科学传播与互联网——美国R2委员会调查成果

这篇论文探讨了 8个问题 :互联网的发展与使用、互联网受众与其他媒介受众的比较、受众对互联网作为科学传播媒介的态度、对互联网作为大众传播渠道的宏观定性评价、正在消失的互联网模板、创建模板及评估高级网站的标准、在线科学传播记者的准备、五个未回应的挑战。     

Business perceptions and satisfaction with e-government: Findings from a Canadian survey

This paper examines business perceptions and satisfaction with e-government. Survey data is analyzed from businesses across Canada to determine their use of e-government and their perceived satisfaction with this technology for public service delivery. There are three research questions of this paper: 1) Are there significant differences for businesses that use the internet to contact government compared to those that do not? 2) Is there is a relationship between having a more positive perception overall by business of government and e-government satisfaction? and 3) Is there a relationship between businesses having input into regulatory changes, essentially being inclusive of business in the regulatory process, and e-government satisfaction? The results from the statistical models indicated that all three questions were confirmed. The findings of this study imply that governments should try to understand the business environment. A more positive attitude by business towards government, and being more inclusive of business in regulatory changes, leads to greater e-government satisfaction.     

Methods for studying family visitors in art museums: A cross-disciplinary review of current research

This paper examines current trends in family studies research, details the methodological and topical perspectives that are emerging, and reflects on how these findings could be integrated to provide a more coherent approach to researching the leisure, learning and recreational aspects of family visitors to art museums. Research findings from disciplines such as sociology, ethnography, education, design and marketing are of interest to the field of visitor studies, and this paper contributes to the wider research agenda by providing an overview of family research methods from a range of other disciplines, as well as those used within visitor studies.Over the last decade, there has been a growth of research in family learning in science museums, leading to an emerging disciplinary matrix, whilst many aspects of family visits to art museums remain relatively unexplored. The paper discusses the problems of gathering meaningful data from adults and children in family groups, and concludes by suggesting that a challenge for art museums is to learn from what is happening in other areas of cultural research into families, and to develop a framework for research which builds on the methodological strengths and practical experience of robust studies.     

Essentialism, adaptation and justice: Towards a new epistemology of museums

This article treats the prevalent confused mixture of utilitarian, art-and-knowledge-for-their-own-sake and ideological interpretations of the purpose of museums as a problem of epistemology, arguing that that key dimensions of museum knowledge (of objects, visitors, museums themselves, and of society) need to be integrated to achieve coherence. A new object-based, visitor-centred, storytelling epistemology is proposed. This would take an interdisciplinary approach and aim to unleash, rather than mute the real power of objects. It would address human destructiveness, as well as celebrating human creativity and the wonders of nature. It would respect the meaning-making practices of real, as opposed to idealized, imaginary visitors, and promote staff self-awareness in managing bureaucratic drift into introversion and avoidance of difficult issues. Incorporating a theory of justice, it would erode boundaries created by presentation traditions which, though marginal to object experiences, discriminate in favour of specific social groups—often groups with whom staff identify. Providing a museum service on a visibly fair basis is essential for museums to achieve intellectual coherence as well as societal support.     

Smithsonian Team Flickr: a library,archives, and museums collaboration in web 2.0 space

The Flickr Commons was created as a forum for institutions to share their rich photographic collections with the emerging Web 2.0 audience of Flickr; the Smithsonian Institution was the fourth member of the Commons. The Smithsonian effort was a direct collaborative effort of the libraries, archives, museums, and information technology staff that generated new pathways for collaboration between these units. As the world’s largest museum complex, these Smithsonian units serve as a microcosm for collaboration in the information age. The Flickr Commons project provided insights into how the knowledge, skills, and abilities of libraries, archives, and museums (LAM) can converge in the Web 2.0 environment to provide collection access to new, and in some cases unknown, audiences. Simultaneously, by putting “LAM” content into an environment that allows for direct interaction by these audiences, the knowledge of the content for holding institutions is enriched. By exposing Smithsonian content within the Flickr environment, the Institution is learning what content is desired by the Web 2.0 world, how to bring crowd-sourcing into professionally curated collections, and how to bring diverse institutional skills together in a collaborative project.     

