The present monograph intends to establish a solid link among three fields: fuzzy set theory, information retrieval, and cluster analysis. Fuzzy set theory supplies new concepts and methods for the other two fields, and provides a common frame work within which they can be reorganized. Four principal groups of readers are assumed: researchers or students who are interested in (a) application of fuzzy sets, (b) theory of information retrieval or bibliographic databases, (c) hierarchical clustering, and (d) application of methods in systems science. Readers in group (a) may notice that the fuzzy set theory used here is very simple, since only finite sets are dealt with. This simplification enables the max min algebra to deal with fuzzy relations and matrices as equivalent entities. Fuzzy graphs are also used for describing theoretical properties of fuzzy relations. This assumption of finite sets is sufficient for applying fuzzy sets to information retrieval and cluster analysis. This means that little theory, beyond the basic theory of fuzzy sets, is required. Although readers in group (b) with little background in the theory of fuzzy sets may have difficulty with a few sections, they will also find enough in this monograph to support an intuitive grasp of this new concept of fuzzy information retrieval. Chapter 4 provides fuzzy retrieval without the use of mathematical symbols. Also, fuzzy graphs will serve as an aid to the intuitive understanding of fuzzy relations."

Web search engines are not just indispensable tools for finding and accessing information online, but have become a defining component of the human condition and can be conceptualized as a complex behavior embedded within an individual's everyday social, cultural, political, and information-seeking activities. This book investigates Web search from the non-technical perspective, bringing together chapters that represent a range of multidisciplinary theories, models, and ideas.

Relationships abound in the library and information science (LIS) world. Those relationships may be social in nature, as, for instance, when we deal with human relationships among library personnel or relationships (i. e. , "public relations") between an information center and its clientele. The relationships may be educational, as, for example, when we examine the relationship between the curriculum of an accredited school and the needs of the work force it is preparing students to join. Or the relationships may be economic, as when we investigate the relationship between the cost of journals and the frequency with which they are cited. Many of the relationships of concern to us reflect phenomena entirely internal to the field: the relationship between manuscript collections, archives, and special collections; the relationship between end user search behavior and the effectiveness of searches; the relationship between access to and use of information resources; the relationship between recall and precision; the relationship between various bibliometric laws; etc. The list of such relationships could go on and on. The relationships addressed in this volume are restricted to those involved in the organization of recorded knowledge, which tend to have a conceptual or semantic basis, although statistical means are sometimes used in their discovery.

Interdisciplinary inquiry has become more pervasive in recent decades, yet we still know little about the conduct of this type of research or the information problems associated with it. This book is one of few empirical studies of interdisciplinary knowledge practices. It examines how interdisciplinary scientists discover and exchange information and knowledge, highlighting how the boundaries between disciplines affect how information is used and how knowledge is constructed. It is written for scholars and practitioners with an interest in developing information systems and research environments to foster innovative scientific work. Target groups include researchers in information science, science studies, communication, as well as research administrators and information professionals.

"The more narrowly we examine language, the sharper becomes the con?ict - tween it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation; it was a requirement. ) The con?ict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty. -We have got onto slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk; so we need 1 friction. Back to the rough ground " -Ludwig Wittgenstein This manuscript consists of four related parts: a brief overview of Wittgenstein's p- losophy of language and its relevance to information systems; a detailed explanation of Wittgenstein's late philosophy of language and mind; an extended discussion of the re- vance of his philosophy to understanding some of the problems inherent in information systems, especially those systems which rely on retrieval based on some representation of the intellectual content of that information. And, fourthly, a series of detailed footnotes which cite the sources of the numerous quotations and provide some discussion of the related issues that the text inspires. The ?rst three of these parts can each be read by itself with some pro?t, although they are related and do form a conceptual whole.

Health Information Management: What Strategies? contains the Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Medical and Health Libraries and gives a full account of the state-of-the-art of European medical librarianship. This book is the fifth in a well-received series of proceedings of the European conferences and together the volumes form a valuable source for medical librarians in Europe. The quality of papers reflects the growth of the European Association for Health Information and Libraries (EAHIL) towards maturity and the ongoing professional development of its members. The field of medical and health information has no geographical borders, therefore medical librarianship needs to be an international and multinational cooperation. The book reflects the important developments ongoing in medical informatics and medical information management. These subjects are touched upon as they have a close connection to medical librarianship. The future of medical libraries will be dominated by strong alliances with computer departments and health and hospital management departments. Many contributions deal with the strategies medical librarians can or will develop in order to incorporate the many tools of modern information technology into library policy and practice.

