June Abbas

Relationships and social rules: Teens’ social network and other ICT selection practices

The issue of how teens choose social networks and information communication technologies (ICTs) for personal communication is complex. This study focused on describing how U.S. teens from a highly technological suburban high school select ICTs for personal communication purposes. Two research questions guided the study: (a) What factors influence high school seniors’ selection of online social networks and other ICTs for everyday communication? (b) How can social network theory (SNT) help to explain how teens select online social networks and other ICTs for everyday communication purposes? Using focus groups, a purposive sample of 45 teens were asked to discuss (a) their preferred methods for communicating with friends and family and why, (b) the reasons why they chose to engage (or not to engage) in online social networking, (c) how they selected ICTs for social networking and other communication purposes, and (d) how they decided whom to accept as online “friends.” Findings indicated that many factors influenced participants’ ICT selection practices including six major categories of selection factors: relationship factors, information/communication factors, social factors, systems factors, self-protection factors, and recipient factors. SNT was also helpful in explaining how “friendship” was a major determining factor in their communication media and platform choices.

Institutional Digital Repositories for Science and Technology: A View from the Laboratory

ABSTRACT Institutions across the United States are actively creating institutional repositories (IRs) and an array of field-specific online collections, especially in the biological sciences. The 20 earth and biological scientists interviewed for this article embrace online resources for use in their research, teaching, and creative activities and, although previously unaware of the functions of an IR, unanimously support the development of one at the University of Oklahoma. The ability to share scholarly information across campus and to securely archive data are seen as valuable attributes of an IR. Despite their endorsement, participants have little interest in spending time and effort in creating an IR beyond voluntarily submitting their published works.

“Don’t be dumb—that’s the rule I try to live by”: A closer look at older teens’ online privacy and safety attitudes

Popular media often characterize youths’ use of social media as overwhelmingly negative, reporting that teens engage in reckless, unsafe behaviors with little thought to their online privacy or safety. Typically, these popular media accounts are based on adults’ prescriptive views of youths’ attitudes and behaviors. Using qualitative methods including background questionnaires and focus groups, we gathered older teens’ attitudes about online privacy and safety to provide a more complete narrative from a teen perspective. Findings suggest that older teens are concerned with their online privacy and feel discomfort with unintended audiences seeing their personal information, yet most feel tension to share personal information with friends. They are less concerned about safety, tending to feel safe online and to employ protective measures, but viewing older and younger generations as less knowledgeable about online safety. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for teaching teens about online privacy and safety.

Visualization of latin textual variants using a pixel-based text analysis tool

One of the most important activities of Latin scholars is to analyze fragmentary copies of a Classical text and assemble an annotated reconstruction as a conjecture about its original form. We have developed a pixel-based visual text analysis tool to help Latin scholars visualize the evolution of historic copies and analyze the details of alterations and errors introduced in transcription. Coordination of pixel-based visualizations with focus +context navigation across multiple views allows compact representation of text variation across scales of text structure. This approach helps scholars validate the accuracy of variations and assess subtle differences across fragmentary copies as well as past reconstructions. In this paper, we describe the central design features of the tool that help scholars analyze the density and distribution of variants by interacting with text at the granularities of words, lines, and pages simultaneously. We present the results of a user study on our initial multiple view focus+context design and discuss how the results motivate a more visually integrated focus+context design using tiered views.

Digital latin library: information work practices of classics scholars, graduate students, and teachers

Initial results of an information behavior study of Classics scholars of Latin, graduate students, and high school teachers are presented. The study was conducted to inform the design of the Digital Latin Library. Interviews and task demonstrations were conducted with 16 participants. Findings indicate user groups use a variety of specialized print and digital resources, with a preference for print manuscripts, and that they employ basic and advanced searching techniques but also require domain‐specific tools to conduct their scholarly work activities.

Discover Digital Libraries: Theory and Practice. Iris Xie and Krystyna M. Matusiak. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2016. 388 pp.

