Search

Despite changes in methods of transferring information, printed publications are still an important means of spreading knowledge and have an established position among academics. They also constitute an essential element which evaluates academic achievements of academics and researchers. It is more and more frequent that bibliographical descriptions or some of their parts are employed in the process of such evaluations besides various quality meters (impact factor, Hirsch’s and Egghe’s indexes, the scoring of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education). On this basis the relations between documents are established and parameters characterizing their collections and features are defined. The article is an attempt to show this type of relationship. It presents the results of the examination of the collection of documents dedicated to the libraries in Torun, and registered in the “Polish Bibliological Bibliography” in the years 1995-2011. The research material comprises the collection of 264 bibliographical works such as books and their versions before the final revision, periodicals, articles from the press and fragments of joint publications. The author analyses the quantity and content of the material collected, paying special attention to both the rapid growth in the number of publications, the variety of publishing forms, the thematic range of published works, and the specificity of the “Polish Bibliological Bibliography“ as a source of data to bibliometrical research.

Crowdsourcing means the separation of one organization area and putting it into the hands of the crowd – an organized community in the form of an open call. This community can be created from both high class professionals and amateurs. Currently, crowdsourcing is implemented primarily in companies and NGOs. Since the implementation of solutions based on crowdsourcing is quite straight forward, it is also made use of in civic and social activities, including ventures initiated by archives, museums and libraries. This article brings the idea of crowdsourcing and examples of its mechanisms in libraries.

According to the analyses made by the Interdepartmental Group for Forecasting the Demand for Work existing by the Governmental Center for Strategic Studies in Poland, by 2020 the number of people employed in the agricultural, mining, transport and fuel sectors will have dramatically fallen. The fastest-developing branches will be computer science, telecommunication, the Internet and information technologies. Thus, the profession of information broker — a specialist commissioned to look for information and make it available — will belong to the group of jobs with the so-called "positive increasing trend". Meeting the requirements of the changing labor market, Polish universities and colleges offer courses for those who are interested in getting new qualifications and running their own commercial information activity. The article presents the educational offer in this field for the academic year 2010/2011 . Apart from the offer and general characteristics of the syllabus of courses for information brokers, the article discusses the results of the evaluation carried out among students — future information brokers — in Torun.

When in 1947 the communist regime have taken the action to control the book market and to subordinate the private sector to the central communistic headquarters, so after that many publishing houses clearly limited or suspended their activities. Such a fate shared Fable and the Fairy Tales Publishing House (Wydawnictwo Bajek i Baśni) from Krakow, which had been published “Kukuryku” series of books for children. Even though in some editorial respect their items did not belong to the model one, they played the educational function and promote reading as well. They became the perfect archive material that documenting the effort of running a private publishing house in post-war era and the restrictions caused by the policy makers.

On January 12th 2010 the 16th conference on Digitization took place in Warsaw. Its organizer was the Center for Computer Studies Promotion of Warsaw. The conference was aimed primarily at libraries and archives as well as all cultural heritage institutions interested in digitization their collections. The leading topic were legal and technological aspects of digitization of writing. The article summarizes issues discussed during the conference.

The article presents results of a bibliometric analysis of the scientific output made by researchers from Institute of Information Science and Book Studies at Nicolas Copernicus University in Toruń during 1976-2007. The research material includes set of 873 items, especially: books and their editions, articles published in journals and collective works, literature reviews, interviews and translations. Authors of this article make a qualitative analysis of the material within the wide spectrum of subjects.

The article presents results of a bibliometric analysis of the scientific output made by researchers from Institute of Information Science and Book Studies at Nicolas Copernicus University in Torun during 1976-2007. The research material includes set of 873 items, especially: books and their editions, articles published in journals and collective works, literature reviews, interviews and translations. Authors of this article make a quantitative analysis of the material, take into account dynamic of publications' growth, organizational and employment status of Institute, during the 32-year period of its activity.