This book covers content recognition in text, elaborating on past and current most successful algorithms and their application in a variety of settings: news filtering, mining of biomedical text, intelligence gathering, competitive intelligence, legal information searching, and processing of informal text. Today, there is considerable interest in integrating the results of information extraction in retrieval systems, because of the demand for search engines that return precise answers to flexible information queries.

New Directions in Human Information Behavior, co-edited by Drs. Amanda Spink and Charles Cole provides an understanding of the new directions, leading edge theories and models in human information behavior. Information behavior is conceptualized as complex human information related processes that are embedded within an individual s everyday social and life processes.

The book presents chapters by an interdisciplinary range of scholars who show new directions that often challenge the established views and paradigms of information behavior studies. Beginning with an evolutionary framework, the book examines information behaviors over various epochs of human existence from the Palaeolithic Era and within pre-literate societies, to contemporary behaviors by 21st century humans. Drawing upon social and psychological science theories the book presents a more integrated and holistic approach to the understanding of information behaviors that include multitasking and non-linear longitudinal processes, individuals information ground, information practices and information sharing, digital behaviors and human information organizing behaviors. The final chapter of the book integrates these new approaches and presents an overview of the key trends, theories and models for further research.

This book is directly relevant to information scientists, librarians, social and evolutionary psychologists. Undergraduate and graduate students, academics and information professionals interested in human information behavior will find this book of particular benefit. "

This book outlines the consequences of digitization for peer-reviewed research articles published in electronic journals. It is argued that digitization will revolutionize scientific communication. However, this study shows that this is not the case where scientific journals are concerned. Authors make little use of the possibilities offered by the digital medium; electronic peer review procedures have not replaced traditional ones, and users have not embraced new forms of interaction offered by some electronic journals.

Home-Oriented Informatics and Telematics is an essential reference for both academic and professional researchers in the field of home informatics. The home is a key aspect of society and the widespread use of computers and other information appliances is transforming the way in which we live, work and communicate in the information age. This area of study has seen remarkable growth in the last few years as information technology has encroached into every corner of home and social spheres.

The papers selected here cover a growing range of topics, including assistive technology; smart homes; home technology; memory aids; home activity; appliance design; design methodology; time, space and virtual presence; social and ethical aspects; and home activities.

This state-of-the-art volume presents the proceedings of the Home-Oriented Informatics and Telematics conference held in York, U.K, April 13-15, 2005. This collection will be important not only for home informatics experts and researchers, but also for teachers, administrators, and anyone else seeking to keep up to date in this rapidly emerging field.

Interpreting Objects in the Hybrid Museum examines the recent trend for converged collecting institutions and uses its investigation as a catalyst for critical reflection by all stakeholders on the risks, as well as advantages, of integration for cultural engagement. Drawing on three case studies of restructured cultural organisations in Australia and New Zealand, Robinson provides valuable insights into the conceptual and practical ways in which hybridised collecting institutions operate. Reflecting on the ultimate value of converged institutions for the communities they serve, the book uncovers the dangers of misalignment between bureaucratic decision-making and the creation of cultural meaning. Actively contesting policy assumptions about the benefits of integrating museums with other kinds of cultural institutions, the book's analysis of empirical evidence provides an important counterbalance by exposing the impacts of supposedly benign structural changes to museum organisations on fundamental processes of research, documentation and contextualisation of collections. Interpreting Objects in the Hybrid Museum highlights the consequences of policy decisions on the distinctive interpretive role of museums. As such, the book should be of interest to a range of academic and professional audiences, including scholars and students in the fields of museum and heritage studies, library and archival science, cultural studies and politics. It should also be essential reading for cultural heritage practitioners working across the museum, heritage, library, archive and gallery sectors.

