The Invisible Web Weblog

Image Indexing and Retrieval

2009-07-06T21:03:00.000+01:00

The Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science is going to publish a special issue on “Image Indexing and Retrieval: Challenges and New Perspective”. This issue will focus on various aspects of digital image perception, understanding, indexing, and retrieval. The themes are: Image indexing strategies within an information retrieval context, Social computing, image tagging and folksonomies, Methods, models, and theories applicable to image research, Image users and uses, Cognitive aspects of image perception and understanding, Cross-Language Image Retrieval, Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR).

The CAB Thesaurus

2009-07-02T19:27:00.000+01:00

The CAB Thesaurus, the largest life sciences and related topics thesaurus in the world, is now available online at http://www.cabi.org/cabthesaurus/. Key features include: Controlled vocabulary that has been in constant use since 1983, Regularly updated (current version released January 2009), Broad coverage of pure and applied life sciences, technology and social sciences, Approximately 96,000 terms, including 64,000 preferred terms and 32,000 non-preferred terms, Includes about 62,000 plant, animal and microorganism names, Multi-lingual, with Spanish and Portuguese equivalents for most English terms, American and British spelling variants, Relevant CAS registry numbers for chemicals, and Commission notation for enzymes.

Invisible Web Seminar In Esfahan

2009-05-30T07:03:00.002+01:00

I just came back from a wonderful visit of Esfahan, a remarkable historic city in the middle of the county. In 25 May 2009, the main library of the Esfahan University held a one day seminar about the visible and invisible web. I was one of the invited speakers and I delivered a one hour presentation entitled “The Visibility and Invisibility of Information on the Web”. It was a brief summary of my studies on the invisible web concept over the last eight years. At the end of the seminar, I also took part in a panel to answer the participants’ questions. I can summarize my main message to the seminar simply as follows: “ … in my theory of information visibility on the web, I basically put the web user in the focal point of the definition of the invisible web and also consider the search context’s effects in the level of information visibility for each search session. This approach is considerably different with the common definition of this concept which is only focused on search engines’ functionality and overlooks the vital role of the user and the search context.”

The Future Roles of Publishers and Librarians

2009-05-23T06:54:00.006+01:00

The National Federation of Advanced Information Services (NFAIST), with the support of the iSchool at Drexel University, is organizing a one-day meeting "Google, the Web, and the Future Roles of Publishers and Librarians" which will take place on June 26, 2009 at Drexel University. For more information you can see this link.

Academic Writing and Popularization of Science

2009-05-19T13:10:00.002+01:00

Tehran International Book Fair (TIBF) is much greater than an exhibition place for new publications. In conjunction with the book fair, various cultural activities take place every year, that I have a chance to contribute in a few of them in this year. In its the third day, I was member of a panel to discuss on the "Popularization of Science and Its Challenges". In the seventh day, I did run a workshop on "The Basics of Paper Writing". Brief reports of these events are available here and here.

First Monday

2009-05-03T12:25:00.002+01:00

First Monday published the May 2009 (volume 14, number 5) issue. To see the table of contents and full text of the papers, please follow the link.

Collaborative Information Seeking

2009-05-01T13:14:00.002+01:00

Information Processing & Management journal is going to publish a special issue on Collaborative Information Seeking. According to their call for paper “… collaborative information seeking refers to occasions when pairs or groups of people actively work together to satisfy a shared information need. Such collaborations may be synchronous or asynchronous, co-located or remote. … understanding how digital technologies can improve the process and outcomes of collaborative information seeking is an emerging area of research engaging several communities, including researchers in the fields of information retrieval, library sciences, education, human-computer interaction, and computer-supported cooperative work.”

Two Recent Conferences

2009-04-23T21:50:00.003+01:00

Recently, I was member of the scientific committees at two national conferences in LIS. The first one, “Knowledge Management and Information Science: Links and Interactions” took place last week.
The second one is a national conference entitled “School Libraries: Dynamism of the Educational System and Contribution in Learning and Teaching” which is being held now. The increasing number of specialized conferences in LIS in Iran is a sign of the dynamism of this field in the country.

Current Trends in Publishing LIS Books

2009-04-21T08:47:00.002+01:00

I had an interview with IBNA about the current trends in publishing LIS books in Iran. The full transcription of this interview is available here.

How to Make Sense of Qualitative Data

2009-04-15T05:28:00.001+01:00

Yesterday, I delivered a presentation at our university about the
basics of data analysis and interpretation in qualitative research and
how we can make sense of piles of notes and raw materials in our
studies to present meaningful and comprehensible results. The
presentation's title was "How to Make Sense of Qualitative Data in
Qualitative Studies". If you like to see the PowePoint file please
send me an email.

WWW 2009

2009-04-04T10:09:00.004+01:00

The 18th International World Wide Web Conference will take place in Madrid, for more details follow the link.

