Information Science Scholars Research Articles

Roles and Responsibilities in University‐Community Engagement for Library and Information Scientists

ABSTRACTThis panel describes innovative digital projects and services supporting university‐community engagement. Panelists will draw on their experiences as librarians and researchers collaborating with a range of constituents, including newcomers, Indigenous communities, non‐profit organization leaders, and over‐researched, low‐income communities in rural and urban settings across Canada. The panel seeks to highlight the need to foster place‐based, contextually driven approaches to university‐community engagement efforts, and the opportunities and challenges inherent in this work. Audience members will be asked to reflect on their own experiences and consider the roles and responsibilities for library and information science scholars and professionals in facilitating reciprocity and capacity building in community‐university partnerships.

TORCHLITE: New, Open Analytical Tools and Infrastructure for a Mega‐Scale Digital Library

ABSTRACTThis paper introduces TORCHLITE, an innovative HathiTrust Research Center (HTRC) open analytical and computational framework designed to offer efficient, open, and approachable access to the HTRC Extracted Features (EF) dataset via a well‐documented web‐based API. This poster will summarize project goals and progress, and discuss community engagement, which has played a pivotal role in this project. During a hackathon event held in spring 2024, TORCHLITE fostered collaboration among digital humanities and information science scholars to develop widgets and notebooks utilizing the EF API. Through the hackathon, participants explored the API's capabilities, leading to the creation of over a dozen analytical widgets and interactive programming notebooks (e.g., Jupyter).

When words are key: negotiating meaning in information research

PurposeThis project set out to explore information scholars’ perceptions of the influence of their keyword selections and the implications of their linguistic choices on possibilities for and perceptions of the field of Information Science. We trialed a narrative methodological approach to investigate the multiple stories told with specific keywords, how they relate to larger discourses within the field and the impact they have on the lives of information researchers.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on Arthur Frank’s narrative analysis to consider keywords as stories, which shape one’s sense of professional identity and belonging. The analysis, which is informed by insights from multi-disciplinary scholars of keywords, employs data from a keywords-oriented workshop with Information School faculty and students, as well as an online questionnaire sent to heads of Information Schools.FindingsWe did not find a singular definitive story of information science scholars’ experiences with keywords. Rather we identify tensions surrounding common and contested understandings of discipline, canon and information, engaging the complexity of interdisciplinary, international, intellectual and moral claims of the field. This research offers insight into the experiential factors that shape scholars’ engagement with keywords and the tensions they can create.Originality/valueA wealth of bibliometric analyses of keywords focuses on finding the “right” words to describe the scholarship you seek or the work you want others to discover. However, this study offers information researchers a novel approach, creating space to acknowledge the generative tensions of keywords, beyond the extractive logic of search and retrieval.

The Impact of Digital Technologies on Memory and Memory Studies

With the widespread integration of smartphones, computers, and the internet, information access and processing have undergone significant changes. This paper investigates both positive and negative implications, acknowledging the extension of cognitive capacities through easy access to vast databases and external memory aids while also addressing concerns about diminished memory consolidation and reliance on shallow encoding strategies. Examining the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, the study also highlights collaborative efforts among scholars in psychology, neuroscience, sociology, and information science to comprehend the impact of digital technologies on memory, and emphasizes the challenges and future directions in memory research, including issues like digital amnesia, information overload, and privacy concerns. Overall, the paper underscores the need for understanding the relationship between human memory and digital tools, enabling the development of strategies to enhance memory, counteract potential adverse effects, and promote a balanced utilization of digital resources in memory-related tasks.

Information Awareness among Information Science Female Students at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (Field Study)

Purpose: This study aims to provide a realistic and comprehensive view of the information awareness of female students in the Information Science Department at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, to know the level of information skills they possess when they use information.
 
