An empirical investigation of the consistency of retrieval through Internet search engines is reported. Thirteen engines are evaluated: AltaVista, EuroFerret, Excite, HotBot, InfoSeek, Lycos, MSN, NorthernLight, Snap, WebCrawler and three national Dutch engines: Ilse, Search.nl and Vindex. The...

This paper is a discussion document, drawing on the experiences of the Okapi team as reported elsewhere in this issue. It is intended to raise some of the issues that are currently exercising the information retrieval research community, in the context of experimentation and evaluation.

This paper investigates the problem of the labelling of the library, documentation and information field with particular emphasis on the terms ‘information’ and ‘document’. What influences introduced the concept of ‘information’ into the library field in the middle of the twentieth...

This study explores the in‐house use age distribution of journals in the library of Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan, their citation age distribution and the difference between them. The use study employed the sweep method and the study period lasted for six months. The citation age...

Awareness of resource sharing in Pakistan in its present day form is a phenomenon of the 1980s. This is primarily attributed to problems encountered by libraries with regard to the paucity of resources, lack of funds and absence of bibliographic and physical accessibility to limited resources....

Because of recent US economic decline, the impact of budget cuts has been felt in most US economic sectors, including the materials budgets in libraries. Budget cuts or reversions obviously have a negative impact upon the dollars available for purchasing library materials. However, dealing with...

Discusses the use of library statistics to justify budget increases for public library programs. Focuses on three major budget areas: staff, collection, and facilities. Provides guidance on deciding which data are relevant to a specific argument. Identifies internal and external sources of data....

Examines the impact of foreign currencies on the purchase of library materials, with particular reference to Brown University Library. Describes the importance of discovering the foreign exchange exposure, projecting costs, and keeping a record of changes. Covers ways of lessening the impact of...

Purpose This study aims to present and discuss the international library and information community’s initial responses to the coronavirus pandemic. It chronicles official statements from various library and information associations as they were released in real-time, thereby providing a...