Role of Information Technologies in Electronic Information Transfer and in Providing Value Added Information Services

Information Technology plays an important role in electronic. message transfer, electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic files transfer protocols, transfer of voice, text and images through ISDN, remote electronic information access and retrieval, and the enforcement of research, education and distance learning through 'virtual global university'. In future, these information technologies can engage in interactive TV, picture phones and TV/PCs purchase. Findings of a survey, conducted to determine the potential. use, non-use and non-availability of IT service in different libraries/documentation centres are also given

Perceived Impact of Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) On effective retrieval of information resources by postgraduate students in Benue State University, Makurdi

ABSTRACT The study investigated the perceived impact of OPAC on effective retrieval of information resources by postgraduate students in Benue State University, Makurdi. The study looked at the perceived impact of OPAC on effective retrieval of information resources, purpose of utilizing OPAC by postgraduate students, search strategies used by postgraduate students for effective retrieval of information resources, challenges as well as strategies to enhance the use of OPAC by postgraduate student for effective retrieval of resources. Five (5) objectives with corresponding research questions guided the study. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was made up of 38 postgraduate students who are registered with Benue State University Library. However, the census sampling was adopted for the study due to the small nature of the population. The instrument for data collection was self-structured questionnaire titled “Perceived Impact of OPAC on Information Retrieval Questionnaire” (PIOPACIRQ) which was validated by experts and a reliability coefficient of 0.947 was obtained. Data was collected and analyzed using frequent count and means. Findings of the study revealed that, there is a high perceived impact of OPAC on effective retrieval of information resources by postgraduate students in Benue State University, Makurdi. Finding also revealed that, postgraduate students in Benue State University, Makurdi utilize OPAC for various purposes such as to know the available resources in the university library, to locate books by author, title and subject, assists in obtaining books from the university library, among others. Finding also revealed the search strategies used by postgraduate students for effective retrieval of information resources in Benue State University Makurdi to include by author, title, subject and edition. The study further revealed the challenges hindering the use of OPAC for effective retrieval of information resources in Benue State University, Makurdi to include: lack of skilled library professionals to assists students, lack of orientation from library staff, lack of time to retrieve the vast information, slow internet connectivity speed, among others. Findings finally revealed some key strategies to enhance the use of OPAC for effective retrieval of information resources by postgraduate students in Benue State University, Makurdi which include: employment of skilled/competent library staff, need to design user-friendly OPAC template, improvement of internet connectivity speed, and organizing user education program to orientate postgraduate students on the use of OPAC, among others. Recommendations were also made based on the findings of the study

Ensuring the discoverability of digital images for social work education : an online tagging survey to test controlled vocabularies

The digital age has transformed access to all kinds of educational content not only in text-based format but also digital images and other media. As learning technologists and librarians begin to organise these new media into digital collections for educational purposes, older problems associated with cataloguing and classifying non-text media have re-emerged. At the heart of this issue is the problem of describing complex and highly subjective images in a reliable and consistent manner. This paper reports on the findings of research designed to test the suitability of two controlled vocabularies to index and thereby improve the discoverability of images stored in the Learning Exchange, a repository for social work education and research. An online survey asked respondents to "tag", a series of images and responses were mapped against the two controlled vocabularies. Findings showed that a large proportion of user generated tags could be mapped to the controlled vocabulary terms (or their equivalents). The implications of these findings for indexing and discovering content are discussed in the context of a wider review of the literature on "folksonomies" (or user tagging) versus taxonomies and controlled vocabularies

An Evaluation of Faculty use of the Digital Library at Ankara University, Turkey

New consortial buying models have dramatically increased the availability of online resources, particularly journal articles, in the universities and technical institutes of developing countries. The degree of acceptance and pattern of use of such materials is of great interest to library collection development. Ankara University surveyed faculty members regarding their awareness and use of these electronic materials

Experimental Methods in IIR: The Tension between Rigour and Ethics in Studies Involving Users with Dyslexia

Designing user studies in the interactive information retrieval (IIR) paradigm on people with impairments may sometimes require different methodological considerations than for other users. Consequently, there may be a tension between what the community regards as being a rigorous methodology against what researchers can do ethically with their users. This paper discusses issues to consider when designing IIR studies involving people with dyslexia, such as sampling, informed consent and data collection. The conclusion is that conducting user studies on participants with dyslexia requires special considerations at all stages of the experimental design. The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness and understanding in the research community about experimental methods involving users with dyslexia, and addresses researchers, as well as editors and reviewers. Several of the issues raised do not only apply to people with dyslexia, but have implications when researching other groups, for instance elderly people and users with learning, cognitive, sensory or motor impairments