Academic Writing and Publishing: A NASIG Preconference Workshop

ABSTRACT

The goal of this preconference was to guide aspiring academic librarians in understanding how to navigate scholarly publication requirements and be successful academic writers. The presenters provided tips for beginners as well as for those already engaged in a research agenda. One of the presenters is a published book and journal author and the other is the editor-in-chief of a major peer-reviewed library journal.     

A user view of the factors affecting quality of thesauri in social science databases

In an attempt to improve the knowledge of the quality of the thesauri-based databases (DB), a Spanish professional user group was surveyed in order to uncover DB thesaurus quality factors. Factor analysis methodology was applied to the data matrix gathered from users' opinions on a restricted sample of social science DB thesauri. Using processes of exploration, explanation, and interpretation, researchers reduced the initial 39 variables to 4 main components, regarded as the main DB thesaurus quality factors. These four main components are conceptual framework, performance, format, and external aids. They may provide scholars with four approaches to the issue of thesaurus quality and the points where further research is needed.     

Keith Haring in Pisa and Melbourne: Controversy and conservation

Keith Haring painted large outdoor murals in Melbourne, Australia, in 1984 (the Collingwood Mural) and at Pisa in Italy in 1989 (Tuttomondo). Recently, both murals have been analyzed and conserved by similar teams of conservators and scientists. The original appearance of the Collingwood Mural was severely compromised, and the original materials much degraded. Tuttomondo was somewhat altered visually but with less physical damage. There were initial suggestions to repaint Tuttomondo but these were dissipated by good communication of the analytical findings. In Melbourne, there was a high-profile and emotive campaign to have the Collingwood Mural repainted. Conservators and government were heavily criticized for supposedly ignoring the artist's wishes. However, detailed research into Haring's published statements revealed that conservation does respect his artistic aims. For the Collingwood Mural, conservators had to consider whether to reduce the visual disturbances which obscured the works. Practices documented by conservation theorists and routinely undertaken by conservators guided the decision to apply mechanically reversible re-integration. This made Haring's unique ‘line’ visible and accessible again, and pleased the public. The controversies showed how conservators must communicate clearly and tactfully; appreciate the feelings of the public and involve communities in conservation, without compromising rigorous scientific and curatorial research.     

Advisory services and farm-level sustainability profiles: an exploration in nine European countries

Purpose: This study explores the use of advisory services by farm managers and its linkages with the economic, environmental and social performance of farms.

Design/methodology/approach: Using cluster analysis we determined groups of farms according to their sustainability performance and explored the correlations between contacts with advisory services and a set of farm-level sustainability indicators.

Findings: There exist significant differences in the number of farmers’ contacts with advisory services across countries, type of farms, farmers’ degree of agricultural education, utilized agricultural area, legal type of farm ownership and economic size of the farms. We identified three groups of farms that have different sustainability performance, are different in farm characteristics and relate differently to advisory services. The number of contacts with advisory services is positively related to the adoption of innovations, the number of information sources utilized and the adoption of farm risk management measures. We find no clear linear relationship between advisory services and environmental sustainability.

Theoretical implications: This study derives hypotheses to analyze causalities between indicators of farm-level sustainability and advisory services.

Practical implications: Results suggest the importance of taking into account the heterogeneity of farming systems for the design, targeting and evaluation of advisory services. In addition, results confirm the importance of selection of indicators that can be used in multiple sites.

Originality/value: We used a harmonized indicator of advisory services and a harmonized set of farm-level sustainability indicators in nine different EU countries that could be used to evaluate the role of advisory services in the achievement of multiple objectives in different groups of farms in multiple sites.     

Showtime: the biopolitical performance of ‘effective beginning science teacher’

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Over the past decade, neoliberal practices for ensuring teacher effectiveness have shaped the landscape of education. In the midst of policy mandates for...     

Individual differences in memory updating in relation to arithmetic problem solving

The study investigates the relationship between memory updating and arithmetic word problem solving. Two groups of 35 fourth graders with high and low memory-updating abilities were selected from a sample of 89 children on the basis of an updating task used by Palladino et al. [Memory & Cognition 29 (2002) 344]. The two groups were required to solve a set of arithmetic word problems and to recall relevant information from another set of problems. Several span tasks, a computation test, and the PMA verbal subtest were also administered. The group with a high memory-updating ability performed better in problem solving, recalling text problems, and in the computation test. The two groups did not differ in the PMA verbal subtest or in the digit and word spans. Results were interpreted as supporting the importance of updating ability in problem solving and of the substantial independence between memory updating and problem solving on one hand and verbal intelligence on the other.     

Integration patterns in host societies analysed on the basis of alphabet book content for Russian schools in limitrophe states in the first third of the twentieth century

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the content of alphabet books published for Russian-speaking children in Latvia, Estonia and Poland in the 1920s and explains the nexus between socio-cultural context and representation of social environment and children’s interactions to explore strategies of adaptation offered to children. The textbooks were quantified using a target codifier. The results are embedded in the context of theories of intergenerational cultural transmission and integration of minorities. The textbooks published for Russian-speaking children in Poland and Estonia exemplify a classical postfigurative type of intergenerational transmission to ensure group cohesion protecting against assimilation. The model of transmission in alphabet books published in Latvia is based on encouraging a child to establish values and guidelines independently. Thus, Latvian alphabet books allow a child to join a network of tenuous relationships for integration into the dominant culture. Therefore, the study provides a retrospective of strategies of Russian-speaking minorities’ consolidation and integration into dominant societies.     

Erratum to: Middle School Engagement with Mathematics Software and Later Interest and Self-Efficacy for STEM Careers

Journal of Science Education and Technology -