Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Library Science|Information Science'

The background of the project is partly found in a long tradition within library and information science (LIS) of meta-analyses on the field, partly in a science studies discussion on research fields and their contextual relation to wider academia, fields of professional

practices and professionalization processes. The general purpose of the project is to analyze the social and intellectual development and organization of LIS; and to investigate the impact of the close relation to the practice field, as well as the relation to the academic world in general. Based on the general purpose of the project and results and interpretations of the four articles attached to the thesis, three questions were stated for discussion in the thesis proper, concerning: the effects of a dual origin and LIS as a discipline, a field of research and a field of practice, the purpose of meta-studies and implications in terms of identity and perception of LIS; and competition and cooperation with other fields of research. Because of the heterogeneous nature of LIS, a variety of methods and materials was used in the different articles; and methodological issues on limits and bias in bibliographic databases – and the implications on the perception of research areas with varying publication and citation behaviour – were discussed. The analyses were performed against a theoretical framework, providing key organizational characteristics of scientific fields, relating to social, intellectual and contextual aspects, in combination with theories on scientific and disciplinary development, professionalization and interdisciplinarity; but also, for analytical contrast: alternate theories on the development of the sciences since 1945. LIS shows two distinct paths of development: research areas developing out of other fields of research; and a disciplinary development originating out of the field of practice and institutions for educating practitioners. Analyzing meta-studies of LIS, the picture of a field with a vague identity and a diverse self-understanding, even in terms of core characteristics, emerges. The relation to the wider academic community is characterized by diffuse boundaries towards, and competition from, other fields of research. In general, LIS is a fragmented field with a multitude of wildly varying research areas; and with large variations in terms of organizational setting; which together with a vague identity and diffuse boundaries, as well as the close connections to the field of practice, might contribute towards explaining problems LIS have been experiencing, establishing itself in academia. However, there are also signs towards an integration of a number of LIS research areas, as well as an increase in interdisciplinary cooperation, contradicting theories suggesting a further fragmentation; and supporting ideas on the sciences developing towards e.g. interdisciplinarity and applicability of results.

With the advancement of information technology, national library websites have become an essential vehicle for their users to access official information and library resources. They serve the general public from different countries, age groups, ethnicities, and educational levels. The purpose of this dissertation research is to examine the usability, user experience (UX), and information architecture (IA) of national library websites in different countries. Focal areas of investigation include: (1) the primary content elements on national library websites' homepages, (2) the extent to which various quantitative measures of heuristic evaluation and IA assessment overlap with those measures from task-based usability testing, (3) the extent of the impact of cultural and national origins on participants’ assessment of usability of national libraries’ websites. The research design of this dissertation study features (1) a content inventory of 28 national library websites, (2) a web IA assessment and a usability evaluation of five national library websites, and (3) usability tests for three national library websites involving 30 participants. The key findings of this dissertation research help to establish a list of common content elements on the homepages of national library websites worldwide and provide a concrete, practical, and feasible procedure to evaluate such websites. The results show statistically significant differences in task performance with the use of national library websites between different groups of users, such as those from different genders and educational backgrounds. Significant correlations were found between the overall participant satisfaction of a national library website and multiple variables such as the content, visual design, and information architecture, as well as between heuristic evaluation scores and participants’ ratings of some aspects of the websites.

Based on the specific results from various phases of the research, this dissertation presented detailed recommendations that could help to make national library websites more usable for all its users, including the first-time users across different genders, age groups, and educational backgrounds. Furthermore, in order to achieve a high level of satisfaction, it is recommended that national libraries focus on six factors affecting participants’ satisfaction: the quality of information, the trustworthiness of the content, the credibility of the content producers/providers, the website’s overall structure, the design, and the aesthetics of the website.

Another significant contribution of this dissertation research is its use of various methods used to evaluate national library websites and its integration of the results of the different methods to obtain a broader and more comprehensive understanding of these findings. Future UX research on national library websites could expand the research by incorporating the methodology used in this research, testing a greater number of national library websites around the world, and involving users from all walks of life.

The role of the academic library has shifted from developing book collections to serving the information and technology needs of students and faculty. The needs of library users change more quickly and unpredictably than the needs of books, and library directors have pushed beyond the traditional incremental approach to library development to respond to changing needs. As many universities struggle to balance budgets, library directors must demonstrate the value and demand for library spaces and services to justify investments in construction and renovation projects. This study investigates the reasons that the new library space projects were undertaken and the forces driving decisions about investments in the library facilities. The cases in this dissertation present studies of three private, non-profit liberal arts institutions in the Eastern United States that have recently invested in major renovation or construction projects for new library spaces. At each site, interviews and focus group sessions were conducted with librarians, students, faculty, and library administrators. Archival material was researched to supplement the data collected from the subjects of the interviews. A multi-lens framework of strategic change is used to examine the forces and factors that influenced the decisions to pursue new library spaces in each case study. The institutions in the study successfully developed new learning commons and library spaces through renovation or construction projects. Each of the libraries in the study faced similar factors leading to a new space, including overcrowding, interest from students in collaborative learning, increased demand for access to technology, and the decline in the use of the printed book. The strong leadership of the library director, with support from the institution’s president, contributed to the success of each project in the study. The importance of this study derives from its examination of the changing factors and forces that drive the uses of new library spaces, highlighting the need to build flexibility into new construction projects.

