Library & Information Science Research最新文献

The in-depth, narrative interview approach, its use as a storytelling vehicle, and its effectiveness in combination with other qualitative methods to elicit individuals' experiences and perspectives on the information behaviors which contribute to the social impact of gambling addiction is presented. This focus on the information behaviors of individuals affected by gambling allows them to speak out about a problem that is often side-lined, in part because it has been hidden and remains misunderstood in wider society. Collecting people's lived experiences supports a meaningful analysis of how people navigate information to respond to the problems associated with addiction, creating an understanding of social impact beyond the story of the numbers about addiction and offering policymakers a significant perspective to ameliorate marginalization of individuals.

The use of data mining modern technology in library management systems and information centers is of great importance. With the increasing availability of a large quantity of information, traditional tools and practices without wasting time and cost cannot respond to users accurately and quickly. The present study aims to analyze book circulation transactions and discover the user's book loan patterns to develop a recommender system. The data included 109,639 transactions and information from 8636 user records. Microsoft SQL Server and Matlab software were applied to analyze the data. Item-based collaborative filtering algorithms and decision tree methods were also applied. The results led to the extraction of rules for suggesting books to users. Analysis of the circulation data could be applied to address many issues like evaluation, collection acquisition policies, allocating funding for materials, and suggesting approaches to deselecting and allocating physical space for materials.

The culture surrounding authorship practices differs from discipline to discipline, with the potential for inconsistent terminology across disciplines to hamper comprehension in interdisciplinary conversations. To address this problem, an interdisciplinary corpus of research literature on the topic of questionable authorship practices was used to create a multidisciplinary thesaurus. This process used Evolutionary Concept Analysis (ECA) as mediated through MAXQDA. Problems of synonymy and polysemy are addressed using ECA which identifies and subsequently analyzes terms used to denote questionable authorship practices as well as their synonyms, relevant uses, attributes, references, antecedents, and consequences. The value is two-fold: first, this addresses the gap in the literature in terms of the identification, analysis, and organization of a set of interdisciplinary terms relating to questionable authorship practices; second, it presents a novel methodological approach to thesaurus construction from a multidisciplinary corpus through using ECA.

Animals, specially companion species, are an integral part of our daily homes and cities but have not been the focus of everyday information behavior research to date. The practice of incorporating animals into research is not straightforward because they do not share our language or norms. The question this research aims to answer is: how can the perspective of other animal subjects be incorporated in information behavior research? This preliminary study of four multispecies families, included humans, dogs, and cats in the research design, and a more-than-human perspective was used as a research paradigm, offering different ways of thinking about ethnography and phenomenology methods. Five methodological strategies (speaking for the animal, listening differently, walking and sensing, photography, and technological mediation) proved effective in making the role of animals in the information experience of multispecies family visible. The article concludes with a discussion of the methodological implications that emerge when a researcher claims to view humans as conjoined with other life forms and seeks to include animals in information behavior research.

The impact of social learning on disaster management has been widely studied. However, few studies have investigated the key attributes of social learning that impact the selection of preferred information sources about coastal cyclones. A mixed-methods approach was adopted to collect data by conducting 35 in-person interviews and a survey of 323 participants of Sundarban, a coastal region of West Bengal, India. Descriptive statistics helped to identify preferred information sources, whereas, structural equation modelling revealed four social learning attributes, namely Quality, Scale, Attachment with Place and Learning Process, having an impact on participants' information source preferences during a disaster. In-depth analysis of interview data suggested four indicators, i.e., Credibility, Availability, Accuracy and Frequency, that an individual considered when prioritizing within selected sources. The findings offer guidelines to officials for using the most useful sources and information dissemination approaches to inform vulnerable populations in the event of a disaster.

Gender difference is a new perspective on understanding the levels of information needs proposed by Taylor in 1968. Drawn from Ruthven's research methodology, gender differences between conscious and formalized information needs using 4000 postings to four major online discussion topics were analyzed. Descriptive statistical analysis was based on text length and vocabulary usage. The analysis confirmed Ruthven's conclusion in the Chinese context that the statements describing conscious information needs are more narrative with more emotional and sensitive words. Females, on the other hand, frequently express their information needs consciously. Problematic situations generate information needs. Consequently, understanding the information needs levels should consider additional contextual aspects, and the initial stages of information needs are essentially the awareness in problematic situations. Language and gender distinction in the Chinese context is mainly helpful to refine the concept of information need levels and can also be an extension of Ruthven's research.

Although creating sustainable information systems is highly important to facilitate information flow in natural disaster information management (NDIM), only a few LIS studies have focused on evaluating the feasibility of related technological solutions. An open access repository (OAR) for NDIM has been assessed by Technical, Economic, Legal, Operational, Scheduling, Cultural, and Behavioral (TELOS-CB) dimensions, using the PSI technique. Five NDIM stakeholder groups participated including governmental, public, and research institutions, NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and LIS specialists. The results indicate that the NDIM-OAR is technically more feasible, while the cultural dimension has been considered the most challenging. NGOs have the largest scoring range and governmental stakeholders have the most coherent scoring. Despite of the wide range and seemingly excessive sensitivity of NDM information in Iran, more in-depth, interpretive, cross-disciplinary studies are required reaching a comprehensive decision for an NDIM-OAR. The research is among the first multi-disaster, multi-stakeholder feasibility analyses in LIS.

Qualitative content analysis is a methodological approach for the subjective interpretation of data. Using empirical research to illustrate the methodological advantages and disadvantages of qualitative content analysis, this article examines the suitability of qualitative content analysis for the field of LIS and illustrates how the method can be used to inform LIS information practices research of marginalized populations through emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs). Specifically, this article examines the suitability of qualitative content analysis through its application in an ongoing study exploring how individuals who engage in nonsuicidal self-injury circumnavigate algorithmic exclusion in the emerging ICT TikTok. Qualitative content analysis can advance LIS research and practice by refuting deficit thinking and understanding information creation practices in context. Methodological shortcomings relate to the reduction of data and the inability to determine cause-and-effect relationships. The author recommends that researchers supplement qualitative content analysis with additional qualitative approaches to address these limitations.

Despite the abundance of research on library makerspaces, systematic reviews of library makerspace research are lacking. As research on library makerspaces advances, the field needs reliable empirical findings to examine the impact of library makerspaces and identify research areas that are valuable for future research. Guided by the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement, 43 out of 838 records were selected for the systematic review. The overall trend of research methodologies and theories, settings, participants, research purposes, as well as tools, technologies and programming in library makerspace research were identified. The findings reveal that qualitative studies that were descriptive in nature were the predominant approaches. While appropriate literatures were explored, theoretical frameworks were less used. This systematic review contributes new areas and directions for future research, including the need for expansion of research methodologies and theoretical frameworks and investigation of diverse users and types of making.

Visual information dominates our modern information landscape and plays a critical role in the production of knowledge. However, research in information studies has not fully considered how people engage with visual information, in the form of images, visualization software and instruments, as well as audiovisual media, at the level of visual information in practice. This gap is addressed by first outlining the methodological challenges visual information practices pose to research, then reviewing recent information practices research projects that consider visual information, and concluding by offering a methodological framework drawn from the author's dissertation research for studying visual information practices, with suggestions provided for researchers who are interested in conducting research in this area.