LIS Curricula and New Skills

2009-03-16T04:36:00.000Z

In another interview with IBNA, I referred to the necessity of keeping LIS curricula abreast on the rapid changes in the filed. The full transcription of this interview is available here.

Research 2.0

2009-03-16T04:12:00.002Z

Research 2.0: Web 2.0 and Virtual Worlds as Research Environments will take place in January 5-8, 2010, in Hawaii. The main topics are: changing landscape for qualitative and quantitative research due to emergence of Web 2.0 and virtual worlds; development of online research communities; online collaborative techniques in Web 2.0 environments for advancing research methodologies; use of Web 2.0 tools and technologies in data collection and analyses; use of Web 2.0 platforms and virtual worlds (e.g., Second Life) such as avatars, online communities, for conducting qualitative and quantitative research; effectiveness of Web 2.0 for increasing participating rates in research (e.g., questionnaire response rates; online focus groups); using user-generated content as a data source in research; ethical and legal issues (e.g., privacy; copyright) in conducting qualitative and quantitative research in virtual environments; use of social computing in building research communities; role of social computing in the advancement of data collection techniques; new data collection approaches in Web 2.0 environments.

Qualitative Studies in LIS Research

2009-02-18T12:25:00.001Z

Recently I had another interview with IBNA on the issue of existing approaches in LIS research. In this interview, I mentioned that until now most of the LIS studies in the country have been adopting quantitative approaches and we need to do more research with qualitative methods to make a reasonable balance between these two paradigms. You can see the full transcription of the interview on IBNA website at here.

100 Hints in Writing a Dissertation

2009-02-18T12:18:00.002Z

Yesterday I was one of the speakers at the first festival of Iranian LIS students. This event was held at the National Library of Iran and was organized by ADKA to announce the outstanding dissertations, most successful student associations, and the best student journals in Iranian LIS. In this speech I delivered a presentation entitled “100 Hints in Writing a Dissertation”. I’ll upload the PowerPoint file on my homepage soon.

Quality in Qualitative Research

2009-02-03T06:22:00.002Z

Last week I had another workshop on the basics of qualitative research in social science. The workshop went very well and I enjoyed of our discussion on theoretical frameworks and practical procedures of qualitative research. However, as most of the participants were more familiar with quantitative paradigm one of their main concerns was the trustworthiness of researchers' interpretation in qualitative research and how scientific and how useful this approach is in reality. I think, if we try to evaluate the credibility of research findings in qualitative research with similar tools of quantitative approach, these questions remain unanswered. I'll write more about this issue later on.

iConference 2009

2009-01-16T08:29:00.002Z

The iConference 2009; iSociety: research, education, engagement will take place in February 8-11, 2009 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This is the Program Schedule.

Online Social Networking

2009-01-09T08:22:00.001Z

Online Social Networking on Campus: Understanding What Matters in Student Culture is the title of a new book written by Ana M. Martínez Alemán, and Katherine Lynk Wartman. The book examines college students' use of online social networking sites and how they use these.

Exam Time

2009-01-01T19:09:00.000Z

The Autumn semester ends soon and in 10 days I will have to mark a pile of exam papers and coursework. In the next semester I am going to teach various modules including principles of LIS, research methods, statistics, library buildings and equipments, and English LIS texts.

The Third Interview with IBNA

2009-01-01T18:24:00.002Z

This is my third interview with IBNA (Iranian Books News Agency) during these days. In this interview I have explained my ideas on the various areas that librarians can play their role as information specialists. I believe librarians should not limit themselves to libraries and they can rely on their abilities to provide a vast group of people with their services. You can read this interview here.

2009 Arrived

2009-01-01T18:16:00.000Z

This is the first day of 2009 and I say Happy New Year to the readers of my weblog. I hope this year brings success and happiness for everyone.

Workshop on Qualitative Research Methods

2008-12-30T19:48:00.001Z

Last week I had a workshop on Qualitative Research Methods for a group of researchers in Tehran. I will upload its PowerPoint file, which includes 60 slides, on my homepage soon.

My Interview with IBNA

2008-12-30T19:38:00.001Z

Recently I did an interview with IBNA (Iranian Books News Agency) about the research trends in LIS. This is the link.

The 21st Century Information Landscape

2008-11-29T12:23:00.001Z

The Canadian Association for Information Science seeks abstract submissions for its 37th Annual Conference, to be held May 28-30, 2009 at Carleton University. The conference theme is “Mapping the 21st Century Information Landscape: Borders, Bridges and Byways”. For more information please see this site.

Knowledge Management and Information Science

2008-11-17T13:42:00.002Z

Irandoc and ILISA are going to run their first joint conference in 14 April 2009 to explore the links between Knowledge Management and Information Science. The conference title is "Knowledge Management and Information Science: Links and Interactions" and I am a member its scientific committee. More information on the conference's theme and its topics will appear here soon.