This study explores the information validation process of police investigators. The purpose of the research was to create a formal process model of the information validation process of a group of professional investigators. In this study I argue that the existence of such a model will help researchers in various disciplines by providing a baseline to which the validation process of other groups of information seekers can be tested and compared.

The study subjects consisted of 45 police investigators and data was collected using 4 distinct methods including semi-structured interviews, talk aloud sessions, a controlled experiment, and a Joint Application Design (JAD) session. The research culminated in a new process model of the information validation process of police investigators. The study also provides a new research framework for the future study of information validation processes of various groups of information seekers.

Several new discoveries emerging from the study include, but are not limited to, the findings that when validating new information, police investigator’s consider disparities between the behavioral, physical, visual, evidentiary, and potentially audible forms of information surrounding the information source and the investigator’s own personal knowledge base and experiential database. Other discoveries were that police investigators use their knowledge base and experiential database to create a virtual descriptive scenario or pre-disposition of what they expect to find before the validation process begins. They then use an abductive process through a questioning and information exchange process to test the details of their own scenario moving towards the best possible explanation of their observation.

In summary the study provides a new model of information validation illustrating the entities, processes, and decisions that comprise the process as well as the relationships, inter-dependencies, and constraints that govern it. Using professional investigators as study subjects provides merit to the model as a baseline or foundation to which we can now begin to study and compare the information validation process of other information seekers to the new model.

The purpose of this study was to construct a child-driven metadata schema by understanding children's cognitive processes and behaviors during book selection. Existing knowledge organization systems including metadata schemas and previous literature in the metadata domain have shown that there is a no specialized metadata schema that describes children's resources that also is developed by children. It is clear that children require a new or alternative child-driven metadata schema. Child-driven metadata elements reflected the children's cognitive perceptions that could allow children to intuitively and easily find books in an online cataloging system. The literature of development of literacy skills claims that the positive experiences of selecting books empower children's motivation for developing literacy skills. Therefore, creating a child-driven metadata schema not only contributes to the improvement of knowledge organization systems reflecting children's information behavior and cognitive process, but also improves children's literacy and reading skills.

Broader research questions included what metadata elements do children like to use? What elements should a child-driven metadata schema include? In order to answer these research questions, a triangulated qualitative research design consisting of questionnaires, paired think-aloud, interview, and diaries were used with 22 child participants between the ages of 6 and 9. A holistic understanding of the children's cognitive processes during book selection as a foundation of a child-driven metadata schema displays an early stage of an ontological contour for a children's knowledge organization system. A child-driven metadata schema constructed in this study is apt to include different metadata elements from those metadata elements existing in current cataloging standards. A child-driven metadata schema includes five classes such as story/subject, character, illustration, physical characteristics, and understandability, and thirty three metadata elements such as character's names and images, book cover's color, shape, textured materials, engagement element, and tone. In addition, the analysis of the relationship between emergent emotional vocabularies and cognitive factors and facets illustrated the important role of emotion and attention in children's information processing and seeking behaviors.

The International Federation of Library Associations developed its Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) without performing user testing to ensure that the model would meet the needs of professionals and users. Analyzing user-generated social tags in relation to FRBR entities and attributes will help determine if the layperson describes objects in a manner that conforms to the FRBR conceptual model. Number one songs from the weekly Billboard Hot 100 charts from 1958 through 2013 were randomly sampled, tags associated with the sampled songs were pulled from the last.fm Web site, and tags were analyzed to determine their relation to FRBR entities and attributes. A percentage of tags map to FRBR entities, validating those entities’ place in the model. User tags that do not map to a FRBR entities shed light on additional means for resource access and discovery, as well as potential issues to consider should the FRBR conceptual model be revised in the future.

Our collective memory, the history that is cultivated through reflection, documentation, and consensus of historical data, is predicated upon the citizenry having access to the historical materials that society has created. Digitization has enabled greater public access to those materials. However, are items being scanned or digitally photographed to create surrogates that are then not made available to the world? The impetus for this study is to delve into whether or not intentional or unintentional personal choices play a role in determining which items archivists transform into digital surrogates; both in the decision of what to digitize and what to make available to the public on the World Wide Web. When one archival collection is prioritized over another or when it is not possible to digitize an entire collection, what rationale is used to determine which items will be digitized and published online? Do intentional or unintentional personal choices come into play in the decision-making? To answer these questions, four case studies were conducted, involving the random sampling of online collections and concomitant interviews of archivists. The purpose of this study is to enhance archivists’ understanding of the reasons that guide the digitization decision-making process. Through such understanding, archivists can be more proactive in the decision-making process to realize the benefit of digitizing and publishing archival materials that ultimately affect collective memory. The findings of this research revealed that in the case of the four institutions assessed, archivists do use personal choice to determine which materials within an archive are digitized.