Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Library Review, Volume 62, Issue 3
Broadly, this third issue of 2013 has as its theme that of information seeking and knowledge organisation. The ability to organise and retrieve knowledge is arguably at the heart of the information profession. Indeed, many more years ago than I care to recall, as a much more youthful Masters student, I recollect one of my tutors, Norman Roberts, telling a class that he thought the ability to retrieve the right information at the right time was the critical component of what made us unique as a profession. No doubt that is a view which is open to debate; however, as this issue shows, aspects of information seeking behaviour and knowledge organisation are of interest to the information world globally,and across all sectors of practice.
The first paper looks at the specific issues surrounding the cataloguing and classification of Islamic knowledge. Idrees contends that this specialist area of knowledge is one which cannot be adequately addressed by the standard classification systems. As the author notes, there have been several solutions mooted to remedy this problem, but there is as yet, no uniformity of approach,with the resulting difficulty that similar material is organised differently according to where it is housed. Based on the results of a wide ranging research project, Idrees outlines a means to begin resolving this issue.
From an entirely different perspective, Olaka and Adkins examine challenges in copyright enforcement arising from the liberalisation of higher education in Kenya. As the authors state:
The challenge of balancing the need to safeguard interests of rights owners with facilitating access to information by the university library user community has been left to the library, yet this balancing act is not mandated by law except that it is a role that both librarians and users assume is the librarian’s obligation.
Moreover, this case study of the Kenyan experience has to be viewed within the context of the requirement for developing countries to have implemented fully the World Trade Organisation (WTO)’s TRIPS Agreement by 2013, and the more general contemporary debate surrounding Open Access.
Remaining in the Academic Library sector, Jeevan and Tripathi examine issues in relation to the storage and retrieval of electronic resources, and in particular, the differences manifest in the information seeking behaviour of academic staff and students. They note the current focus on usage statistics,and argue for an extension of contemporary data collection methods to include alternative non-invasive procedures such as deep log analysis to build up a more accurate and comprehensive picture of user behaviour.
Staying with the theme of usage of electronic and digital information, Chaudhry examines issues in relation to their use by the investment profession in Kuwait. In this paper, the term investment professional includes all who provide advice on various aspects of investments to individuals or organisations as employees or as consultants. As his research results show, information needs are not only complex in the business sector as a whole, but particularly so in the investment field. Given the limited number of previous studies which address information seeking in this sector, this paper is of especial interest and value beyond the specific geographical location of the study.
Readers may be forgiven for viewing the final paper as an exercise in navel contemplation as Gill’s study examines the scope, coverage and publication patterns in relation to Web 2.0 as a topic, looking at journal papers and book reviews published by Emerald in 13 of its peer-reviewed journals over a five-year period. However, his study reveals interesting patterns of publication and provides a useful overview of current trends.
Finally, to conclude this bumper issue, we have three book reviews which highlight many of the themes addressed in the papers, reinforcing their centrality to the development of contemporary theory and practice.
Judith Broady-Preston
