Library and Information Sciences

This book explores the development, trends and research of library and information sciences (LIS) in the digital age. Inside, readers will find research and case studies written by LIS experts, educators and theorists, most of whom have visited China, delivered presentations there and drafted their articles based on feedback they received. As a result, readers will discover the LIS issues and concerns that China and the international community have in common.

The book first introduces the opportunities and challenges faced by the library and information literacy profession and discusses the key role of librarians in the future of information literacy education. Next, it covers trends in LIS education by examining the vision of the iSchool movement and detailing its practice in Syracuse University.

The book then covers issues in information seeking and retrieval by showing how visual data mining technology can be used to detect the relationship and pattern between terms on the Q&A of a social media site. It also includes a case study regarding tracing information seeking behavior and usage on a multimedia website.

Next, the book stresses the importance of building an academic accreditation framework for scientific datasets, explores the relationship between bibliometrics and university rankings, and details the birth and development of East Asian Libraries in North America.

Overall, the book offers readers insight into the changing nature of LIS, including the electronic dissemination of information, the impact of the Internet on libraries, the changing responsibilities of library professionals, the new paradigm for evaluating information, and characteristics and functions of today's library personnel.

Dr. Chuanfu Chen is a professor in LIS of School of Information Management, and the Dean of Undergraduate College of Wuhan University, China. Previously, he was the Dean of School of Information Management of Wuhan University. He received his BA, MA in Library Science and Ph.D. in International Law from Wuhan University. He was a visiting researcher at University of Washington, UC Berkeley, USA and The University Paris-Sud 11, France. He is the author of a great number of books, book chapters or journal articles in the field of LIS. He has won an array of awards including the 1st class of Awarded for Social Science Research in Chinese Universities and Colleges in 2006. He was approved Changjiang Scholar Professor by Ministry of Education of China He has a major interest and expertise in library development, information resources management and intellectual property. He is also a deputy President of China Society for Library Science.

Ronald Larsen is the Dean and professor of School of Information Sciences at University of Pittsburgh from 2002. Previously, he was Executive Director for Maryland Applied Information Technology Initiative from 1999 to 2002, and Deputy Director for Maryland Information and Network Dynamics (MIND) Lab, a component laboratory of the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) from Apr. 2001 to July 2002. He was One of University of Maryland 's Top 100 Grant Winners for 1999, 2000, and 2001. He has research interests in digital libraries, interoperability, scalability, cross-lingual information retrieval, and so on.