Fletcher T. H. Cole

Changing workplace demands: what job ads tell us

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse job ads as relatively accessible indicators of the knowledge, skills and competencies required of librarians by employers. It then uses a framework provided by the literature on professional jurisdiction to examine what may be trends and shaping factors for the Library and Information Studies (LIS) profession with regard to jurisdiction in a changing information landscape.Design/methodology/approach – Job ads were examined in two separate studies; one comparing job ads in Australia and the USA over eight weeks in 2004, and the other looking at one month snapshots of Australian job ads in 1974, 1984, 1994 and 2004. The text from the job ads was analysed using a content analysis software package. The literature on professional jurisdiction provided an interpretive framework.Findings – The Australian snapshots over time showed that there is an increasing lack of clarity about the skills and competencies required of librarians. The American job ads seemed to r...

The discourse of data: exploring data-related vocabularies in geographic information systems description

Various ideas of data have emerged, expressed in practice through distinct vocabularies of data-related terms. This article develops a six-category taxonomy of these vocabularies, and illustrates how their terms are utilized in texts which relate to geographic information systems (GIS) in general, and to the HYDRA5 water catchment modeling system developed for the Sydney Water Corporation in particular. Revealed is complex cross-referencing between inter-related vocabularies. Terms from different vocabularies are juxtaposed in such a way as to produce a cascade of meaningful reference which invites the reader to accept the transitions from understanding ‘data’ in one way to understanding it in another. Several implications are drawn out briefly: problems with viewing data as ‘object’; the need to explore further how the complexity of data is negotiated in practice; and the defining role that ideas of data have in relation to communities of practice, professional education and technical training.

Changing employment patterns: An Australian experience

This paper reports the results of a survey of the employment experiences of graduates of the Library and Information Studies (LIS) programs at the University of New South Wales from the years 1997 to 2001. Data were gathered about position titles and the major functions of these positions. Whilst the bulk of the positions were in libraries and information centres and had titles reflecting this, there were also positions which indicated less mainstream library and information activities. Investigation of the major functions performed revealed that some traditional LIS ones were well represented, while others were less widespread. Some functions associated with innovations in information technology had increased over the five years covered. The data showed that those performing some of the newer functions and those in less traditionally titled positions were generally better remunerated.

Object-relational data modelling for informetric databases

Informetric researchers have long chafed at the limitations of bibliographic databases for their analyses, without being able to visualize or develop real solutions to the problem. This paper describes a solution developed to provide for the specialist needs of informetric researchers. In a collaborative exercise between the fields of computer science and informetrics, data modelling was used in order to address the requirements of complex and dynamic informetric data. This paper reports on this modelling experience with its aim of building an object-relational database (ORDB) for informetric research purposes. The paper argues that ORM (object-relational model) is particularly suitable because it allows for the modelling of complex data and accommodates the various data source formats and standards used by a variety of bibliographic databases. Further, ORM captures the dynamic nature of informetric data by allowing user-defined data types and by embedding basic statistical calculating tools as object functions in these user-defined data types. The main ideas of the paper are implemented in an Oracle database management system.

Usage of different Web Impact Factors for Ranking Australian Universities

This study describes how search engines (SE) can be employed for automated, efficient data gathering for Webometric studies using well defined query specfic URLs in SE (predictable URLs). It then compares the usage of staff-related Web Impact Factors (WIFs) to web impact factors for a ranking of Australian universities, showing that rankings based on staff-related WIFs correlate much better with an established ranking from the Melbourne Institute than commonly used WIFs. In fact WIFs do not correlate with the Melbourne ranking at all. It also compares WIF data for Australian Universities provided by Smith [1] for a longitudinal comparison of the WIF of Australian Universities over the last decade. It shows that size-dependent WIF values declined for most Australian universities over the last ten years, while staff- dependent WIFs shows a riding trend.