 Method: In a case study design, this study employed a check to gather the opinions of scholars regarding the services handed by the university library, understand their provocations for using the library, and understand the university library’s part in equipping scholars with the necessary information chops.The data analysis was conducted using the statistical program (SPSS) to gain study pointers.
 
 information about the sources from every table/chart/figures: For the study on information mindfulness among Information Science scholars at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University (applied study), the experimenters designed and distributed a questionnaire amongst undergraduate Information Science scholars. The number of scholars who responded to the questionnaire was 143 scholars from all situations except the third position, as it represents the first semester for scholars in the Information Science Department.
 
 Results and Conclusion: Results show that most students possess high information skills. It recommends incorporating assignments and duties in the Information Science program curriculum that enable students to optimally use the library, information skills, and how to search for information. This contributes to enhancing the information awareness of students and increasing the efficiency of graduates.
 
 Implications of research: Furthermore, the study emphasizes arranging guidance courses for students on information retrieval to elevate their information awareness and training new students on various information awareness programs to develop their scientific research and computer skills.

Libraries in an era of constant flux: establishing smart libraries in South Africa

Purpose The study aims to draw lessons from other countries and propose a framework for developing smart libraries in transformation in South Africa. The framework will be useful to policymakers and scholars in library and information science. Design/methodology/approach This study used a qualitative approach based on a systematic literature review and the researchers’ experience concerning the transformation of smart libraries in South Africa. The researchers selected databases to access full-text, abstract or full-text linking facilities. The researchers generated the study’s literature review using keywords derived from themes. The keywords used include “smart libraries,” “functions of smart libraries” and “smart library infrastructure,” based on the objectives of the study. Findings The findings reveal that developing smart libraries in South Africa is feasible, but all stakeholders must cooperate and collaborate to create smart libraries. The findings of this study show that South Africa can draw lessons from other countries on the way forward in developing smart libraries. The results indicate that lack of funding, digital infrastructure and technical skills are among the factors inhibiting the development of smart libraries. Originality/value The issue of smart libraries has become a key on the agenda on a global scale, and South Africa is no exception to such developments. This study proposes a framework for developing smart libraries based on lessons learned within and outside South Africa.

How Information Science Research Can Contribute to the Development of Dementia‐Friendly Communities

ABSTRACTDementia is a progressive and incurable disease which impacts both people who have been diagnosed with some type of neurocognitive disorder but also their family members. Since dementia care has lately started to include not only pharmacological treatment and medical care but also a person‐centred and evidence‐based (neuro)rehabilitation in the community, library and information science scholars and professionals have started to investigate how they can contribute to development of dementia‐friendly communities. The paper discusses how findings from an ongoing multi‐phase research have been translated into practice in the city of Osijek, Croatia. Information sciences scholars have collaborated with librarians, civic organizations, neurology and human rights professionals to develop diverse programs in the local community, which aim to raise the quality of life of older citizens, people with dementia and their caregivers through information sharing and raising awareness, supporting their health and wellbeing, and capacity building of librarians.

“I had to teach my own doctor what this was about”: Information sharing barriers and information evaluation of Finnish transgender people

Although research shows that transgender people face information barriers when seeking gender-affirming care, few studies have investigated their experiences of information sharing and evaluation during patient provider interactions. Focusing on information triangulation and cognitive authorities, this interpretive phenomenological study analyzed data derived from interviews with 19 transgender individuals from Finland using qualitative content analysis. The results indicate that transgender people face several information sharing barriers when seeking gender-affirming care. Barriers were categorized to an atmosphere and transphobia, a lack of information, and the healthcare system itself. Transgender individuals use several information sources to gain information about gender-affirming care. Different information sources can have different authority roles. Based on these roles, information sources can be triangulated to gain information with which to make health-related decisions. The findings have important theoretical and practical implications for library and information science scholars attempting to reduce barriers to health information.

Platform as Theoretical Framework Rather Than Just Empirical Context: How Information Science Scholars Examine Digital Platforms

AbstractThis panel aims to highlight the importance of digital platforms to information science (IS) and in doing this to help connect IS scholars to the important work from other intellectual communities when conducting studies on platforms. The pervasiveness of digital platforms in our lives has encouraged scholars across multiple disciplines to turn their attention to these socio‐technical arrangements. And, over the past two‐plus decades, scholars have advanced multiple conceptualizations and some initial theorizing about digital platforms. This noted, platform‐oriented literature in IS is less focused, and more importantly, does not connect to the conversations on this topic developed in other intellectual communities. To begin connecting IS scholars with platform scholarship outside of our field, this panel brings together IS scholars who have focused their scholarly attention to studying platforms in order to share their research and discuss how their studies could be inspired by and contribute to the platform literature.

