Description: This article discusses research on collaboration and crowdsourcing. Abstract: Purpose - This study aims to understand key features of existing multilingual digital libraries and to suggest strategies for building and/or sustaining multilingual information access for digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach - A case study approach was applied to examine four American multilingual digital libraries: Project Gutenburg, Meeting of Frontiers, The International Children's Digital Library, and the Latin American Open Archives Portal. This examination used a framework derived from digital library evaluation practice. The missions, goals, funding, partners, users, collections, services, and technologies of these digital libraries were analyzed to present their key multilingual features. The collaboration and crowdsourcing characteristics were highlighted and discussed. Findings - These four multilingual libraries benefit substantially, both in the creation of the library and in its access, from the collaboration of groups domestic and international with different language expertise. For building the multilingual collection and services, some libraries involved both staff and users. For multilingual access to the collection, however, none of the libraries used machine translation or cross-language information retrieval technologies. Research limitations/implications - The four cases are all publicly available digital libraries in the United States. Their features may not be applicable to digital libraries ...

Description: This article discusses a research study on the development and assessment of an instrument for measuring mental model styles in Korea. Abstract: This research study documents the development and validation of a new instrument for measuring individual mental model styles. In particular, the instrument is developed for use in organizational performance and change settings. Existing approaches to accessing and assessing mental models are reviewed, and the conclusion is drawn that none are survey-based, quantitative measures useful in organizational settings. Instrument development procedures with an expert panel are described, as well as data collection and analysis. The resulting instrument is provided along with exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis results. Recommendations for further research and establishing continued validity are provided.

Description: This article discusses a preliminary evaluation study of metadata records machine translation. This study is partially supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) grant LG-06-10-0162-10. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate freely available machine translation (MT) services' performance in translating metadata records. Design/methodology/approach: Randomly selected metadata records were translated from English to Chinese using Google, Bing, and SYSTRAN MT systems. These translations were then evaluated using a five point scale for both fluency and adequacy. Missing count (words not translated) and incorrect count (words incorrectly translated) were also recorded. Findings: Concerning both fluency and adequacy, Google and Bing's translations of more than 70 percent of test data received scores equal to or greater than three, representative of "non-native Chinese" and "much coverage," respectively. SYSTRAN scored lowest in both measures. However, these differences were not statistically significant. A Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated a strong relationship (r=0.86) between fluency and adequacy. Missing count and incorrect count strongly correlated with fluency and adequacy. Originality/value: Most existing digital collections can be accessed in English alone. Few digital collections in the USA support multilingual information access (MLIA) that enables users of differing languagees to search, browse, recognize and use ...

Description: This book review discusses 'Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices' by Tanya Joosten. 'Social Media for Educators' is an excellent book that interweaves theory, applications, and current pedagogical experiences for learning environments. For those in the learning and performance industry, this book provides insights and ideas to help guide social media use for both educators and learners. Joosten provides current examples, benefits, and considerations throughout each chapter. Whether educators are beginning to design their learning curriculum or learners are considering social media for organizational development, this book presents helpful insights and experiences that will potentially influence and shape effective engagement and learning with social media.

Description: This article discusses contextual metadata in digital aggregations. Abstract: A number of digital libraries that aggregate multiple digital collections are now generating subject metadata to describe intellectual content of entire digital collections as integrated wholes and to provide context for individual digital objects within them. However, the utility of this important contextual metadata has not been empirically evaluated. The exploratory study reported in this article examined and compared collection-level subject metadata in three large-scale aggregations of cultural heritage digital collections in the United States and the European Union and analyzed the role of collection-level metadata in information retrieval in digital aggregations based on user search queries derived from transaction logs. A small-scale targeted user study, which combined interviews and observations of users interacting with an aggregation, was undertaken to complement evidence-based content analysis data. The study revealed considerable variability in two indicators: consistency of applying controlled-vocabulary collection-level subject metadata elements beyond topical and value length of metadata elements. Both free-text and controlled-vocabulary subject metadata were found vital in answering search queries of aggregation users. Users also expressed preference for viewing complete structured collection-level metadata records, which include subject metadata. Results of this study prove importance of provision of collection-level metadata ...