LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
Year:2006 | Volume:9 | Issue:2|Papers Count:10

This article aimed to review the present crisis and problems in academic and special libraries vedarding the scholarly journals due to the increase in the subscription fees of such journals. It also investigated the history of the publication of free scientific journals called "Open Access (OA) Journals and discussem 4 current patterns of meeting the funds needed for their publication. The aim of OA journals which are generally published electronically is to provide free access to scientific articles for all users. In the traditional model the publication cost of a journal was provided through subscription fee while OA journals try to meal the costs through ways other than subscription fees. What follow are some ways such journals use to meet the budget needed for their publication: requesting authors to pay for publication of their articles (author-pays model), advertisement and organizational supports. Although there are some doubts about the success of this model in long term, the increasing number of such journals is an indication of the fact that OA journals and traditional journals may be able to exist side by side and move into the future.

The present study aims to explore the relationship between research, web links and the process of scholarly communication in the environment of university websites. The results indicated a strong con-elation between the number of web links from American university websites to the websites of 34 Iranian universities and to the scientific publication index of Iranian universities. Iranian universities, which have published the highest number of articles in ISI journals in 2000, have received more web links from American universities. In order to validate quantitative data, the idea of creating 440 web links to the websites of Iranian universities was considered qualitatively. The results of the classification of web links indicated that the aim of none of the links made to Iranian universities was to get to a formal scholarly communication. Only 27% of links were related to the informal scientific communications and 63% were created for leading users to find Iranian university web sites. Also, about 10% were related to non-scholarly motivations. Based on the present evidences it can be concluded that the motivation to create link to the websites of Iranian universities is mostly influenced by sociological rather than scientific issues.  

This paper aims to present the result of a study that has been carried out by Iranian Information and Documentation Centre (IRANDOC) for developing an IL course for postgraduate students between 2002 and 2004 in Iran. The goal of this exploratory research was to identify the level of information literacy competencies of postgraduate students. For this matter, a single subject design (it is a part of the research design and means that we have one group for both pre and post tests) involving a teaching phase was selected to structure the research process. IL course lesson plan for PG curricula was developed based on the ACRL I standards and with particular considerations & Iran's higher education system. The data were collected from amongst 25 postgraduate students, including MA and Ph. D. Students, from different disciplines using a Liker scale (4 options) questionnaire based on the ACRL IL standards before and after delivering the course outlines, as a pre-test and post-test. The results showed a considerable difference between the two tests and the study resulted in a course for PG students in Iran.

Web as a base for search engines has a graphical structure. Such a structure restricts’ crawlers' movement in search engines to the ways conforming to it. The present article investigated the impact of web's graphical structure on crawler’s movement and the activities of indexers in search engines. After primary discussion about the graphs and the process of crawlers' activities, the main methods of crawlers' movement in the web (Depth-first, Breadth-first, Best-first) are discussed. Then, indexing as well as the way of taking advantage of HTML for creating a parse tree is investigated.

This study was carried out to assess and evaluate the information capabilities of Regional Library of Science and Technology (RLST) (i.e. its information resources and the appropriate software it uses to provide Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) for the faculty members of Shiraz University via their e-mails. The methodology used in this study was Survey-descriptive and the data collection procedures used were observation and questionnaire. The materials of this study included all resources of RLST (printed and other resources). The participants were all faculty members of Shiraz University with a Ph.D. degree (Full time professors, Associate professors and Assistant professors). Among them 100 professors were randomly selected using Stratified Sampling Method and were asked to complete a questionnaire distributed by the researcher. The findings indicated that all Farsi resources available at ~ST (including articles, books, theses, dissertations, research reports and other information resources) as well as all non-Persian articles were accessible through RLST's homepage (www.srlst.com). All faculty members of Shiraz University used the internet to retrieve their information needs. In all, 99% of the participants had personal emails. 42.4% of the participants had previously used SDI services and 55.6% were interested to use these services automatically through the construction of research profiles.77.8% of them preferred to receive and access the abstracts of the articles. A conceptual pattern of software was designed to provide the aforementioned services. This was done based on the findings of the present study; the personal interests of the faculty members and after studying and evaluating several SDI systems.

Information seeking is incited by a number of goals and objectives and within the framework of sociology, information seeking behavior is considered to be the same as actions. Information seeking patterns represent the relationships between theoretical issues and the processes related to acknowledgement and response to the information requirements. Different authorities offer various behavioral patterns on the basis of cognitive process-oriented and user-oriented processes. In the present article, the most well-known information-seeking behaviors such as Alice, Wilson, Kulsav, Dervin, Belkin and some web-based patterns and the intra-text information system are to be analyzed and investigated. The investigations indicated that intelligent information retrieval systems should be designed to enter the user into a meaningful interaction with the information. Success or failure of a solution is not hidden in the new technologies but in comprehending individuals' needs and behaviors.

In cybernetics approach, library is an open system which has to use consistency rules for its survival. Library users, as essential elements of society can contribute in the consistency of library systems. Essential motives for such a contribution are hidden in the type of library operations for optimizing communication between users and the authors. Recognition of communication process and its consistency with library services in goals and procedures will provide feedback information to Library systems, hence, the library can overcome entropy.

Development is in need of a wide range of research, Programming, reports, decision makings, etc. But why information has acquired such an importance in the process of sustainable development? The movement from productive technology to information technology marks the turning point of a new era in the social life of the human being. Today we should realize that industrial society has been replaced by information society, along with globalization. In such a society, knowledge plays a vital role in improving productivity. So each country should try to join this universal information society. Unfortunately, Iran has not been able to come along the path for some reasons yet. Nevertheless, it has already taken some steps to approach this goal aims, this article to define concepts of development and productivity within the framework of the Information Society. It will also pinpoint the crucial role of information in the path towards sustainable development.

The intranet has emerged as one of today's most effective tools for knowledge management. This article reports on the extent to which three South African academic libraries, selected by means of the purposive sampling method, utilize the intranet as a knowledge management tool. Based on the literature, knowledge management and intranet are briefly defined. The advantages of the intranet as a knowledge management tool as well as the content of an intranet are discussed. The opinions about knowledge management and the utilization of intranet as a knowledge management tool in the three academic libraries are weighed up against the findings in the literature. It is clear that a strong awareness exists about the importance of knowledge management and the value of the intranet as a knowledge management tool. However, the potential of the intranet as a knowledge management tool is not utilized fully.