Dispersion of ICT-related subject terms in information and knowledge management publications: A Bradford analysis

The application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in information and knowledge management (IKM) has attracted the attention of library and information Science (LIS) scholars in the recent past. The multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary nature of ICTs means that the ICT literature is published in several fields of knowledge. Although Bradford’s law of dispersion is commonly used to determine the core journals in a given field or discipline or topic of study, this study attempts to use the principles of the law to determine the core concepts of ICTs within the information and knowledge management literature. Data was obtained from EBSCO Discovery’s Library, Information Science and Technology s (LISTA) and the Library and Information Science Source (LISS) databases using a variety of keywords as search terms. The procedures of conducting a Bradford analysis were followed to determine the core subject terms in ICTs as reflected in the IKM group of articles published between 1998 and 2017. The results indicate that the application of ICTs in IKM largely occurs in the fields medicine, business and commerce, education and training (higher education and training), decision sciences, and industrial management. It was also noted that the core subjects varied from one study period to another; technology-associated subject terms were largely visible; and the dispersion of subject terms fits the Bradford’s dispersion. We however noted that the dispersion of articles according to Bradford’s zones is not accurately representative of the principles of the Law. The study has implications for collection development, searching and retrieval practices, and the application of Bradford’s law beyond the analysis of core journals or publications in not only IKM but also in the field of library and information science.

Letter from the Editor

As an academic field, ‘information science’ has repeatedly been characterized as complex and interdisciplinary. When investigating “the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information,” information science scholars converse with external disciplines (Borko, 1968, p. 3). They borrow theory, adopt frameworks, and apply methodologies from what have been termed ‘content’ or ‘conventional’ disciplines, e.g., mathematics, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, strategic management, psychology, communications, library science (Bates, 1999). Simultaneously, information science practitioners contribute their own insights regarding the organization, representation, form, management, and use of information and information systems in the conventional disciplines. By attending to all the conventional disciplines, information science behaves as a ‘meta-discipline’ (Bates, 1999). This issue aligns with this notion of information science as a ‘meta-discipline’ that is both parallel and perpendicular to conventional disciplines.

The Role of Information in Later-Life Sexuality: An Invitation for Further Exploration.

Despite the key role of information in realizing, questioning, or respecting one's sexual health, individuals' engagement with information about sex and sexuality remains understudied, particularly in older adult populations. Beginning with current understandings of later-life sexuality to contextualize how older adults may need, use, and manage information about their sexual lives and practices, this forum article follows with what is currently known about older adults' sexuality-related information needs and practices. We conclude with an invitation for collaboration between gerontologists and Library and Information Science scholars and professionals as a means to step outside the medicalization of older adults' sexuality and bolster our understandings of how information and later-life sexuality are mututally shaping.

Putting Geographical Information Science in Place – Towards Theories of Platial Information and Platial Information Systems

Place is a concept that can hardly be formally captured at the moment, as it is unclear how instances of places can formally be represented and how conclusions about places can practically be drawn by technological means. Geographical Information Science scholars hence tend to use the term ‘Place’ even when, in fact, they presume a paradigm similar to the one assumed for Geometrical Space. As a result, Space and thematic information is mostly treated separately, and the richness and variety of Place descriptions in terms of identities, affective states, affordances, and further aspects that have been discussed in Geography since a long time are not (yet) reflected well in corresponding discussions in Geographical Information Science. This article reviews the ongoing debate and outlines directions of how to extend it much beyond the currently assumed spatial paradigm towards platial information. Thereby, possible approaches and future prospects as well as limitations of Theories of Platial Information and Platial Information Systems are explored. The agenda laid out and discussed in this article aims to set a frame of reference for a re-focussing of the ongoing discourse on platial information and stimulate future developments towards a Platial Information Science.

