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This book focuses on information seeking and the knowledge economy for teaching and research in Africa. The book first explores the evolution and current state of information-seeking behavior research, demonstrating its importance in informing practice, policy, and design of information systems. Despite the informal sector's substantial contributions to the national economy in Uganda, there is a lack of studies delving into its information needs, as well as an information gap in government, NGOs, and other stakeholders. The book proposes that an appropriate information behavior model for information-poor communities such as informal entrepreneurs must be grounded on oral traditions and indigenous knowledge and should be sensitive to poverty, infrastructure, and illiteracy. The negative impact of the lack of financial literacy skills for women entrepreneurs is investigated and solutions for this problem are suggested, including regular assessments of women entrepreneurs'financial literacy skills and the introduction of training courses. The role of academic libraries in universities, library services for students with disabilities, and accessibility of library services to students with disabilities is discussed, and theoretical models for enhancing service in academic libraries are presented. The book highlights the specific challenges and opportunities related to information literacy for secondary schools and concludes by examining the rapid changes in library and information science research in South Africa.

This book focuses on data and knowledge management for teaching and research in Africa. The importance of the information and knowledge society in current times is recognized and adopts a meta-analysis to demonstrate that modernization theory could be applied to economic development and rapid transformation of ISWEs in South Africa. The book argues that modernity and the information and knowledge society present the shift and transition from the traditional way of doing things through information and communication technologies (ICTs), which could bring about developing, progressing, and advancing developing communities, particularly Informal Sector Women Entrepreneurs (ISWEs). The book also has further shows how the modernization theory could be applied to the plight of ISWEs to assist them in leapfrogging from their situation and enjoying global business platforms. Various techniques and strategies for collaborative engagements among academics towards strengthening scholarly ties within institutions, and across borders, especially in Africa, are presented. This is a valuable source for understanding the contemporary issues in information and knowledge management/sharing and collaboration among university academics for undergraduates and postgraduate students in the library and information science profession. Tacit knowledge is also presented as an asset that boosts innovation and generates competitive advantage for organizations in all walks of life. Global research data management (RDM) literature is emphasized in higher education institutions (HIEs) and their libraries. The status of RDM services, as well as the competency requirements of employees responsible for providing RDM services and researchers, are addressed in the examined literature.

​This book focuses on human machine interaction and user interfaces for teaching and research in Africa. The importance of digital humanities (DH) is recognized by focusing on the theoretical and historical development of DH in the context of LIS education and how infrastructure influences DH programs/initiatives in respective LIS schools. These findings and recommendations provide valuable knowledge for developing the domain and establishing potential areas of collaboration in DH research and curriculum. The book explores and explicates what the Diffusion of Innovations theory is about as well as the characteristics of innovators. The Diffusion of Innovations theory is relevant to the LIS field, which has widely adopted numerous innovations to automate a wide range of administrative and technical processes, build databases and networks, and provide better services to library users. The diffusion and adoption of technology have become imperative for the efficient management ofmodern libraries and LIS as a field in general. Existing literature that is related to the adoption, use, and challenges facing the development of clinical informatics in teaching hospitals in developing countries is reviewed. It is also revealed that hospitals in developing countries should embrace the use of tools for effective healthcare delivery and that nursing informatics is very significant in nursing practice. In addition, the role of academic institutions and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) by librarians for information and knowledge (IKM) in such institutions in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is addressed. The book acknowledges the marginalization of indigenous knowledge and that there is a need for Africa to develop and accelerate strategies for enhancing indigenous knowledge for future generation and ICT is poised to play a crucial role.

Semantic Web services promise to automate tasks such as discovery, mediation, selection, composition, and invocation of services, enabling fully flexible automated e-business. Their usage, however, still requires a significant amount of human intervention due to the lack of support for a machine-processable description. In this book, Jos de Bruijn and his coauthors lay the foundations for understanding the requirements that shape the description of the various aspects related to Semantic Web services, such as the static background knowledge in the form of ontologies, the functional description of the service, and the behavioral description of the service. They introduce the Web Service Modeling Language (WSML), which provides means for describing the functionality and behavior of Web services, as well as the underlying business knowledge, in the form of ontologies, with a conceptual grounding in the Web Service Modeling Ontology. Academic and industrial researchers as well as professionals will find a comprehensive overview of the concepts and challenges in the area of Semantic Web services, the Web Services Modeling Language and its relation to the Web Services Modeling Ontology, and an in-depth treatment of both enabling technologies and theoretical foundations.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the joined 6th International Semantic Web Conference, ISWC 2007, and the 2nd Asian Semantic Web Conference, ASWC 2007. The papers address all current issues in the field of the semantic Web, ranging from theoretical and foundational aspects to various applied topics such as management of semantic Web data, ontologies, semantic Web architecture, social semantic Web, as well as applications of the semantic Web.

