The Invisible Web Weblog

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity. Whether our efforts are, or not, favoured by life, let us be able to say, when we come near the great goal: I have done what I could. Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. Science is the highest personification of the nation because that nation will remain the first which carries the furthest the works of thought and intelligence. There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications of science. I am utterly convinced that Science and Peace will triumph over Ignorance and War, that nations will eventually unite not to destroy but to edify, and that the future will belong to those who have done the most for the sake of suffering humanity. In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind. (Louis Pasteur)

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. People do not lack strength; they lack will. Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time. To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it. If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away. (Victor Hugo)

The colleagues of Professor Tefko Saracevic have organized a one-day conference on November 8 at Rutgers University to celebrate his 80th birthday. Professor Saracevic is one of the most prominent scholars in Information Science, and has published many influential works in this field for more than four decades. In particular, his seminal papers on the concept of Relevance and the definition of Information Science made a great impact in our field. I always enjoyed reading his wonderful papers, and once had the chance of meeting him during SIGIR conference in 2004. The details of this birthday party is available here .

Recently, I published a paper entitled “50 Research Topics in Scientometrics Studies”. The full text of this paper is available here .

This Tuesday (26 October) I was an external examiner for an MSc dissertation at the University of Isfahan. The title of this dissertation was “Designing a Model for Context-Aware Recommender Systems in Digital Libraries”. The researcher used Grounded Theory to investigate contextual factors influential in the process of the selection and decision making in recommender systems in digital libraries. The central concept developed in this research named Scientific Research Ground (SRG). SRG has contexts which situate individuals in a range of conditions when interacting with computerized systems. Users’ attributes such as purposes, activities, information literacy and skills, mental status, supposition, assumption, occupational condition, social status are some of such contexts. In general, it was a profound study with a good contribution to the area.

In an interview with IBNA, I talked about the main criteria that we need to evaluate the success and goodness of a library in general. The full text of this interview is available here .

Canadian Association for Information Science is going to hold its 39th Annual Conference at the University of New Brunswick/St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick in June 2 – 4th, 2011. The conference theme is “Coasts and Continents: Exploring Interactions of People, Places and Information”. In parallel with this theme, CAIS 2011 will focus the physical, virtual, social, intellectual, organizational, and documentary spaces and places in which informing is enacted and documents are created and used. Also, the people who inhabit these places and spaces and the work they do.

The 2011 Information Fluency Conference will take place March 9 –11 in Orlando. Possible topics for presentations include: What critical thinking skills are necessary to use the information technologies wisely?; Effectively developing IF skills in students; IF across the disciplines; Intellectual property & plagiarism in the digital age; Defining Information Fluency in a digital age; Assessment of IF initiatives & Retention of IF Skills; Academic Discernment on the Internet; Legal Issues in the Digital Age; Writing and Research Assignments in Large Classes; Librarian as Teacher; What Makes a Graduate Information Fluent?; Assessing Student Learning Outcomes and IF Instruction; Evidence Based Practice and Information Fluency; Using Interactive Technology in IF; Engaging the Undergraduate Audience in IF and Engaging the Graduate Student in IF.

International Journal of Interactive Communication Systems and Technologies (IJICST) is going to publish a Special Issue on Blogging across Borders and Cultures. In the journal’s call for paper it has been mentioned that: " ... since the late 1990s, Internet users have utilized blogs as one of the most ubiquitous communication tools to connect with audiences worldwide. Today blogging is firmly entrenched into the fabric of contemporary society. Versatile blogging systems provide unlimited access to web-publishing platforms that are free, preprogrammed, and easy to use. An example of social interactive technologies application used for generating and distributing content, blogging offers people of diverse backgrounds and organizations from both public and private realms ample opportunities for communication, interaction, sharing, and collaboration." In the Objective of the Special Issue the journal announced that: “IJICST focuses on a broad spectrum of second-generation web-ba...

Yesterday I had a workshop on "Research Proposal Writing" at the School of Economic Science in Tehran. In this workshop, which was held for a number of MA students from various Economic Science fields, I talked about the main features of a good research proposal, that they need to develop before the beginning of their dissertation. In general, I believe a good research proposal should firstly illustrate the originality, importance, necessity, and aims of the study. Moreover, it should include research questions, hypotheses, anticipated results, a brief review of the literature and research limits and limitations.

I have written a note in Atf magazine entitled "Where is the Best Library in the World?". It was published today and now you can read it here .

Evidence Based Library and Information Practice has just published its latest issue . Some of the papers in this issue are: The Impact of the Acquisition of Electronic Medical Texts on the Usage of Equivalent Print Books in an Academic Medical Library; and Learning in Simulations: Examining the Effectiveness of Information Literacy Instruction Using Middle School Students’ Portfolio Products.

While looking in my old files, I came across a piece of writing that I have written it in 2005 and as far as I remember, I never published it somewhere. I even can not remember why I wrote it five years ago! Anyway, I would like to upload it here now to share it with you. Weblog Changes the Web: a Personal View Since the early years of 1990s the Web has changed the world and now Weblog is changing the web. While writing this paper, the Microsoft Word programme puts a red line under the word “Weblog” indicating this is a wrong spelling and should be changed. However, weblog is one of our today’s buzzwords and probably will be consider in the next version of this software. It shows weblog has come to our daily conversation recently. Nevertheless, its growth and popularity has been extraordinary. Weblog is a convenient tool for publishing various kinds of information. It is a multidimensional phenomenon in the web environment. It represents diverse meanings and applications for different ...

Over the last 24 hours I have been proofreading the first fourth chapters of a book that I have been writing over the last two years, of course, not constantly. Now the book is in its final stages and I am doing its final works. I need a few more days to finish the proofreading. Now, this is the early hours of October, and hopefully, the book will come out before the end of this month.