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Information systems (IS) research on user involvement has primarily theorized relationships between developers, managers and users in systems development. However, so far, marginal attention has been paid to differences in user involvement practices between information systems. This paper explores user involvement in developing mobile and temporarily interconnected systems (MTIS). We refer to MTIS as heterogeneous systems that rely on network technologies for increasing the ubiquity of information services for users on the move. Such systems are becoming increasingly important in leveraging, e.g. car infotainment, supply chain management and wireless e-commerce. With particular emphasis on the nature of MTIS and its implications for user involvement, the paper analyses the systems development process of an action research project. The findings suggest that user involvement practices need to be adapted to accommodate features of this class of systems. Being an early attempt to trace the implications of technology features such as use context switches and temporary system relationships, the paper contributes to the development of an updated theory of the user role in an era of increased system complexity and stakeholder ambiguity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the formation of the Canadian Association for Information Science/L'Association Canadienne des Sciences de L'Information (CAIS-ACSI) and its activities. It states that CAIS-ACSI was established in 1971 to foster the enhancement of information science in Canada and to facilitate information exchange concerning the use, access, retrieval, management and dissemination of information. CAIS-ACSI communicates with its members through the "Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science" (CJILS). The association conducts its conference every year in late May or early June.

This article describes the aims and objectives of the Text REtrieval Conference (TREC) workshops and its impact in the areas of retrieval system effectiveness, retrieval system evaluation, and support of new retrieval tasks. The first TREC workshop was held in November 1992, and there has been a workshop held annually since then. The cumulative effort represented by the TREC is significant. Approximately 250 distinct groups representing more than 20 different countries have participated in at least one TREC, thousands of individual retrieval experiments have been performed and hundreds of papers have been published in the TREC proceedings. The TREC's impact on information retrieval research has been equally significant. A variety of large test collections have been built for both traditional ad hoc retrieval and new tasks such as cross-language retrieval, speech retrieval and question answering. The TREC has standardized the evaluation methodology used to assess the quality of retrieval results and, through the large repository of retrieval runs, demonstrated both the validity and efficacy of the methodology.

The article describes the type of paper submissions that will be accepted by the program committee of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. There are four types of paper submissions: 1) contributed papers; 2) contributed posters and short papers; 3) symposia and panels; and, 4) pre-conference sessions. For instance, contributed papers present original, recent research and design projects, and theoretical developments or innovative practical applications providing more general insight into an area of practice.

The article discusses the value of information professionals to the projects and enterprises. Information professionals use an arsenal of authoritative information resources beyond those what is available to the ordinary searcher of the web. They can guide the client to see the problem needing a solution more clearly through a combination of active listening skills, background knowledge of the field of research and experience with the most directly applicable information resources. They also regarded to add unexpected value in resolving information needs.

The article focuses on the major trends in the early years of information behavior (IB) research. It states that during and immediately after the World War II, the explosion of scientific and technical information which created a situation in which attention to information seeking was inevitable. It notes that in the 1980s, IB research occurred where the new generation of studies placed the information seeker or user in the center and did not presume the use of a particular resource or set of resources. It adds that in the 1990s, there are studies that examined IBs within the context of everyday life activities citing the work of Reijo Savolainen which notes that IB is included in the people's IBs at work, leisure and pursuing hobbies.

This article presents abstracts of research papers related to information science. A study titled "Role-Related Library Use by Local Union Officials," by M.A. Chaplan and E.J. Hertenstem, presents information on a group of library users that have not been studied in decades and relates their library use to their union roles. The study collected specific information about library use, both in order to understand their information-seeking behavior and also in order to learn how to improve library service to this group. It also proposes a possible model for union officials' information-seeking behavior with directions for further research to determine the applicability of the model. Another study "Web Citation Data for Impact Assessment: A Comparison of Four Science Disciplines," by L. Vaughan and D. Shaw, sampled 5,972 articles published in 114 journals covering four science disciplines. The researchers searched for Web citations to these articles and found that the numbers of citations correlated.

The article discusses the value of independent information professionals in the U.S. Members of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) are valued for their skill at finding and analyzing information. The need for expert advice becomes more urgent given the rapid innovation in the web world. Independent information professionals are deemed to provide expert guide in the states government to identify the fastest, most reliable routes as the nature of web traffic have changed and continue to evolve.