“The more narrowly we examine language, the sharper becomes the con?ict - tween it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation; it was a requirement.) The con?ict becomes intolerable; the requirement is now in danger of becoming empty. —We have got onto slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk; so we need 1 friction. Back to the rough ground!” —Ludwig Wittgenstein This manuscript consists of four related parts: a brief overview of Wittgenstein's p- losophy of language and its relevance to information systems; a detailed explanation of Wittgenstein's late philosophy of language and mind; an extended discussion of the re- vance of his philosophy to understanding some of the problems inherent in information systems, especially those systems which rely on retrieval based on some representation of the intellectual content of that information. And, fourthly, a series of detailed footnotes which cite the sources of the numerous quotations and provide some discussion of the related issues that the text inspires. The?rst three of these parts can each be read by itself with some pro?t, although they are related and do form a conceptual whole.

separated by the exigencies of the design life cycle into another compartment, that makes invisible the (prior) technical work of engineers that is not directly pertinent to the application work of practitioners. More recently (and notably after the work of Greisemer and Star) the black box has been opened and infrastructure has been discussed in terms of the social relations of an extended group of actors that includes developers. Ethical and political issues are involved (cf f accountable computing). Writing broadly within this context, Day (chapter 11) proposes that the concept of'surface'can assist us to explore space as the product of'power and the affective and expressive role for materials', rather than the background to this. Surfaces are the'variously textured…sites for mixtures between bodies', and are thus the'sites for events'. The notions of'folding'and'foldability'and'unfolding'are discussed at length, as metaphors that account for the interactions of bodies in space across time. Some of the contributors to this volume focus on ways in which we may experience multiple infrastructures. Dix and his colleagues, for example, in chapter 12 explore a complex of models - of spatial context, of'mixed reality boundaries'and of human spatial understanding across a number of field projects that make up the Equator project to explain the ways in which co-existing multiple spaces are experienced.

This book is written for members of the scholarly research community, and for persons involved in research evaluation and research policy. More specifically, it is directed towards the following four main groups of readers: – All scientists and scholars who have been or will be subjected to a quantitative assessment of research performance using citation analysis. – Research policy makers and managers who wish to become conversant with the basic features of citation analysis, and about its potentialities and limitations. – Members of peer review committees and other evaluators, who consider the use of citation analysis as a tool in their assessments. – Practitioners and students in the field of quantitative science and technology studies, informetrics, and library and information science. Citation analysis involves the construction and application of a series of indicators of the ‘impact', ‘influence'or ‘quality'of scholarly work, derived from citation data, i.e. data on references cited in footnotes or bibliographies of scholarly research publications. Such indicators are applied both in the study of scholarly communication and in the assessment of research performance. The term ‘scholarly'comprises all domains of science and scholarship, including not only those fields that are normally denoted as science – the natural and life sciences, mathematical and technical sciences – but also social sciences and humanities.

The International Conference on Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL) is an annual international forum for participants to exchange research results, innovative ideas, and state-of-the-art developments in digital libraries. Built upon the successes of the first four ICADL conferences, the 5th ICADL Conference in Singapore was aimed at further strengthening the position of ICADL as a premier digital library conference that draws high quality papers and presentations from all around the world, while meeting the needs and interests of digital library communities in the Asia-Pacific region. The theme of the conference, “Digital Libraries: People, Knowledge & Technology,” reflects the shared belief of the organizers that success in the development and implementation of digital libraries lies in the achievement of three key areas: the richness and depth of content to meet the needs of the communities they intend to serve; the technologies that are employed to build user-centered environments through organization, interaction, and provision of access to that content; and the human elements of management policies, maintenance, and vision necessary to keep pace with new content, new technologies, and changing user needs.