Michael Buckland offers an examination of information systems that is comparative rather than narrowly technical in approach. With careful attention to different meanings of information, Buckland examines the nature of retrieval-based information systems such as archives, databases, libraries, and museums, and their relationships to their social context.

The introductory material examines difficulties of definition and terminology in relation to information systems. There is a systematic overview of the concepts and processes involved in the provision and use of information systems....

This is the first book-length study of prison libraries to provide a comprehensive overview of their history and to analyze their development in terms of the goals of correctional agencies and the values and traditions of librarianship. The author's introduction points out that in recent years new considerations have made it more difficult to clearly determine the value and purpose of prison libraries with respect to both the inmates who use them and the institutions of which they are a part. A heightened sense of professional consciousness in the library profession, expanded awareness of...

Using the profiles of women living in a retirement community, the author explores the information and social worlds of aging women. The focus of the study is the effects of aging on help-seeking behaviors. The author examines ways in which older women search for information; she found several areas of need, including failing health, financial concerns, and loneliness. For many of the women, death was not a problematic area. The author also discovered that the most critical areas of need were not shared with others. In fact, the residents chose to conceal the most dire needs for assistance....

. . . a surprisingly useful and largely readable effort. It presents in textbook style an introduction to the creation, use, and evaluation of online full text databases. "SLA SSD Bulletin"

This is the first complete treatment of full text databases. Comprehensive and up-to-date, the book incorporates an overview of the current status of full text databases with explanations of past research pertinent to full text and information regarding the future of full text. The major online systems that offer full text are described, with five systems highlighted: DIALOG, Mead Data Central's...

At a time of shrinking budgets and increasing demands, libraries are facing problems in meeting their needs for new collection development specialists. This volume proposes creative solutions to the three significant problems experienced by library administrators: attracting new collection development librarians, educating them in appropriate library school programs, and training them to perform their jobs. The chapters in this book, written by leading collection development officers, practitioners, and educators, cover innovative ways of looking at the entire range of collection...

Despite the end of the Cold War, America's national security apparatus for controlling information has remained in place. However, sex and secularism are emerging as the major targets of censorship. Federal decency standards have been imposed on art, the broadcast media, and the Internet. Virtually every major political issue of the 1990s (abortion, campaign finance, violence on TV, homosexuality, indecency on the Internet) has First Amendment implications, and all are included in this comprehensive encyclopedia.

This work covers the full history of America's struggle for free...

From colonial times to the present, the media in America has been subject to censorship challenges and regulations. This comprehensive reference guide to media censorship provides in-depth coverage of each media format--newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, radio, television, and the Internet--all of which have been, and continue to be, battlegrounds for First Amendment issues. Each media format is examined in-depth, from its origins and history through its modern development, and features discussion of landmark incidents and cases. Foerstel, author of Banned in the U.S.A., the...

This book tells the story of Emanuel Goldberg, a chemist, inventor, and industrialist who contributed to almost every aspect of imaging technology in the first half of the 20th century. Despite his accomplishments, history has not been kind to Goldberg, a name all but erased from the annals of information science. An incredible story emerges as Michael Buckland unearths forgotten documents and rogue citations to show that, contrary to public opinion, Goldberg created the first desktop search engine, developed microdot technology, and designed the famous Contax 35 mm camera. A fascinating...

The intersection of informetrics and information retrieval (IR) research provides valuable insights for IR system modeling, design, and evaluation. This work introduces readers to informetric aspects of IR system contents and their use, and how knowledge of these patterns may be applied to better understandIR processes and their users.

The recent wider availability of information retrieval technologies, due in large part to the growth of the Internet, has prompted an increase in research interest into the effective design and use of IR (information retrieval) systems. This work...

Databases and public access catalogs are being used extensively by the public and the academic and business communities as major sources of information. Most users want to access these databases directly to locate the information they need. Increasingly, users are demanding user-friendly databases that will assist them in finding conceptual information effectively. The lack of compatibility or standardization among many different indexing vocabularies and thesauri makes it difficult to find related information in information retrieval systems containing many different online databases....