Journal of the American Society for Information Science (JASIS) -- Table of Contents

Contributed by
Richard Hill
American Society for Information Science
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
rhill@asis.org

VOLUME 50, NUMBER 4 (April 1999)

CONTENTS

• Editorial

• In This Issue
  Bert R. Boyce

  The editors of this Special Topics Issue on The National Information Infrastructure have provided their own coverage of the issue in their introduction. However, also included are two regular papers and a brief communication which will be covered here. The issue begins sadly with a memoriam for Bob Korfhage.

• In Memoriam: Robert R. Korfhage
  Edie Rasmussen, Christine L. Borgman, Donald Kraft, and Kai A. Olsen
• Special Topic Issue: The National Information Infrastructure
  Guest Editors: Patricia D. Fletcher and John Carlo Bertot
• Introduction
  Patricia D. Fletcher and John Carlo Bertot

  The development of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) implies that government agencies are contending and can contend with a raft of digital and electronic network policy and management issues. These policies include, but are not limited to, information management, information technology (IT) management, security, intellectual property/copyright, universal service, privacy.

  This issue of JASIS deals broadly with some of the key issue areas outlined above, presenting readers with various perspectives on the building of the NII -- from policy analysis methodology to implications for creating and implementing government-based Web sites to new paradigms for government information and IT management.

• Catching a Ride on the NII: The Federal Policy Vehicles Paving the Information Highway
  Patricia D. Fletcher and Lisa K. Westerback

  Fletcher and Westerback present a review of the current Federal information policies that frame and guide agency information and IT management processes as agencies engage in NII-related systems development activities. The article provides insight into the complex and multi-dimensional information and IT management policy environment in which Federal agencies reside.

• Better Funding for Government IT: Views from the Front Line
  Jerry Mechling

  Mechling identifies a key factor that drives agency IT-related issues -- the budget. The research-based article contends that the budget process is often complicated, misunderstood, and requires cross-agency collaboration to be effective. The article provides readers with suggestions and recommendations for improving the budget process, thus leading to more effective Federal IT investments.

• Descriptive Assessment of Information Policy Initiatives: The Government Information Locator Service (GILS) as an Example
  Charles R. McClure, William E. Moen, and John Carlo Bertot

  This article combines policy analysis methodologies and Federal information policy. The authors present readers with a description of numerous methodologies that policy analysts and researchers can use to conduct an analysis of a particular policy or set of policies. The article demonstrates the use of these techniques by conducting and analysis of the Federal Government Information Locator Service (GILS).

• And the Last Shall Be First: Recordkeeping Policies and the NII
  Margaret Hedstrom and David Wallace

  This article presents readers with an in-depth look at electronic record keeping issues and policies. The authors review current Federal recordkeeping policies -- both traditional and electronic -- and identify various issues with which Federal agencies, records managers, preservationists, and others must contend in the digital environment.

• Government Information: From Inaccessibility to Your Desktop and Back Again
  J. Timothy Sprehe

  Sprehe, an author of some of the seminal Federal information policy instruments such as the 1985 Office of Management and Budget's Circular A-130, contends that the networked environment is creating a tension between the public's desire for accessible government information, technology-based Federal agency information delivery mechanisms, and societal issues such as the need to safeguard personal privacy. Sprehe explores these sometimes conflicting issues in a thought-provoking article.

• Crossing the Threshold: Practical Foundations for Government Services on the World Wide Web
  Sharon S. Dawes, Theresa A. Pardo, and Ann DiCaterino

  For those who think that providing interactive government services via the Web is simply a matter of installing a Web server and registering a domain name, consider the issues raised by Sharon S. Dawes, Theresa A. Pardo, and Ann DiCaterino in "Crossing the Threshold: Practical Foundations for Government Services on the World Wide Web." Through the establishment of the Internet Technologies Testbed, a Center for Technology in Government-based study identified several key agency factors that enabled agencies to engage in Web-based government services.

• Government's Role in Reducing ``Year-2000'' Risks
  Leon A. Kappelman, Jerry L. Johnson, and Kathy Rosmond

  The article by Leon Kappleman, Jerry L. Johnson, and Kathy Rosmund, "Government's Role in Reducing 'Year 2000' Risks" clearly points out the leadership role that the Federal and state governments have in dealing with a current, global crisis in computing. They present action items for the major government programs to take in addressing the Year 2000 problem.

RESEARCH

• The Value of Interdisciplinarity: A Study Based on the Design of Internet Search Engines
  Susan Davis Herring

  Using the ISI databases, INSPEC, Information Science Abstracts, ERIC, and Expanded Academic Index, Herring found 49 papers on the development and design of search engines for the World Wide Web. The references of these papers were then examined and the authors of each reference categorized as workers in library science, information science, computer and information science, computer science, or other. Six disciplinary categories of cited journals were determined from assigned headings.

  Twenty-six percent of the articles are by library science authors, and forty-three percent appear in computer science journals. Library and information scientists are considerably more interdisciplinary than computer scientists in terms of the journals in which they publish and the works they cite. Use of resources outside these two disciplines is very limited. Cognitive science, ergonomics, and psychology rarely appear.

• Information Science and Information Policy: The Use of Constant Dollars and other Indicators to Manage Research Investments
  Albert Henderson

  Henderson, using the growth in collection expense numbers of 41 ARL libraries with National Science Board deflators, and R&D expenditure growth from the NSB, finds parallel growth until the post-WWII research expansion, a recovery of library growth in the 1960s due to the federal response to Sputnik and the presumed superiority of Soviet information systems. With President Johnson's decision not to run in 1968, and the decreased defense spending resulting from the controversial war in Vietnam, library funding began a sharp decline and library growth was flat between 1970 and 1980, while research recovered in 1975. Research dollars continue to increase in the 1980s and 1990s, and library expenditures growth roughly parallels this growth in the 1980s, with divergence beginning in the 1990s. Henderson presents a pessimistic portrayal of declining library fortunes due to a policy fixation on technology rather than knowledge.

• Brief Communication
• Impact of Information Needs an Organizational Design
  M. E. Burke and Karen Tulett

  In the brief communication, Burke and Tulett find that a mechanistic model of organizational design is more restrictive than an organismic structure on lower echelon individuals, but that it is nonetheless cost effective for information processing.

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