Forthcoming book about Google Scholar and its competitors

Just read the autumn catalogue from Chandos Publishing and did find a forthcoming book (June 2009) with title:”Google Scholar and its competitors” written by professor Ingrid Hsieh-Yee.  From the description of the book I cut:

“…the book assesses studies of Google Scholar and the library community’s reactions to this tool. It also explores the implications of Google Scholar and its competitors for information seekers and libraries”.

Will be intresting to read the book because of my earlier evaluations of Google Scholar at One Entry to Research.

Colis 6 – a conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science held in Borås next year

Just discovered a Library and Information Science (LIS) conference called COLIS 6 – Sixth International conference on Conceptions of Library and Information Science with theme title: “Featuring the Future”. It will take place in Borås, Sweden, in August 13-16, 2007. The conference themes are Reframing LIS from Different Perspectives, LIS in Contemporary Society, LIS versus New Research and Professional Fields
and New Research Methods in LIS.

Are there hidden costs of information searching?

This white paper produced by IDC and Susan Feldman et al:“The hidden costs of information work” was published March 2005. Not fresh news ;-), but it still has some interesting findings:

“An organization employing 1,000 knowledge workers loses $5.7 million annually just in the time wasted by employees having to reformat information as they move among applications”.

In the conclusion of the white paper they say:

“If enterprises are leaking money from the costs of information work at such a great rate, then why is so little written about the impact that inefficient information tasks have on an organization?”

They also have some great examples as this one:

“A publishing company implemented a new search engine. It found that better search improved the ability of customers to find the information that they were seeking and therefore decreased the number of calls to customer service by 20–30%”.

Maybe you readers have more examples of hidden costs or the the cost of having no information (no library) or loack of information or even insufficient information in the companies?