Gobinda G. Chowdhury

Bibliometric cartography of information retrieval research by using co-word analysis

The aim of this study is to map the intellectual structure of the field of Information Retrieval (IR) during the period of 1987-1997. Co-word analysis was employed to reveal patterns and trends in the IR field by measuring the association strengths of terms representative of relevant publications or other texts produced in IR field. Data were collected from Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) for the period of 1987-1997. In addition to the keywords added by the SCI and SSCI databases, other important keywords were extracted from titles and abstracts manually. These keywords were further standardized using vocabulary control tools. In order to trace the dynamic changes of the IR field, the whole 11-year period was further separated into two consecutive periods: 1987-1991 and 1992-1997. The results show that the IR field has some established research themes and it also changes rapidly to embrace new themes.

Natural language processing

The abundant volume of natural language text in the connected world, though having a large content of knowledge, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to disseminate it by a human to discover the knowledge/wisdom in it, specifically within any given time limits. The automated NLP is aimed to do this job effectively and with accuracy, like a human does it (for a limited of amount text). This chapter presents the challenges of NLP, progress so far made in this field, NLP applications, components of NLP, and grammar of English language—the way machine requires it. In addition, covers the specific areas like probabilistic parsing, ambiguities and their resolution, information extraction, discourse analysis, NL question-answering, commonsense interfaces, commonsense thinking and reasoning, causal-diversity, and various tools for NLP. Finally, the chapter summary, and a set of relevant exercises are presented.

DIGITAL LIBRARY RESEARCH: MAJOR ISSUES AND TRENDS

Digital library research has attracted much attention in the most developed, and in a number of developing, countries. While many digital library research projects are funded by government agencies and national and international bodies, some are run by specific academic and research institutions and libraries, either individually or collaboratively. While some digital library projects, such as the ELINOR project in the UK, the first two phases of the eLib (Electronic Libraries) Programme in the UK, and the first phase of DLI (Digital Library Initiative) in the US, are now over, a number of other projects are currently under way in different parts of the world. Beginning with the definitions and characteristics of digital libraries, as proposed by various researchers, this paper provides brief accounts of some major digital library projects that are currently in progress, or are just completed, in different parts of the world. There follows a review of digital library research under sixteen major headings. Literature for this review has been identified through a search on LISA CD‐ROM database, and a Dialog search on library and information science databases, and the resulting output has been supplemented by a scan of the various issues of D‐Lib Magazine and Ariadne, and the websites of various organisations and institutions engaged in digital library research. The review indicates that we have learned a lot through digital library research within a short span of time. However, a number of issues are yet to be resolved. The paper ends with an indication of the research issues that need to be addressed and resolved in the near future in order to bring the digital library from the researcher‘s laboratory to the real life environment.

Journal as Markers of Intellectual Space: Journal Co-Citation Analysis of Information Retrieval Area, 1987–1997

A journal co-citation analysis of fifty journals and other publications in the information retrieval (IR) discipline was conducted over three periods spanning the years of 1987 to 1997. Relevant data retrieved from the Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) are analysed according to the highly cited journals in various disciplines, especially in the Library & Information Science area. The results are compared with previous research that covered the data only from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). The analysis reveals that there is no distinct difference between these two sets of results. The results of current study show that IR speciality is multi-disciplinary with broad relations with other specialities. The field of IR is a mature field, as the journals used for research communication remained quite stable during the study period.

Digital libraries and reference services: present and future

Reference services have taken a central place in library and information services. They are also regarded as personalised services since in most cases a personal discussion takes place between a user and a reference librarian. Based on this, the librarian points to the sources that are considered to be most appropriate to meet the specific information need(s) of the user. Since the Web and digital libraries are meant for providing direct access to information sources and services without the intervention of human intermediaries, the pertinent question that appears is whether we need reference services in digital libraries, and, if so, how best to offer such services. Current digital libraries focus more on access to, and retrieval of, digital information, and hardly lay emphasis on the service aspects. This may have been caused by the narrower definitions of digital libraries formulated by digital library researchers. This paper looks at the current state of research in personalised information services in digital libraries. It first analyses some representative definitions of digital libraries in order to establish the need for personalised services. It then provides a brief overview of the various online reference and information services currently available on the Web. The paper also briefly reviews digital library research that specifically focuses on the personalisation of digital libraries and the provision of digital reference and information services. Finally, the paper proposes some new areas of research that may be undertaken to improve the provision of personalised information services in digital libraries.