Role of Digital Skills in Refugee Integration

Two concurrent 21st-century phenomena—the nearly unprecedented number of forced migrants and the near ubiquity of information and communications technology—have given rise to increased scholarship in “digital migration studies.” One area of investigation in this emergent interdisciplinary field is the role of digital skills in refugee integration. Given the accelerated global reliance on technology resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the author conducted a state-of-the-art literature review to identify emerging issues and highlight research needs in this area. A search of 10 databases yielded 39 studies spanning the major resettlement regions (North America, Western Europe, Oceania), and including refugees from across the globe. The inclusion criteria were studies focused on refugees’ practical use of digital technology in integration, published from January 2020-April 2021. Exclusion criteria were studies on refugees in transit or protracted displacement, digital connectivity and accessibility, use of digital technology by humanitarian actors, software development, analyses of digital representations of refugees, public attitudes toward refugees as expressed in digital media, and literature reviews. Ndofor-Tah et al.’s (2019) Refugee Integration Framework was used to organize and synthesize the findings. The studies demonstrated how digital skills affect all domains of integration. Additionally, the studies confirm that many refugees in resettlement have limited digital skills for necessary integration tasks, such as navigating websites and assessing the credibility of online information. Limitations of this state-of-the-art review include its cross-sectional nature, having only one reviewer, and only published literature accessible online through public websites or subscription databases. An important emerging issue for future research is assessing, teaching, and learning digital skills among this population. The study's contributions to the knowledge base and theory, and its implications for information science scholars and practitioners and those in allied disciplines within digital migration studies, are discussed.

Sofia Y. Leung and Jorge R. López-McKnight. Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2021. 358p. Paper, $35.00 (ISBN 978-0262043502).

Throughout library history, the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have not been centered, thoroughly documented, or affirmed. Marginalized and underrepresented . Those have been the adjectives used to describe people of color in the library field. Over the last couple of decades, library and information science (LIS) scholars and practitioners have begun to fill out the LIS literature by writing their own ideas, experiences, and histories. Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory , edited by Sofia Y. Leung and Jorge R. López-McKnight, is a groundbreaking text that is the first book that introduces and explicitly applies critical race theory (CRT) to the LIS field. Knowledge Justice is composed of three sections, each with an introduction by foundational CRT/LIS scholars and 13 chapters.

National archives, records and the coronavirus pandemic: a comparative thematic analysis of initial international responses to COVID-19

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is as follows: the first objective is to help illuminate part of the international archival sector’s initial responses to the crisis at its commencement, particularly by thematically analyzing the announcements made by national archives, which are arguably the leading archival institutions in their respective countries and the second objective is to help establish a joint contemporary understanding and historical snapshot of the positions of national archives during the first few months of the pandemic.Design/methodology/approachA comparative thematic analysis of national archives’ first formal public-facing COVID-19 announcements, released between March and May 2020, is conducted, specifically from the official websites of Australia’s National Archives of Australia, Canada’s Library and Archives Canada, New Zealand’s Archives New Zealand, the United Kingdom’s (UK) The National Archives and the United States of America’s (USA) National Archives.FindingsNotwithstanding their diverse contexts, all the announcements thematically converge in discussing the closure of physical locations and spaces, as well as maintaining (reduced) services and offering remote access. Another theme appearing across most announcements is the concern for the protection of the health, welfare and safety of their communities. Additional themes featured in some of the announcements include considerations about the handling of paper records and physical materials, the removal and/or return of materials and the provision of further COVID-19 information. Unique themes appearing only once include steps for enacting precautions, furloughing staff and reopening and post-pandemic planning.Research limitations/implicationsLimitations to the article’s purview include its small sample size, focus on mainly English-speaking contexts and analysis of only official websites. Nevertheless, this sample arguably includes some of the major and leading archival institutions, not only in their respective countries but also internationally, namely, two national archives from North America (Canada and the USA), one from the wider European region (the UK) and two from Oceania (Australia and New Zealand). Further studies could expand the cohort size, diversify the focus for instance by analyzing social media postings and metrics and extend the timeframe.Practical implicationsThis study could be of interest to archival academics and professionals, as well as library and information science scholars and practitioners, public health researchers and policymakers, cultural studies scholars and historians, exploring international and intersectional initiatives that have informed or are currently informing, approaches to and understandings of this pandemic and other similar health crises. It is further hoped that this study will humbly show support and supply solidarity with the wider archival community as it continues responding to and dealing with COVID-19.Social implicationsCapturing and analyzing aspects of national archives’ communication strategies related to the coronavirus pandemic is a topic of interest, not only for contemporary attempts for dealing with and understanding the crisis but also as a historical snapshot of their responses at this particular point in time.Originality/valueBy contributing to ongoing conversations about the coronavirus pandemic, this study provides the beginning of an analysis of the international archival sector’s initial interventions within it. As the first article in the archival literature on this topic, a baseline and point of reference are established for other studies that will hopefully follow on this topic. In these ways, it can also contribute to debates on how archives and other cultural memory institutions including libraries, museums and galleries, have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic and their resulting communication strategies and impacts upon their institutions, missions, collections, services and communities.

