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Purpose – This paper proposes enhancing libraries to act as knowledge management centers for small businesses, providing both knowledge management (KM) and competitive intelligence (CI) services. Design/methodology/approach – The requirements for a Library Knowledge Management Center (LKMC) are presented and briefly examined. KM, CI, ontologies, and the Semantic Web are all considered, and the steps needed to realize a LKMC are presented. Findings – An approach to developing a LKMC is provided, as is a rationale for the proposal. Future research issues for realization of this proposal are addressed. Research limitations/implications – This paper presents a conceptual overview of a project that is still in its early stages, and as such its practicality is difficult to evaluate. Practical implications – This proposal, if followed up with future research, will prove beneficial to both small business and to libraries. Small businesses are not always able to gather sufficient internal and external knowledge to assist in strategic planning and positioning, and thus are unable to compete with larger rivals whose resources allow them to develop sophisticated KM and CI systems. LKMCs hold promise to level the playing field. Libraries benefit because this reaffirms their relevance in a digital age in which so much information is freely available to patrons. Originality/value – This paper proposes a new service for libraries, one that will assist small businesses in competing more effectively with larger competitors.

This paper examines the connection between environmental scanning for market intelligence, organizational culture and generic strategies. The generic strategies, based on the Miles and Snow typology, are related to the organizational culture types developed by Deshpande et al. An enhanced model of the one proposed by Deshpande et al. is presented. By providing a more complete model, it is possible to more accurately represent an organization’s interaction with its environment with respect to its generic strategy and scanning approach. Propositions are presented pertaining to the type of scanning approach utilized by organizations in each quadrant. The paper concludes with planning implications for each quadrant.

As the number of Internet purchases of fashion items increases, the problem of inaccurate color representation on the Web becomes more significant. Color inaccuracy has many negative consequences for marketers, including loss of sales, increased returns and complaints, and customer defections. This research reports the findings of a survey conducted as part of an initial investigation into consumer opinions about fashion merchandise purchasing over the Internet. Results indicate that companies are losing customers and sales as a result of having colors on e‐commerce sites that do not accurately represent the actual colors of the products being sold. Increased dissatisfaction on the part of consumers leads to greater costs in both customer service and reverse logistics. Further, a majority of the respondents indicated that they would not make additional purchases from an e‐tailer if they received items in colors different than they expected. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research.

Noting that accurate information needs overlay the entire intelligence cycle from planning to reporting, the authors propose a new concept to fine‐tune the process of electronically gathering information. Since most tools are nondiscriminatory in information gathering, a new concept is needed to assist managers at all levels of the organization. The proposed multi‐class interest profile (M‐CLIP) provides the capability of expanding the representation of interests to reflect the assorted areas that make up a manager’s information needs. The M‐CLIP covers project, organizational, and industry class interest areas. Each area is customizable to make the search pertinent to the user while considering the need for both recall and precision. Supporting features, such as profile expansion, and fine‐tuning are also considered.

The aim of this paper is to introduce the special issue on the Semantic Web. Intensive research has been undertaken worldwide in research centres and several achievements have been accomplished towards the ultimate objective: the expression and the exploitation of humanity's collective knowledge.

A multi‐fold strategy for the preparation of this special issue was deployed. Given the special characteristics, a balanced mix of introductory papers to the topic, and also advanced research papers at the leading edge of Semantic Web evolution, were selected.

The paper summarizes the articles of the issue and also provides help in understanding the Semantic Web Roadmap of Digital Libraries.

Introduces the papers in the special issue.