This book brings together diverse voices from across the field of sustainable human computer interaction (SHCI) to discuss what it means for digital technology to support sustainability and how humans and technology can work together optimally for a more sustainable future. Contemporary digital technologies are hailed by tech companies, governments and academics as leading-edge solutions to the challenges of environmental sustainability; smarter homes, more persuasive technologies, and a robust Internet of Things hold the promise for creating a greener world. Yet, deployments of interactive technologies for such purposes often lead to a paradox: they algorithmically "optimize" heating and lighting of houses without regard to the dynamics of daily life in the home; they can collect and display data that allow us to reflect on energy and emissions, yet the same information can cause us to raise our expectations for comfort and convenience; they might allow us to share best practice for sustainable living through social networking and online communities, yet these same systems further our participation in consumerism and contribute to an ever-greater volume of electronic waste.By acknowledging these paradoxes, this book represents a significant critical inquiry into digital technology's longer-term impact on ideals of sustainability. Written by an interdisciplinary team of contributors this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of human computer interaction and environmental studies.

This book is written for members of the scholarly research community, and for persons involved in research evaluation and research policy. More specifically, it is directed towards the following four main groups of readers: - All scientists and scholars who have been or will be subjected to a quantitative assessment of research performance using citation analysis. - Research policy makers and managers who wish to become conversant with the basic features of citation analysis, and about its potentialities and limitations. - Members of peer review committees and other evaluators, who consider the use of citation analysis as a tool in their assessments. - Practitioners and students in the field of quantitative science and technology studies, informetrics, and library and information science. Citation analysis involves the construction and application of a series of indicators of the 'impact', 'influence' or 'quality' of scholarly work, derived from citation data, i.e. data on references cited in footnotes or bibliographies of scholarly research publications. Such indicators are applied both in the study of scholarly communication and in the assessment of research performance. The term 'scholarly' comprises all domains of science and scholarship, including not only those fields that are normally denoted as science - the natural and life sciences, mathematical and technical sciences - but also social sciences and humanities.

New Directions in Cognitive Information Retrieval presents an exciting new direction for research into cognitive oriented information retrieval (IR) research, a direction based on an analysis of the user's problem situation and cognitive behavior when using the IR system. This contrasts with the current dominant IR research paradigm which concentrates on improving IR system matching performance.

The chapters describe the leading edge concepts and models of cognitive IR that explore the nexus between human cognition, information and the social conditions that drive humans to seek information using IR systems. Chapter topics include: Polyrepresentation, cognitive overlap and the boomerang effect, Multitasking while conducting the search, Knowledge Diagram Visualizations of the topic space to facilitate user assimilation of information, Task, relevance, selection state, knowledge need and knowledge behavior, search training built into the search, children's collaboration for school projects, and other cognitive perspectives on IR concepts and issues.

Information providers are a very promising application area of recommender systems due to the general problem of assessing the quality of information products prior to the purchase. Recommender systems automatically generate product recommendations: customers profit from a faster finding of relevant products, stores profit from rising sales. All aspects of recommender systems are covered: the economic background, mechanism design, a survey of systems in the Internet, statistical methods and algorithms, service oriented architectures, user interfaces, as well as experiences and data from real-world applications. Specific solutions for areas with strong privacy concerns, scalability issues for large collections of products, as well as algorithms to lessen the cold-start problem for a faster return on investment of recommender projects are addressed. This book describes all steps it takes to design, implement, and successfully operate a recommender system for a specific information platform.

separated by the exigencies of the design life cycle into another compartment, that makes invisible the (prior) technical work of engineers that is not directly pertinent to the application work of practitioners. More recently (and notably after the work of Greisemer and Star) the black box has been opened and infrastructure has been discussed in terms of the social relations of an extended group of actors that includes developers. Ethical and political issues are involved (cf f accountable computing). Writing broadly within this context, Day (chapter 11) proposes that the concept of 'surface' can assist us to explore space as the product of 'power and the affective and expressive role for materials', rather than the background to this. Surfaces are the 'variously textured...sites for mixtures between bodies', and are thus the 'sites for events'. The notions of 'folding' and 'foldability' and 'unfolding' are discussed at length, as metaphors that account for the interactions of bodies in space across time. Some of the contributors to this volume focus on ways in which we may experience multiple infrastructures. Dix and his colleagues, for example, in chapter 12 explore a complex of models - of spatial context, of 'mixed reality boundaries' and of human spatial understanding across a number of field projects that make up the Equator project to explain the ways in which co-existing multiple spaces are experienced.

