The new issue of Information Research is now available at the usual place:=
  
  http://InformationR.net/ir/
  
  Here's the Editorial:
  
  Introduction
  
  With this issue Information Research makes a shift of base from Sheffield in
the UK to Lund in Sweden. From this issue onwards, the server will be located
in Lund University and will be managed by staff of Lund University Libraries,
who are also responsible for managing the Directory of Open Access
Journals=97so the link is very appropriate. As a consequence of the move, the
Editorial Board will have two new members, one,Ingegerd Rabow representing Lund
University Libraries and the other, Salam Baker Shanawa, serving as Associate
Editor (Technology).
  
  In the last Editorial I wrote of hoping to welcome a colleague from Japan to
the Board and that has now happened: we are joined by Professor Shunsaku Tamura
of Keio University. Professor Tamura will be encouraging submissions from the
Far East in general and, in particular, will oversee the submission of papers
translated from the Japanese and already published in Japan. We hope to have
two or three such papers in the course of the next year, with the aim of
revealing to the rest of the world the research going on in Japan. In
particular, as I know from a visit there in March, there is some interesting
work on the application of ethnomethodology in information behaviour research.

  This issue
  
  As usual, we have an internationally-authored and interesting bunch of papers
in this issue, together with the usual book reviews, a feature which, a little
to my surprise, turns out to be one of the strong appeals of the journal. Since
I'm an avid reader of reviews myself (after all, if you can't buy all those
books, at least you can read the reviews!), so I suppose I ought not to be
surprised, but in the other three editorial roles I've had, I always tried to
make a feature of book reviews. Generally, journals in the field don't have
many reviews in any one issue, so at least we can help a little more in book
selection.
  
  However, to the papers: we begin with an invited essay from Marcia Bates of
the University of California, Los Angeles, a well-known researcher in the info
rmation field, who, in this paper, presents the development of a definition of
'information' first propounded by Edwin Parker: 'Information is the pattern of
organization of matter and energy'. The idea is developed to show the
relationship between information in the sense of all of nature's 'information
impressions' that bombard us every day, which she terms Information 1 and
information in the sense of that to which living things (including humans) give
meaning, or Information 2. This essay is a companion piece to another, due to
be published in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science
and
Technology.
  
  We then have what is, I believe, only our second contribution from France, in
the form of a paper by Eric Thivant on the information behaviour of accountants
and business analysis employed in the Banque de France and the Institut
National de la statistique et des Etudes economiques. Dr. Thivant's research
was undertaken within a framework which draws upon a number of models of
information behaviour, the SICIA (Situation, Complexity and Information
Activity) method. One conclusion is that, although different goals are pursued,
the information research strategies and the information sources drawn upon,
tend to be similar.
  
  Next, a first from Austria, in the shape of Christian Schlogl's exploration of
the somewhat contentious issue of the distinction between 'information
management' and 'knowledge management'. He concludes that:
  
      If one does not consider its synonymous use for information management,
knowledge management means the management of those work practices that aim at
improving the generation of new and the sharing of existing knowledge.
  
  Of course, whether or not it is legitimate to label the management of work
practices, 'knowledge management' remains an open question.
  
  The 'Operational use of electronic records in police work' is the subject of
Erik Borglund's paper. This is a topic of personal interest since the group I
work with in Leeds University Business School (AIMTech) does a considerable
amount of work with police Forces in the UK. This is a new area of research in
information management, since it involves remote, mobile access to the
organization's information resources and the issues of integrating databases,
as well as integrating information from different agencies, are crucial.
  
  In another paper from Sweden, AnnBritt Enochsson presents 'A gender
perspective on Internet use: consequences for information seeking'. Readers of
the journal's Style Guide will know that I generally regard the use of the term
'gender' as an undesirable piece of political correctness, since most of the
time people are referring not to socially-determined aspects of the person, but
to the sexual distinction of male and female. In this, case, however, the
author presents a reasoned argument for the use of the term 'gender', which, in
this case, seems entirely appropriate.
  
  Finally, a team of researchers from the USA, led by James Andrews of the
University of South Florida, present the results of a study into people's
intentions to seek information on the genetic aspects of cancer. The authors
carried out a telephone interview survey, which resulted in 882 completed
interviews, and conclude:
  
      The role genetics will play in our personal health care promises to be
great, and people will need to access quality and understand information to
make better decisions regarding their own health and that of their families. As
demand for individual counselling and testing may increase, however, the health
care infrastructure may not be ready to respond.
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  My thanks, again, to Rae Ann Hughes, volunteer proof reader, for an excellent
job, and to Jose Vicente Rodriquez and Pedro Diaz for coping with translating
the abstracts into Spanish, as well as to all those who have acted as referees
for this and other issues.

___________________________________________________
Professor T.D. Wilson, PhD
Publisher/Editor in Chief
Information Research
InformationR.net
University of Sheffield
Sheffield S10 2TN,  UK
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web site: http://InformationR.net/
___________________________________________________