Mapping the intellectual structure of information retrieval studies : an author co-citation analysis, 1987-1997

Author co-citation analysis (ACA) has been used to explore changes in the intellectual base of the information retrieval (IR) field over two consecutive time periods: 1987-1991 and 1992-1997. Thirty-nine highly cited IR researchers were selected as the research sample. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) and clustering techniques (CT) were used to create the two-dimensional maps to display the dynamic intellectual structure of IR, based on scholars citing their work over these two time periods. Factor analysis (FA) has been used to reveal the ‘breadth’ of the authors’ research areas. ACA offers a good technique that contributes to the understanding of intellectual structure in the sciences and possibly in other areas to the extent that those areas rely on formal scholarly communication such as serial publications. Nonetheless, obvious drawbacks exist in ACA. These include the subjective nature of the interpretation of results, the difficulty of readily identifying clusters and the inability to distinguish collaborative research relationships between authors. Thus, ACA by itself is insufficient. However, ACA can be enhanced significantly when combined with FA to give a more accurate and useful picture of the MDS results.

Public library 2.0: towards a new mission for public libraries as a network of community knowledge

Purpose – This article seeks to propose a new vision for public libraries in the digital age.Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper is based on an understanding of the recent developments in ICT, internet and digital libraries; and also on the authors personal experience in research and development in library and information science – especially in relation to public libraries – and digital libraries.Findings – The study argues that currently there are no proper mechanisms for capturing, preserving and disseminating community knowledge, and proposes that public libraries in the digital age should take a new role whereby they should act not only as a gateway to knowledge, but also as a platform facilitating the creation of, and access to, local community knowledge. Proposes a model for PL2.0 where public libraries can take on this new role to build a network of community knowledge.Research limitations/implications – The paper proposes a conceptual model for the second generation of public lib...

Thesaurus-enhanced search interfaces

User interfaces to information retrieval systems play a major role in assisting users to search, browse and retrieve information relevant to their needs. This paper provides a review of a category of information retrieval interfaces that are enhanced by incorporating standard thesauri as part of their searching and browsing facilities. A brief account of the rationale behind the integration of thesauri as search aids in such interfaces is provided, based on research literature related to information searching behaviour, information retrieval interface evaluation, search term selection and query expansion. Two categories of search interfaces enhanced with thesauri are examined: those associated with research-based programmes and commercial web-based interfaces to bibliographic databases. Six commercial web-based databases are compared in terms of their thesaurus interface features. It is concluded that, although the number of thesaurus-enhanced interfaces is growing, few studies have focused on user interaction with these interfaces or fully explored the ways in which they can assist users in the search process.

A snapshot of information use patterns of academics in British universities

Purpose – This paper aims to study information behaviour of academics in the digital age. Compares information behaviour of British university academics in three disciplines – computer and information sciences, business/management, and English literature.Design/methodology/approach – Discusses information behaviour of academics in the digital age.Findings – English academics make higher use of printed information resources, such as text and reference books, than academics of any other discipline included in this study; they generally tended to be the least frequent users of electronic resources such as full‐text databases, indexing and abstracting databases, search engines, and internet sites. CIS academics generally tended to make greatest use of electronic‐based information resources, and the least use of print‐based information resources, and business/management academics fell somewhere in between these two disciplines. CIS academics were generally the most enthusiastic about the benefits of electronic...

Design and evaluation of a task‐based digital library for the academic community

The paper discusses the design, development and evaluation of a task‐based digital library, the Digital Work Environment (DWE), for the academic community of higher education institutions (HEI) with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, as a test case. Three different information organisation approaches (alphabetical, subject category and task‐based) were used to organise the wide range of heterogeneous information resources that were interfaced to DWE. A user evaluation study using a series of task scenarios was carried out to gauge the effectiveness and usefulness of DWE and these information organisation approaches. The time taken by respondents to identify and access the relevant information resources for individual tasks was also measured. The findings show that the task‐based approach took the least time in identifying information resources. Regression analysis of information resource location time with gender, age, computer experience and digital resource experience of the participants are also reported.