[Asis-l] New issue of Information Research

[Tom Wilson]

With apologies for cross-posting and the length of the message.

The new issue of Information Research will be available to all some time
after
1030 GMT tonight.  Here is the Editorial

In this issue

We have a diverse set of papers in this issue, with, however, some
relationships. Thus, two papers deal with aspects of the information
professions and five are Web-related.

Turning first to the two papers on the profession or professions. In one, a
Working Paper, Miriam Vieira da Cunha has analysed job vacancies in Brazil,
advertised on the Internet. Her principal finding is rather interesting,
given
the 'hype' surrounding the idea of the new information professional:

    Yet, in spite of the changes and of the reorganization of the workspace,
and
of new partnerships, the informational field in Brazil still is resistant to
expansion, and shows little sign of change. We must conclude that job
opportunities in the information field in our country continue to be
dominated
by the traditional professionals. The data shows that the typical
professional
advertised using the specific sites and discussion lists on the Internet
between January 2005 and February 2008 is a librarian who is a graduate in
Library Studies, with information technology experience, required to perform
technical and management functions in a private institution in São Paulo.

The other paper dealing with a professional group is by Hemalata Iyer on the
development and implementation of standards for visual resources management.
In
this, the first of two papers (the second will be published in the next
issue),
the author presents the organization's view on what is needed through an
analysis of job advertisements. Perhaps because of the focus on a very
narrow
area of professional activity, her conclusions are very different from those
of
da Cunha

    Overall, visual resources appears to be an emerging area of knowledge
and
expertise that needs to be systematically addressed. This is indeed a
profession in transition moving from slide curators and slide librarians to
a
field that encompasses a broad range of skills applicable in a wide range of
environments.

The five Web-related papers are quite diverse: Deborah Soun Chung and Kwan
Yi
examine how news stories are shared on the Delicious Website; EunKyung Chung
and JungWon Yoon explore the differences between user-supplied tags and
search
query terms for images through an analysis of user-supplied tags on the
Flickr
photography site and Web search terms; and Sara Kjellberg explores scholarly
blogging practice within a framework based on genre theory. These three
papers
are about interaction, the remaining two in this group deal with
publication,
although in different ways. First, in a contribution in Spanish, Enrique
Orduña-Malea and Joséö-Antonio Ontalba-Ruipéörez, propose metrics for
determining the impact of Web newspapers through their citation on the
Menéame
social bookmarking site. In the second paper Mohammad Hanief Bhat presents
the
results of research on open access publishing in Indian research
institutions,
finding that very little of the output of these institutions is openly
available and then mainly through Indian open access journals.

The final paper, which doesn't fit into either of these two groups is a
study of
the information needs and the information sources of dairy farmers in Inner
Mongolia by Yuanfeng Zhao, Ruijin Zhang and K. K. Klein who conclude:

    Small-scale farmers in the key dairy production area of Inner Mongolia
still
operate their businesses on the basis of limited industry information but
most
have recognized the need for improved availability of accurate information
and
appear willing to share in the cost of providing it. There appears to be an
opportunity for government and private organizations to work together to
develop advanced information dissemination systems for small dairy producers
in
Inner Mongolia.

Finally, we have a smaller than usual set of book reviews (which probably
means
we shall have a lot in December!). They are diverse, as usual, however,
covering ontologies for the Semantic Web, the economics of ordinary
knowledge,
managing information for research, searching and how to employ graphics
effectively. There should be something for everyone there. I would
particularly
recommend Hardin's book on ordinary knowledge as offering ideas for
information
research.

My thanks, as usual, to the Associate Editors, copy-editors, referees and my
colleagues at Lund University Libraries for helping to bring this collection
to
your screen.
As an aside - the names alone will tell you that we have an international
authorship - in fact, the authors come from Brazil, Canada, China, India,
South
Korea, Spain, Sweden and the USA.

-- 
Professor Tom Wilson, PhD, Ph.D.(h.c.),
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
Information Research: an international electronic journal
Website: http://InformationR.net/
E-mail: wilsontd at gmail.com
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