Theoretical typology of deceptive content (Conspiracy Theories)

Theoretical typology of deceptive content (Conspiracy Theories)

Comparison of Research Performance Between Domestic and International Library and Information Science Scholars

Comparison of Research Performance Between Domestic and International Library and Information Science Scholars

Crisis Situations and Information Science. Selected Issues in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose/Thesis: This paper attempts to organize and systematize scholarly literature on the issues relating to the current global health crisis published by information science scholars and professionals, as well as on the information science-related initiatives undertaken to provide access to reliable and valid information in crisis situations.
 Approach/Methods: A critical review of selected literature, as well as observation and a descriptive analysis of websites and web platforms were conducted to establish the thematic corpus.
 Results and conclusions: Even though the topic is recent, several subfields of information science have already been the subject of studies conducted in different parts of the world. It may imply that information science scholars and professionals react quickly to change and they are aware of the fact that their discipline may play an important role during crisis situations. This role may involve facilitating better management in future crises if they do happen.
 Research limitations: Since the topic is new and the situation is dynamic, new research results, or online projects are being issued almost on a daily basis. Hence, it can be assumed that shortly after its publication, this paper will not present the current state of the art anymore. 
 Originality/Value: First scholarly publications on the issues relating to the current global health crisis appeared in early Spring 2020. According to the author’s knowledge, no summary has been published that would systematize and classify the publications and other initiatives from the information science field.

Public Libraries: Their Role in Smart City Strategies

Purpose/Thesis: This paper examines the position of public libraries in smart city strategies. To that end, I verify two hypotheses, H1: Cities analyzed employ strategic plans to define their path to “smartness”, and H2: Public libraries are a part of these strategies. Approach/Methods: Top 30 cities from the ranking of IESE Cities in Motion Index 2019 were se­lected. The hypotheses were tested through the analysis of strategy documents and web portals. In most cases, the analysis relied on English versions of said documents/portals, occasionally compared with the national language version . Results and conclusions: The process of verifying the first hypothesis led to identifying four groups: G1, comprising cities with a general strategy, presumed to include smart initiatives (3 cities), G2: cities with a separate “smart city” strategy, published on their own portal, or a related website (15 cities); G3: cities with subsites/portals briefly summarizing their activities in the area of ‘smart’ development (10 cities), and G4: cities with many sectoral strategies, presumed to include smart initiatives (2 ci­ties). The analysis allowed the identification of a number of areas in which public libraries already contribute to smart development: smart building, smart infrastructure, smart services, digital skills and life-long learning, sustainability, creativity, digital citizenship and smart business Originality/Value: Although many library and information science scholars study smart cities, no similar study has been conducted, and therefore, this paper, with its unique approach, offers a new perspective on the discussion on smart libraries.