Health sciences librarian competency perceptions: a survey of national community college librarians

Objective:The primary objective of this study was to determine how community college health sciences librarians perceive their proficiencies in the essential skills, knowledge, and abilities necessary for the practice of a health information professional as defined by the Medical Library Association (MLA) Competencies for Lifelong Learning and Professional Success. A secondary objective was to determine their current level of engagement with the professional community and identify barriers to further professional development.Methods:A survey was posted to various email discussion lists, and volunteer follow-up interviews were conducted.Results:The survey was completed by seventy-five community college health sciences librarians, and seven follow-up interviews were performed. Survey results indicated that community college health sciences librarians perceived themselves as having intermediate or advanced intermediate proficiency in the six MLA competencies. Survey and interview results indicated that community college health sciences librarians were engaged with the profession and faced the same barriers to continued professional development and continued education as other academic librarians.Conclusion:The results affirm that community college librarians who are responsible for collections and services in the health sciences meet the MLA competencies, which fills a gap in the literature regarding how these librarians develop professional competencies and are involved in professional associations. The results suggest that community college librarians can improve their skill levels by continuing their education and following trends in the literature.     

State of the art of expert searching: results of a Medical Library Association survey.

OBJECTIVES: Medical Library Association (MLA) members were surveyed to gather background about the current state of expert searching in institutions. The survey results were intended to guide the recommendations of the Task Force on Expert Searching for promoting the importance of expert searching and implementing those recommendations. METHODS: MLA members were surveyed, and data obtained from the survey were compiled and analyzed to answer three general questions: what is the perceived value of searching skills to the institution, how do health sciences librarians maintain and improve their searching skills, and how are searching services promoted and/or mandated in the institution. RESULTS: There were 256 responses to the survey. Over 95% of the respondents saw their expert-searching skills were of value to their institutions, primarily through performing mediated searches and search consultations. Over 83% of the respondents believed that their searching skills had improved over the past 10 years. Most indicated that continued training was very important in maintaining and improving their skills. Respondents promoted searching services most frequently through orientations, brochures, and the libraries' Web pages. No respondent's institution mandated expert searching. Less than 2% of respondents' institutions had best practice guidelines related to expert searching, and only about 8% had guidelines or policies that identified situations where expert searching was recommended. CONCLUSIONS: The survey supports the belief that health sciences librarians still play a valuable role in searching, particularly in answering questions about treatment options and in providing education. It also highlights the need for more expert searching courses. There has been minimal discussion about the perceived need for expert-searching guidelines in the institutions represented by survey respondents.     

Expanding media and sexuality studies: a transnational study of sex museums

This article offers an introduction to my current project that investigates transnational flows of mediated sexuality among sex museums and other exhibitions of explicitly erotic materials. The project expands a communication studies focus on electronic media to consider alternative sites of mediation, such as the museum, as richly communicative. I explore the embodied context of museums to shift our traditional focus on audiences toward the more expansive concept of publics. I also trace different types of mobility—of discourses, materials, and people—in the circulation of commodified sexuality. The goal for these explorations is to theorize how sexual publics and mobilities intersect to construct an urbane, cosmopolitan, citizen consumer.     

Universal museums, museum objects and repatriation: The tangled stories of things

This paper discusses the contribution of the 2003 ‘Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums’ to the debate on repatriation. The ‘Universalist’ approach taken by the Declaration is first considered, noting the implications of its emphasis on art, the heritage of museums and objects, along with its focus on the sculpture of ancient Greece and the enlightenment origin of museums such as the British Museum. It is argued that it reveals an essentialist approach that derives from a particular Western perspective, rather than being truly ‘universal’, and then considers whether a similar problem underlies many of the arguments advocating repatriation. The second part of the paper explores the opportunities offered by an approach which emphasises the ‘biography of objects’. This demonstrates how the tangled histories of objects and their many meanings can be considered. Repatriation is shown to be able to result in an increase in knowledge and understanding, rather than its destruction, and so meets the declared aim of the Declaration to ‘foster knowledge by a continuous process of reinterpretation’.     

Facilitating cross-cleavage communication online: Findings from interviews with ultra-Orthodox,religious, and secular participants

One of the key questions addressed by the study of online social media is whether or not they facilitate cross-cleavage communication between users of different nationality, ethnicity, religiosity, and other group affiliations. This study contributes to the literature by addressing communication across religious cleavages, which has scarcely received attention. The study is based on 97 semistructured interviews of a layered sample. Of the respondents, 40 were secular (21 men and 19 women), 28 Modern Orthodox (14 men and 14 women), and 29 ultra-Orthodox (11 men and 18 women). We found that groups differing by their majority/minority status and type of religious observance used the Internet for different purposes. Many secular respondents (members of the majority group in Israel) were motivated to make contact on social media by social needs. On the other hand, ultra-Orthodox respondents (members of the minority group) were exclusively focused on professional objectives as a motivation to use social media. Consequently, their online behaviors were quite different and they more frequently encounter people from groups differing by type of religious observance through social media.