Fatih Oguz

The Challenges of Nonstandardized Vendor Usage Data in a Statewide Metasearch Environment: The Library of Texas Experience

This article describes a research and development project the objective of which was to develop a means to produce standardized statewide usage data made available from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. Using a range of data collection and evaluation methods, the project staff determined that there were significant problems in producing statewide standardized and comparable database usage statistics. This article provides background information on key issues related to these problems, offers a number of techniques that might be adapted for use in other situations, indicates the opportunities presented by metasearch applications for recording usage data, and makes recommendations for future research and work to obtain more accurate and standardized database usage statistics.

Who Do You Know? A Study of Connectedness in Online Education and Employment

This study explored the relationship of online course intensity to development of social networks and the impact of social networks on obtaining employment or employment information to develop a better understanding of the factors that lead to improved employment outcomes and information-gathering. Graduates from three ALA-accredited programs in the Southeastern US who took some of all of their classes online to earn the MLIS degree were surveyed. Findings suggest that there are differences in types of contacts (networks) used in job-finding related to online course intensity; and there are differences in the types of network contacts used to secure employment or employment information. The results point to the importance of fitting network development to program modality (online intensity); the necessity for encouraging and promoting career-related work experiences during the master’s program; and the importance of providing face-to-face contact however infrequently to students enrolled in online programs.

Collaboration through Communities of Practice in the Digital Age

This paper aims to describe and explain the role of Communities of Practice (CoPs) as an informal communication mechanism in initiating, improving, and fostering collaboration in the digital age. CoPs play a critical role in the management of shared knowledge and create value for both their members and organizations. The advent of the Internet and specifically the World Wide Web (WWW) has forever changed the means of accessing and sharing data and information. With the inception of Web 2.0 technologies and social-networking sites in recent years, connections and relationships are now not only nurtured and sustained in an online environment, but also established through creating virtual communities. The authors also assert that the inception of Web 2.0 technologies and social-networking sites is a great advancement in providing a rich learning, communication, and collaborative environment, especially through the transfer of tacit knowledge that we take for granted in our face-to-face interactions. These reflections are based on personal communications with members of virtual CoPs and literature on the impact of CoPs on decision-making and knowledge management.

Internship in LIS education: An international perspective on experiential learning

The value of internship as a form of experiential learning in library and information science education has been debated for many years in North America. To gain a global perspective, the current research examines whether such an experience is required and for what reasons and whether placements can be done internationally or virtually. Participants include national libraries, associations, and academic library and information science programs from 69 different countries around the world. Results indicate that outside of American Library Association accredited institutions, internship is more often required and that when it is not, participation rates are low. Further, there was much stronger support for international experiences. Despite the increasing use of online tools to deliver library and information science education, there is a decided lack of institutional support for virtual internships. Suggestions for further research are proposed that address the interdisciplinary, intentional, interconnected, and international model for an internship in 21st-century library and information science education.

Faculty members’ perceptions towards institutional repository at a medium-sized university: Application of a binary logistic regression model

Purpose – The study aimed to investigate the perceptions of faculty members at a medium-sized university towards self-archiving and participation in institutional repositories (IRs). Design/methodology/approach – The research participants were from a medium-sized university. An online survey was distributed and a total of 217 responses were received which yielded a 40 per cent overall response rate. Faculty perceptions of the IR were measured through nine dimensions, the results of which were later summarised using principal component factor analysis. Findings – Faculty members’ perception of IRs and willingness to contribute to the IRs were closely associated with scholarly productivity rather than prior knowledge of and experience with IRs. Those who possessed scholarly materials were significantly more likely to have a positive perception of IRs and, therefore, were more likely to contribute to IRs than those who did not. Seniority in faculty rank contributed negatively to faculty members’ perception o...

URL decay at year 20: A research note

All text is ephemeral. Some texts are more ephemeral than others. The web has proved to be among the most ephemeral and changing of information vehicles. The research note revisits Koehlers original data set after about 20 years since it was first collected. By late 2013, the number of URLs responding to a query had fallen to 1.6% of the original sample. A query of the 6 remaining URLs in February 2015 showed only 2 still responding.

Design, development, and implementation of a Texas library directory database: A multipurpose database for the library of Texas

The paper presents an overview of the Texas Library Directory Database development effort. The TLDD was designed and implemented by the Texas Center for Digital Knowledge at the University of North Texas team as part of a project for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission to support the Library of Texas Resource Discovery Service. The TLDD offers a unique centralized controlled environment to collect a wide range of information about Texas libraries, to manage these data, and to offer a common repository of current information about Texas libraries for use by various TSLAC divisions, members of the Texas library community and library users. The paper examines issues that shaped the development of the TLDD, such as an international standard for directories of libraries, archives, information and documentation centre, and their databases (ISO2146); selection of the open source technical platform for the database and interface applications development; availability and quality of the data sources available to populate the database, etc. Challenges encountered during the project and suggestions for future library directory database development efforts are described.

Organizational Influences in Technology Adoption Decisions: A Case Study of Digital Libraries

The purpose of this study was to understand the organizational level decision factors in technology adoption in the context of digital libraries. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate the adoption of a specific technology, XML-based Web services, in digital libraries. Rogers’s diffusion of innovations and Wenger’s communities of practice were the theories used to frame the study. The data collected through interviews were triangulated with documentary evidence and a comprehensive member check. Four organizational level influences identified when making technology adoption decisions in the context of digital libraries were organizational structure, management style, focus and direction of the program, and relationships with external entities. Attributes including program size, organizational culture and availability of financial resources contributed to these organizational level influences whereas program size did not appear to have an effect. Informal communication mechanisms were found to inform and influence the decision-making process.

Document constancy and persistence: A study of Web pages in library and information science domain

A selection of ninety English language library and information science organization Web sites and their associated pages are analyzed. A majority of Web sites are located on the .org generic top-level domain or the country code top-level domain of the country of origin (to include .int). The Web sites and pages were monitored for ninety- one days beginning November 2, 2010. The data suggest that while Web sites may fluctuate in size on a day to day basis, there is a general tendency toward accretion of pages. Web pages on these organizational Web sites appear to be more persistent than on the Web in general. There is significant variation in constancy as measured by the cosine similarity algorithm.

The potential for web services to enhance information access to legacy data: An exploratory study and application

This paper presents an overview of an exploratory research project to identify, describe, and investigate the applicability of the Web services (WS) approach to access legacy data. In the Z Texas Implementation Component of the Library of Texas (ZLOT) project, the ZLOT technical team has implemented a multi-purpose Texas Library Directory Database (TLDD) that is used as a back-end database to support the Library of Texas (LOT) Resource Discovery Service (RDS). The researchers developed and implemented a prototype WS application to show how a legacy system can be accessed and its data can be searched and retrieved. This study focused on understanding how requests and responses between software applications are encoded in Extensible Markup Language (XML).