The development of technology and in particular easy access to information technology have made the task of making one‘s own webpage comparatively simple. It does not require great knowledge or much money. However, as it has become easy to publish materials electronically, the Internet abounds in imprecise, misleading, untrue or falsified information. The escalating phenomenon in the recent years as well as the awareness of the fact that the condition of education and the knowledge of society depend on the quality of information acquired have given rise to the discussion about the quality, attributes and evaluation methods of electronic information. The activities have entailed a series of researches, which cover also libraries‘ WWW services. Depending on the fact by whom, for whom and at what level the analysis was made, different methods and criteria were used to examine the quality of the Internet libraries. One of the research methods was benchmarking (also known as the comparative analysis), which involves multifaceted observation of the information in reference to its form and content, measuring the services offered and identifying the best practices. The benchmarking evaluation of the quality of library websites has become the subject of this analysis. The research has been conducted in the Internet websites of private colleges and universities in Kuyavia-Pomerania Province. Apart from discussing the methodology of benchmarking, the article characterizes the catalogue of the evaluation criteria for content and functionality of services. It includes the analysis of each attribute in reference with the websites examined from the point of view of their potential user. Individual data have served to define the intensity of various features and to make the conclusions about the Internet information offer of private colleges and universities in Kuyavia-Pomerania Province.

Since 2008, the staff of the Institute of Scientific Information and Book Studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun established the scientific journal entitled “Bibliological Studies of Torun”. The basic idea of this periodical is publication of works that represent different disciplines of library and information science. Another role is to serve the wide LIS community and provide a platform for presentation of scientific achievements as well as a forum for exchange of experiences and discussion. The following paper presents brief information about the editorial staff, co-workers, publishing features and subject areas covered by “Bibliological Studies of Torun” between 2008 and 2012.

Crowdsourcing is the latest trend in innovation. The term means separation of one organization area and putting it into the hands of the crowd (an organized community) in the form of an open call. The community can be formed both by high class professionals and amateurs who, having the tools to communicate and exchange views, join in the clearly defined tasks. Currently, crowdsourcing is implemented primarily in companies and NGOs. Since the implementation of solutions based on crowdsourcing is quite straightforward, it is also used in public and social activities, including ventures initiated by archives, museums and libraries. This article presents the idea of crowdsourcing as well as some examples its application in libraries.

Today, participation in culture is dominated by well-known and popular media such as television, radio and Internet. This kind of media attack reverses the public from the printed word. This is demonstrated by research conducted by the National Library for the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage which shows that only 44% of Poles declare any contact with books throughout the year. Furthermore, 46% of them have not read not only books, but even articles longer than three pages. From year to year the share of book-related issues declines in the national media. This paper introduces issues of the presence of books - as a subject of reflection and dissemination of literature - in the framework programs of television channels (TVP 1, TVP 2, TVP Kultura, TVN, Polsat), the radio (PR 1, PR 2, PR 3, PR 4, RMF FM, Radio ZET) and various websites. The author outlines the basic assumptions set out by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in a document called "The Reading Development Program for 2011-2020" which is to serve as a remedy for the poor state of reading in Poland. The author discusses also "The Republic of Books" initiative, designed to ensure the presence of books and libraries in Polish media as well as create a coalition of public and commercial media.

The current economic and social situation in Poland forces changes in the system of higher education. Therefore, higher education institutions are required to conduct acute analysis and to instantly react for new tendencies and phenomena at the job market, which involve diversified offer of majors and programmes. The article discusses the results of a survey research conducted among the participants of information studies at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun. The authors present students' opinions on the quality and complementarity of education as well as on their feelings regarding the chances of finding a job after graduation. The research results may be a clue for the bibliological teaching centres in the area of adjusting the information studies curriculum to their participants' needs.

This article presents comparative results of digitalization polls in Polish libraries conducted by the National Library in November of 2003 and May of 2005, by the author of this article at the end of 2005 and the Automation Commission of Polish Librarians Association in mid-2006. The assessment of the digitalization level of library contents in Poland comprises both digitalization strategies adopted in libraries as well as directions, methods and results of conducted polls. The recorded results have now been serving as guidelines in further assessments of the process of digitalization in Polish libraries.