‐house systems and services, integrated with approved missions and purposes of government. Policies have encouraged agencies and departments to use secondary systems and services based in the private sector, but have become less supportive of the development of such systems and services. Federal policymaking is highly decentralized. Policy decisions are made within a political framework, but are often triggered by opportunities to apply (and control) new information technologies.
Marketing secondary information products and services
Authors: King Donald W. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractEven though information products and services are like consumer products and services in many respects, there is little in the literature about their marketing. This is true for both the information and the marketing field. Yet, aspects of information products and services marketing are extremely interesting and challenging. Some of those aspects discussed in this article are the components of marketing (i.e., consumer market, new product development, sales, advertising and promotion, packaging, channels of distribution, pricing and marketing research), how information products and services relate to those components, and the pricing of multiple products produced from a bibliographic database.
The emergence and role of common interest groups in secondary information
Authors: Granick Lois W. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractFour common interest groups, whose members are organizations engaged in some aspect of secondary information activity, are examined in terms of the circumstances giving rise to their formation; a historical profile of each is included. Specifically, the International Council of Scientific Unions Abstracting Board (ICSUAB), the National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Services (NFAIS), the Information Industry Association (IIA), and the Association of Information and Dissemination Centers (ASIDIC) are discussed. These groups have played crucial roles in the development of an American information awareness, in influencing the direction taken by this segment of the information community, and in affecting the economic growth of hundreds of organizations.
Adaptive system: The study of information, pattern, and behavior
Authors: Strong Gary W. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractEven though the word “information” has a number of different meanings, most scientific conceptions of information are unidimensional and quantitative. Such information concepts ignore the major issues of information processing in adaptive systems. A brief look at the information processing requirements of adaptive systems (focusing upon humans) suggests the existence of another dimension of information—that having to do with behavior and thus with pattern.
Question generation and formulation: An indication of information need
Authors: Home Esther E. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractA methodology is developed and applied to a data collection consisting of questions in order to discern the nature of the cognitive need “to know”: the information need. The experimental design for the generation and formulation of questions was achieved by means of a “closed” problem situation. A “closed” problem situation has within it sufficient and available data with which to reach solution of said problem. The question is an observable behavioral act which reflects information need. Because it is a hypothetical construct, information need had to be operationalized indirectly via the question as the dependent variable and the data input as the independent variable. The varying of this independent variable was achieved by partitioning the “closed” problem. Two experimental hypotheses guided this methodology for a “closed” problem situation: H1 where the number of questions generated varies directly as the Information need varies, and H2 where the number of questions generated varies inversely as the data input varies. The results of the statistical analysis supported the indicated trend to decreasing questioning activity as the data input rose. The results of the linguistic analysis revealed a consistent question formulation pattern between the two “closed” problems. Thus it follows in theory that the nature of information need can be discerned indirectly through question generation and formulation.
Exploiting the maximum entropy principle to increase retrieval effectiveness
Authors: Cooper William S. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractSeveral of the drawbacks of conventional information retrieval systems can be overcome by a design approach in which queries consist of sets of terms, either unweighted or weighted with subjective term precision estimates, and retrieval outputs are ranked by probability of usefulness estimated in accordance with the so‐called “maximum entropy principle.” A system organized along these lines combines the convenience of a simple input language with a powerful probabilistic inference mechanism capable of exploiting kinds of statistical clues not ordinarily used in systems of traditional design. The sensitivity of the maximum entropy principle to the frequencies and joint frequencies with which terms have been assigned to documents in the collection results in a system design of increased power and expressiveness without a concomitant increase in the complexity of the request language. It incorporates the more important search capabilities of both Boolean and conventional weighted‐request languages and facilitates the use of unconventional search clues.
Developing academic library decision support systems
Authors: Chorba Ronald W. , Bommer Michael R. W. 
Published: June 2007

AbstractThis article describes an approach to designing decision support systems (DSSs) for academic library management. A DSS should be tailored to the unique task environment and individual preferences of a particular manager. Such a system extends the decision‐making capabilities of a manager by supplementing judgment and experience with computer technology. The development of a DSS for academic libraries, which enables a manager to retrieve profiles of user productivity, resource utilization, and resource availability is explored. A database schema is presented which relates various database components for management reporting. Finally, consideration is given to implementing the user productivity, resource utilization, and resource availability subsystems in progressive stages.
The effect of personal, professional, and psychological attributes, and information seeking behavior on the use of information sources by educators
Authors: Summers Edward G. , Matheson Joyce , Conry Robert 
Published: June 2007

AbstractCurrent research on information retrieval suggests that greater attention be given to the study of information habits and needs of users of information. It has also been suggested that the user be viewed more broadly as existing within interacting cognitive, emotional, and social systems. In this study it was hypothesized that (1) 13 sources of information would cluster into several distinct types; (2) information source use by a random sample of educational practitioners in British Columbia, Canada (n = 1078) could be predicted by position, education level, experience, dissemination habits, attitude toward information, and sense of isolation from information; (3) educators would differ in their reaction to a list of 11 desirable characteristics of information; and (4) educators would differ in the extent to which they viewed 10 problems in finding and using information as influencing their work. Findings from a questionnaire analysis revealed that (1) position, dissemination, and attitude were strong predictors of information use, education was a moderate predictor, and experience and isolation accounted for low percentages of the variance; (2) information sources clustered into three orthogonal factors: close at hand traditional sources, less accessible print sources, and organized interpersonal sources; (3) all 11 characteristics of information were considered relatively important with attitude toward information strongly influencing responses; and (4) respondents did not generally feel that the 10 problems posed significant barriers in their use of information. The findings of the study offer support for the notion that information source use by educators is the result of a complex set of interactions among variables and examination of the interaction of personal, professional, and psychological attributes of users provides a useful beginning in understanding the dimensions influencing the use of information sources.