Having moved the journal from Lund University to the University of Borås, my colleagues there are now in the process of transferring the journal to a new server and designing a new format, with publication within OJS. Previously, we have used OJS only up to the copy-editing stage of the workflow, but in future the papers will also be published from within the system.
I imagine that there will be the inevitable teething-problems with the conversion process, and I hope that readers will understand that doing this with a 28-year-old journal, and with more than 1,500 papers (including conference proceedings), is not an easy matter!
We have fewer papers than usual this quarter, which may be the result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Over this period I imagine that researchers have been less productive than usual, and, of course, the production process has been slowed as a result of illness among reviewers and copyeditors.
However, the papers we do publish are an interesting batch. First, Gillian Oliver and colleagues present a review of the literature on data cultures, that is: 'the contexts in which data are created, collected, managed, accessed, used and re-used.'. They find that there is no common definition of the concept and that interest in the idea is widely distributed over both scientific and humanistic disciplines.
Olayemi and Abolarinwa research Internet use by tuberculosis patients in Nigeria. Unsurprisingly, given the uncertainty of the power supply in Nigeria, the mobile phone was the most common device, and most respondents said that the Internet was an important source of information for them. However, they agreed that they found it difficult to assess the quality of the information presented. Webster and Ryan explore how older adults use social media by proxy, i.e., an intermediary. They find that, generally, such older adults use members of their existing social network, friends, family members, and other acquaintances, with information professionals also being used.
Finally, Topkanlo and CheshmehSohrabi, employed a Delphi investigation to identify and categorise the wide range of indicators for the evaluation of scientific and technical publications. They arrive at eight categories of indicators serving different purposes, e.g., employing different methods, with different units and content, etc.
In all, the four papers illustrate the diversity of research undertaken in the field.
We have five book reviews this quarter, again representing a diverse range of topics, from information policy, through data science, to information literacy and its paradoxes.
Our thanks, as usual, to the regional editors who see the papers through the review process, our copy-editors who try to ensure the readability of the texts, to the many reviewers and members of the Editorial Board who help to maintain the quality of the papers published. Without their dedication to the open access ideal, the journal would not exist.
We are all saddened to learn of the death of Professor Jan Nolin, of the University of Borås: he was an excellent member of our Editorial Board, whose reviews were always fair and thorough, and a strong advocate for the journal. He will be missed not only by his colleagues in Borås, but also by his many friends in the international community.
Professor T.D. Wilson
Editor-in-chief
March, 2023.