Discover Digital Libraries by Xie and Matusiak was written to serve many purposes and audiences, including as a textbook for faculty and students in library and information science (LIS) programs and a research-based practical guide for developing digital libraries. The book is a valuable addition to the curriculum of faculty who teach digital libraries courses and to the practice-oriented handbooks used by practitioners and information professionals responsible for planning, designing, and implementing digital collections in various contexts such as museums, archives, and other cultural heritage organizations. Further, it is a useful resource for researchers of digital libraries in LIS and to those focused on user studies, evaluation, and human computer interaction. As a researcher of digital libraries and faculty member in an LIS program who teaches a course in digital collections, the value of a comprehensive research-based textbook to a successful learning experience cannot be emphasized enough. With Xie and Matusiak’s book there is finally a textbook that provides not only the historical development and current issues related to digital libraries but one that also connects what we have learned from research to real-world practical advice for completing digitization projects in diverse collections and formats. In the collection of textbooks or monographs about digital libraries or those focused on teaching digital libraries within LIS programs, Xie and Matusiak rise above other works due to their comprehensive coverage of the subject. Earlier textbooks, for example by Arms (2000), Lesk (2005), and Witten and Bainbridge (2003), provide a good grounding in the historical development of digital libraries and cover the majority of topics central to the planning and development of digital libraries. Where Xie and Matusiak excel is in the inclusion of topics related to the entire life cycle of digital libraries, for example, user needs and search behaviors as informing design of digital libraries, moving from relational database structures to a linked data environment, digital preservation issues and strategies, evaluation of digital libraries, and social media use in digital libraries. Each chapter includes in-depth and up-to-date coverage of the research in each topic, which not only provides an introduction into the issues and research areas, but also suggests practical application. Further, the text includes guidance about practical activities of digitization projects such as current best practices and standards being used worldwide, along with frameworks for making decisions when planning and implementing a digital library. The text itself is structured in a manner similar to the curriculum of a digital libraries course, beginning with an introduction to the topic, followed by practical areas related to collection development and copyright, digitization of textual and audiovisual collections, metadata schemas and linked data, interface design, digital library management systems, user needs and search behaviors, digital preservation, evaluation, and new developments and challenges. Helpful appendixes supplement the main text by providing links to digitization guides, standards, and best practices, and examples of metadata schemes. Each chapter begins with an in-depth introduction to the topic area, comprehensive coverage of related research, and as applicable, a detailed explanation of how the research may inform design or practice. More practicebased chapters follow the same structure but by necessity focus on practical guidance related to the digitization process and how to choose appropriate equipment for each project’s needs, best practices and standards to consider when planning and implementing a project, and detailed discussion of technical factors related to each aspect of a digitization project. The strengths of this book are many. The writing is very accessible to the projected audiences; the structure of the book follows a logical progression one might follow when either teaching a course in this topic or when planning and developing a digitization project. The subject content, as noted above, fills the gaps left by other texts on this topic and provides readers with essential discussion focused on the entire life cycle of digital libraries by including user-centered design topics such as the role that user needs and search behaviors play in designing digital libraries, considerations of user needs and search behaviors in interface design and help features, and the importance of, and metrics for, selecting among various methods of evaluating digital libraries in varying contexts. While other works on these topics are available within the research and practice literature, having comprehensive access to this information in one book will be VC 2017 ASIS&T

79.95 (hardcover). (ISBN‐9780124171121)

Young peoples social practices online and use of digital media have been conceptualized both as an opportunity and a threat to society. While the mass media has often focused on moral panic related to dramatic examples of social media-related harm to young people, research within Library and Information Science has taken multiple methodological approaches to investigate the ways digital youth navigate and negotiate privacy in online spaces. Findings from such studies offer insight into youth cultures and technology design that supports online privacy. This panel will demonstrate a variety of projects and approaches that have been taken to investigate privacy issues related to young peoples online interactions and practices, and the social and design implications of emerging findings for our understanding of young people and online privacy. We will also lead audience members in an interactive brainstorming session centered around various research scenarios, asking participants to consider the strengths and weaknesses of specific research questions and methods in addressing adults’ concerns related to youth and online privacy. We will conclude with an interactive discussion of recommended future research directions for enhancing our understanding of young peoples privacy practices.

Understanding networked youth and online privacy: Questions, methods and implications

This interactive point/counter point panel session on institutional repositories will present current research and practice related to the factors for success of IRs. Difficult questions about the feasibility of investing in the development of an institutional repository will generate long overdue conversations about the future directions for research and development of institutional repositories.