The main purpose of this book is to sum up the vital and highly topical research issue of knowledge representation on the Web and to discuss novel solutions by combining benefits of folksonomies and Web 2.0 approaches with ontologies and semantic technologies. The book contains an overview of knowledge representation approaches in past, present and future, introduction to ontologies, Web indexing and in first case the novel approaches of developing ontologies. combines aspects of knowledge representation for both the Semantic Web (ontologies) and the Web 2.0 (folksonomies). Currently there is no monographic book which provides a combined overview over these topics. focus on the topic of using knowledge representation methods for document indexing purposes. For this purpose, considerations from classical librarian interests in knowledge representation (thesauri, classification schemes etc.) are included, which are not part of most other books which have a stronger background in computer science.

Human culture depends on our ability to disseminate information, and then maintain and access it over time. This book addresses the problems of storing, reading, and using digital data for periods longer than 50 years. They offer concise descriptions of markup and document description languages like TIFF, PDF, HTML, and XML, explain important techniques such as migration and emulation, and present the OAIS (Open Archival Information System) Reference Model.

The convergence of IT, telecommunications, and media is changing the way information is collected, stored and accessed. This revolution is having effects on the development and organisation of information and artefact repositories such as libraries and museums. This book presents key aspects in the rapidly moving field of digital convergence in the areas of technology and information sciences. Its chapters are written by international experts who are leaders in their fields.

Cultural history enthusiasts have asserted the urgent need to protect digital information from imminent loss. This book describes methodology for long-term preservation of all kinds of digital documents. It justifies this methodology using 20th century theory of knowledge communication, and outlines the requirements and architecture for the software needed. The author emphasizes attention to the perspectives and the needs of end users.

The further rise of electronic publishing has come to change the scale and diversity of grey literature facing librarians and other information practitioners. This compiled work brings together research and authorship over the past decade dealing with both the supply and demand sides of grey literature. While this book is written with students and instructors of Colleges and Schools of Library and Information Science in mind, it likewise serves as a reader for information professionals working in any and all like knowledge-based communities.

How do Documents Become Sources? Perspectives from Asia and Science Florence Bretelle-Establet From Documents to Sources in Historiography The present volume develops a specific type of critical analysis of the written documents that have become historians' sources. For reasons that will be explained later, the history of science in Asia has been taken as a framework. However, the issue addressed is general in scope. It emerged from reflections on a problem that may seem common to historians: why, among the huge mass of written documents available to historians, some have been well studied while others have been dismissed or ignored? The question of historical sources and their (unequal) use in historiography is not new. Which documents have been used and favored as historical sources by historians has been a key historiographical issue that has occupied a large space in the historical production of the last four decades, in France at least.

This book provides a detailed record of the early history of the library at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, from the foundation of the College in 1584 to the completion of the seventh major inventory of the library's contents in 1637. This half-century formed a dynamic period in the religious and political as well as the educational life of the nation. The influence of Emmanuel, a notoriously Puritan college from its founding, was felt especially in the striking prominence of its alumni among New World settlers (among them John Harvard) and, during the English Civil War, in the placement of Emmanuel men in many key positions, including the Masterships of numerous Cambridge colleges. While these men were being educated Emmanuel's library expanded dramatically, and the seven increasingly large inventories of library books recorded there during the period give an indication of their concerns and their scholarship. Now, for the first time, the intellectual resources - by no means narrowly 'Puritan' - of this major institutional library are available for the study of all who are interested in the history of the period.

Drawing upon the author s on going research into information literacy, Information Literacy Landscapes explores the nature of the phenomenon from a socio-cultural perspective, which offers a more holistic approach to understanding information literacy as a catalyst for learning. This perspective emphasizes the dynamic relationship between learner and environment in the construction of knowledge. The approach underlines the importance of contextuality, through which social, cultural and embodied factors influence formal and informal learning. This book contributes to the understanding of information literacy and its role in formal and informal contexts.
Explores the shape of information literacy within education and workplace contextsIntroduces a holistic definition of information literacy which has been drawn from empirical studies in the workplaceIntroduces a range of sensitizing concepts for researchers and practitioners"

This book assembles contributions from computer scientists and librarians that altogether encompass the complete range of tools, tasks and processes needed to successfully preserve the cultural heritage of the Web. It combines the librarian 's application knowledge with the computer scientist 's implementation knowledge, and serves as a standard introduction for everyone involved in keeping alive the immense amount of online information.