Social Information Access

Social information access is defined as a stream of research that explores methods for organizing the past interactions of users in a community in order to provide future users with better access to information. Social information access covers a wide range of different technologies and strategies that operate on a different scale, which can range from a small closed corpus site to the whole Web. The 16 chapters included in this book provide a broad overview of modern research on social information access. In order to provide a balanced coverage, these chapters are organized by the main types of information access (i.e., social search, social navigation, and recommendation) and main sources of social information.

This volume summarizes the author’s work on social information seeking (SIS), and at the same time serves as an introduction to the topic. Sometimes also referred to as social search or social information retrieval, this is a relatively new area of study concerned with the seeking and acquiring of information from social spaces on the Internet. It involves studying situations, motivations, and methods involved in seeking and sharing of information in participatory online social sites, such as Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers, and Twitter, as well as building systems for supporting such activities. The first part of the book introduces various foundational concepts, including information seeking, social media, and social networking. As such it provides the necessary basis to then discuss how those aspects could intertwine in different ways to create methods, tools, and opportunities for supporting and leveraging SIS. Next, Part II discusses the social dimension and primarily examines the online question-answering activity. Part III then emphasizes the collaborative aspect of information seeking, and examines what happens when social and collaborative dimensions are considered together. Lastly, Part IV provides a synthesis by consolidating methods, systems, and evaluation techniques related to social and collaborative information seeking. The book is completed by a list of challenges and opportunities for both theoretical and practical SIS work. The book is intended mainly for researchers and graduate students looking for an introduction to this new field, as well as developers and system designers interested in building interactive information retrieval systems or social/community-driven interfaces.

Information available through ‘traditional’ business and competitive resources can be complimented by information gained through social media tools. Social Information is a must-have book for competitive and business researchers in any discipline including librarians, information professionals, intelligence analysts, students and marketing personnel, and explores how more ‘traditional’ resources can be complimented by social media tools. The book outlines different categories of social tools, competitive and business applications of these tools, and provides example searches with screenshots. The book provides concrete search examples, as well as strategies and approaches for searching social tools that may be available today or that may emerge tomorrow. Readers will learn ways to quickly develop new search strategies as new tools and features emerge. The future of social tools and information, and the lasting impact that these tools have had on how information plays a part in our lives, our businesses and our careers is discussed. The title is structured into seven chapters, covering: the impact of social media, and the approach of the book; a brief history of business and competitive information and the rise of social tools; blogs and microblogs; video, audio and images; social search engines; and the future of social information. The book specifically explores business and competitive information and approaches using social media tools Written by a highly knowledgeable and long-time practitioner and researcher in the field Provides both practical and strategic search approaches, so that the skills learned will be readily transferable to other social tools, and to social tools as they evolve

"This book deals with the improvement of user modeling in the context of Collaborative and Social Information Access and Retrieval (CSIRA) techniques"--Provided by publisher.

"This book provides a source for definitions, antecedents, and consequences of social informatics and the cultural aspect of technology. It addresses cultural/societal issues in social informatics technology and society, the Digital Divide, government and technology law, information security and privacy, cyber ethics, technology ethics, and the future of social informatics and technology"--Provided by publisher.

While high quality library and information services continue to thrive and strengthen economic and social development, much of the knowledge that exists on user’s needs and behaviors is fundamentally based on the results of users in English-speaking, western developed countries. Information Access and Library User Needs in Developing Countries highlights the struggles that developing countries face in terms of information gaps and information-seeking user behavior. The publication highlights ways in which users in developing countries can benefit from properly implementing LIS services. Researchers, academics, and practitioners interested in the design and delivery of information services will benefit from this collection of research.

This volume contains the invited and the contributed papers selected for p- th sentation at SOFSEM 2008, the 34 Conference on Current Trends in Theory and Practice of Computer Science, which was held January 19-25, 2008, in the Atrium Hotel, Novy þ Smokovec, High Tatras in Slovakia. SOFSEM (originally SOFtware SEMinar), as an annual international c- ference devoted to the theory and practice of computer science, aims to foster cooperationamongprofessionalsfromacademiaandindustryworkinginallareas in this?eld. Developing over the years from a local event to a fully international and well-established conference, contemporary SOFSEM continues to maintain the best of its original Winter School aspects, such as a high number of invited talks and in-depth coverage of novel research results in selected areas within computer science. SOFSEM 2008 was organized around the following tracks: - Foundations of Computer Science (Chair: Juhani Karhum· aki) - Computing by Nature (Chair: Alberto Bertoni) - Networks, Security, and Cryptography (Chair: Bart Preneel) - Web Technologies (Chair: Pavol Nþ avrat) The SOFSEM 2008 Program Committee consisted of 75 international - perts, representing active areas of the SOFSEM 2008 tracks with outstanding expertise and an eye for current developments, evaluating the submissions with the help of 169 additional reviewers. An integral part of SOFSEM 2008 was the traditional Student Research - rum (chaired by Ma þria Bielikovþ a), organized with the aim of presenting student projectsinthetheoryandpracticeofcomputerscienceandtogivestudentsfe- back on both originality of their scienti?c results and on their work in progress.

An authoritative and truly global exploration of current research in digital libraries. Internationally-renowned academics discuss what has been achieved with digital libraries and what we can expect in the future through the prism of research. The increasing number of digital libraries in all sectors and the pressure of ever demanding and diverse user needs has encouraged development of user-centred interfaces, intelligent search and retrieval capabilities, effective metadata description and contents organization. In addition to the two editors who are renowned for their works in digital library research, this collection brings together established international names in the field to analyse these developments in relation to users and information access and the future trends and challenges that practitioners will face. Readership: LIS students, academics and researchers interested in digital libraries and access and those developing, managing or just starting out with digital libraries