The Invisible Web Weblog

One of the modules that I teach this semester is “Library Materials and Services for New Literates”. This module discusses various methods that different libraries, specially public and rural libraries, may employ to provide appropriate services for new literate users. Regarding they level of reading abilities, librarians must make sure that in the library collection there are enough good resources for them. For example, we should collect some simple reading materials to encourage them to practice on reading. We also can rewrite and paraphrase some recourse in a simple style to make them more readable for new literates. I wrote a brief note in IBNA, suggesting a number of aspects that we should consider in providing appropriate reading materials for newly literate people .

Since I have launched this weblog in 2005, or arguably in 2003, I always had a temptation to gather a collection of profound and thoughtful quotes here. However, for the sake of consistency in the weblog’s content, I always kepts my posts’ theme related to my research and teaching interests. Nevertheless, now I can not see any reason for not mentioning some inspirational quotes once in a while. Therefore, today I make a new category here and I call it “Inspirational Quotes”. I begin this new chapter by some insightful quotes from Helen Keller, the American author and educator who was blind and deaf (1880-1968): "When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.” “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.” “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I ca...

The Information Interaction in Context conference (IIiX 2010) will take place in August. According to the conference CFP, this event is going to “… explore the relationships between and within the contexts that affect information retrieval and information seeking, how these contexts impact information behaviour, and how knowledge of information contexts and behaviours improves the design of interactive information systems”. The conference’s topics include: Interactive information retrieval and interface issues, Qualitative approaches to the study of context-sensitive information seeking and information retrieval, Context-aware retrieval models, Relevance feedback (implicit & explicit) and query modification issues for capturing context, Novel approaches to eliciting, identifying, capturing and representing contextual information, Task-based interactive information retrieval and information seeking behaviour, Issues of genre, media, language, modality and structure in contextual inf...

One of the modules that I teach in this semester is “The Basics of Organization and Management”. As in this course I have to illustrate an overall picture of a very broad subject, I needed to briefly describe main theories and trends in management, and then introduce various fields in this subject. Obviously, regarding the broadness of the subject, even in the best possible situation, we only can take a glance at each filed. For instance, the following topics are examples of these fields which are sorted alphabetically: Accounting Management, Applied Engineering, Change Management, Conflict Management, Commercial Operations Management, Communication Management, Cost Management, Crisis Management, Critical Management Studies, Customer Relationship Management, Decision Making Styles, Design Management, Disaster Management, Distributed Management, Educational Management, Engineering Management, Environmental Management, Facility Management, Financial Management, Human Resources Management...

Today, as part of my teaching in the "Research Methods" class, I was explaining the basics of open coding procedure in qualitative studies. Open coding, which is usually the first phase of data analysis in this approach, is a method to find concepts in the collected data. While this explanation, I noticed once again that "creativity" is an essential element for researchers in this stage. Otherwise, it becomes too difficult to get a good outcome in qualitative studies. Hopefully, in the future posts, I'll write some practical suggestions to enhance creativity in qualitative research.

In a recent interview with IBNA, I talked about the importance of problem-based research in developing public libraries services. In fact, I think to achieve useful results from our studies, the first step is selecting a research topic which is based on real problems in real context. Although it seems obvious, it is easy to forget too. This is the link of that interview.

I think one of the quickest ways to have an overall picture of what is happening in a subject, is taking a look at the activities of the related scientific societies. In fact, in this way we can map the breadth and boundaries of an academic discipline. For example, in Information Science, ASIS&T (American Society for Information Science and Technology) has 21 SIGs (Special Interest Groups) including the following ones: Arts & Humanities (AH), Bioinformatics (BIO), Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts (BWP), Classification Research, (CR), Critical Issues (CRIT), Digital Libraries (DL), Education for Information Sci. (ED), Health Informatics (HLTH) (formerly Medical Informatics MED), History & Foundations of Information Science (HFIS), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Information Architecture (IA), Information Needs, Seeking and Use (USE), Information Policy (IFP), International Information Issues (III), Knowledge Management (KM), Library Technologies (LT), Management (MGT), Metrics (MET)...

In a recent interview with IBNA, I talked about how research in LIS can enhance the exciting conceptual frameworks in this field; and how it can provide fertile grounds to develop new theories. This interview is available here .

ASIST 2010 will consist of the following six tracks including: Track 1 – Information Behaviour Information needs, information seeking, information gaps and sense-making in various contexts including work, interests or every-day life activities by individuals or groups. Track 2 – Knowledge Organization Indexing, index construction, indexing languages, thesaurus construction, terminology, classification of information in any form, tagging (expert, user-based, automatic), filtering, metadata, standards for metadata, information architecture. Track 3 – Information Systems, Interactivity and Design How people use and communicate with information systems; the design, use and evaluation of interactive information technologies and systems, including interfaces and algorithms; search and retrieval, browsing, visualization, personalization. Track 4 – Information and Knowledge Management Information and knowledge creation, transfer and use at the personal, group, organizational and societal level...

During this Nowrouz holiday, I had a chance to read a few books including “Tuesdays with Morrie”, which is a non-fiction novel written by Mitch Albom. Tuesdays with Morrie is an inspiring book, full of wonderful advices for everyone who wants to be a better and happier person.