LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
Year:2015 | Volume:18 | Issue:2 (70) |Papers Count:6

Purpose: The capacity to attract citations from other disciplines – i.e., knowledge export – has always been taken into account in evaluating the quality of scientific papers or journals. This was named “Iceberg hypothesis”. This article aims to explore the use of cocitation network as indicator of interdisciplinarity in “Information and Knowledge Sciences” (IKS) journals. Specifically, this work seeks to utilize the disciplinary background of Subject Categories (SCs) in IKS outputs indexed in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) as an indicator of interdisciplinarity.Methodology: The methodology adopts a bibliometric innovative approach based on keywords of SCs advocated to IS journals. These measures are first analyzed entire set of 83 IKS journals indexed in the JCR database 2013 (Thomson ISI, Philadelphia, PA), in relation to SCs citing and cited of journal references. We use import and export of knowledge formula, Centrality indicators and citation frequencies utilized to compute the interdisciplinarity of SCs by Excel, Ravarmatrix and SPSS software. Findings: findings showed that the IKS has a knowledge import rate of 71% and knowledge export rate of 70%. The Correlation of citing and cited frequency and centrality of SCs is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). The IKS has interdisciplinarty features of “iceberg hypothesis”. This paper adds to the limited research by emphasizing on SCs citations relations of Web of Science database that potentially enhances study of interdisciplinarity indicators in IKS outputs using centrality indicators. The “management”, “multidisciplinary studies”, “computer science, information systems”, “computer science, artificial intelligence”, and “education” categories have most interdisciplinaty features in IKS.

Purpose: The present study aims to determine the type and level of utilizing information and communication technologies and their effects on constructing Joghatai citizens‟ information flow in order to classify them as city development indicators (CDI).Methodology: The current study is an applied survey whose target population covered all employees, businessmen, farmers and university students in Joghatai City. A sample of 357 people (66 employees, 185 farmers, 28 businessmen, and 75 university students) was selected in order to collect needed data. Convenience sampling was applied and the participants were randomly referred to. A researcher-developed questionnaire, whose validity was confirmed by the supervisor, the advisor and the faculty members of the Department of Information and Knowledge Sciences and whose reliability was approved through the application of Cronbach’s alpha, was used for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS software.Findings: The findings indicated that %97.1 of sample size had TV, while only %4.2 had satellite receivers. The highest accessibility to the phone was %77.4, and the lowest was %10.6. People used TV at most 64.2 to obtain their needed information and used satellite receivers at least (%0.15). Participants believed that getting access to the Internet had the most (%4.45) and satellite receivers had the least efficiency (%0.42) from individual, social and economic dimensions in city development of Joghata i . The most significant studied samples for gathering intracity information were face-to-face dialogue (%6.16) and traditional information and communication technologies, while the most significant ones for collecting extracity information were TV (%8.15), face-to-face dialogue (%4.41) respectively. The Internet was used in various economic, political, health and so forth fields. Intracity information flow in Joghatai was mostly associated with face-to-face dialogue (efficiency mean: %2.84; utilization mean: %6.16), while extracity information flow was related to TV (efficiency mean: %2.91; utilization mean: %8.15). Internet and face-to-face dialogue are two other significant factors in extracity information flow. Library and satellite receivers were rarely taken into account. Furthermore, the obtained findings demonstrated that the studied groups (employees, businessmen, farmers, and university students) in this research expressed different opinions in four aspects of ownership, accessibility, utilization, and efficiency of information and communication resources and channels. In other words, the type of job had impact in ownership, access, efficiency and utilization of information and communication resources.Conclusion: Although Joghatai is a relatively small city located in a remote area, information and communication technologies are of considerable importance in both intracity and extracity connections, especially among employees, businessmen and university students.

Purpose: This paper aimed to study the social history of the concept of “Information Ethics”. We wanted to show the social construction of the concept of “Information Ethics” in the historical transitions of LIS profession in the United States and how this concept is developed as what we see as the current condition.Methodology: Documentary Research method was used as the research methodology. This research method is best suited for the exploration of socio-historical transitions of scientific concepts .Findings: Socio-historical circumstances that dominated the professional practice of LIS and Public Librarianship in United States caused three outstanding events namely “fiction question problem”, “Library War Services” as being an active instrument for propaganda, and “Social Responsibility movement”. These three events represented itself in the three research programs in the “Information Ethics” field namely principle-based Information Ethics, technocentric and behavioral Information Ethics, and social and critical Information Ethics . Originality/Value: This research is valuable for its contribution to demonstrate the fact that the concept of “Information Ethics” roots in the professional practice of LIS in its evolution, not in newly emerged technological representations that just quickened, sensitized and criticized this concept.

Purpose: This aim of this research was to analyze the latest approved syllabuses in LIS, according to the needs of the job market.Methodology: Content analysis method was applied. The statistical population of this research included the latest approved syllabus topics covered in the bachelor‟s and the master‟s degree programs in Information and Knowledge Sciences in Iran. The data collection instrument for this research was a content analysis checklist with 222 items (under 10 major categories).Findings: Findings revealed that , regarding employment in 4 categories of the newly-emerging IT-based jobs, the programs approved by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology did not cover almost one-third (frequency = 71) of the competency factors required by the job market, which, considering the high recession and competition in the job market, is a huge rate. Based on the findings, the most important shortcomings in the LIS approved programs are Computer networking, Computer Programming and Database designing, Fundamentals of Computing, and Librarians‟ perception about their personal and behavioral characteristics.

Purpose: The aim of this study, which was based on Henzel model, was to apply information Audit at one of the plans directed by the Research Institute of Petroleum.Methodology: Survey study was applied using questionnaire for data acquisition. Most of questions were open-ended which were designed and localized based on Henzel standard questionnaire. The statistical population covered 42 persons of all members of the plan who were selected through a systematic sampling method.Findings: The articles indexed by Science Direct and ACS had been more referenced by the plan. In comparison with printed references the plan tended to use electronic resources due to easier access and lower expenses. Results showed that the two units of “Natural Gas Transmission” and “library” had provided most of the information resources for the plan.Conclusion: Prior to performing plans and projects, it is necessary to set up a control group-the Chemical Engineering group- aiming at avoiding repetition in provision of information resources, managing expenses, and controlling the delivery & reception of resources.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of content and structural quality of public libraries Web sites on the satisfaction and loyalty of their users.Methodology: This research was carried out in two parts. For the first part, which attempted to identify factors affecting the quality of the content and structure of library websites, we used a content analysis method of the research papers regarding website designing in the late10 years in order to provide a model. The second part attempted to determine the extent to which the importance of the dimensions and the fitting model. This was done through a questionnaire distributed aming 190 individuals visiting public library Websites in the city of Mashhad.Findings: the results of an exploratory factor analysis showed 25 variables identified for different aspects of the study which can be loaded on six factors able to explain in more than 72 % of the variance indicators . The KMO indicator was 0.794 and a significant amount of Bartlett test was 0.000. Therefore, the confirmatory factor analysis model fits to the data. Aslo the presented indicator and their comparison to the optimum model shows the fitness of the model.