American psycho: A collection management survey in Canadian public libraries

A survey of issues associated with the collection management of American Psycho in Canadian public libraries reveals that selection and circulation of controversial titles remains a difficult task for many librarians. Book reviews, articles in magazines and newspapers, and presence or absence of patron requests were important factors in both positive and negative purchase decisions. Large libraries were more likely than small or medium-sized ones to acquire the title, and very few complaints about the book were received from patrons. Librarians attempted to manage the interplay of the forces of quality, demand, media attention, community needs, and intellectual freedom when deciding whether to order American Psycho and how to circulate it in the collection.     

An investigation into the cause of corrosion on indoor bronze sculpture

Abstract

Corrosion noted on a number of nineteenth and twentieth century indoor bronze sculptures in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada was the cause for a major condition survey of its Canadian, American, and European bronzes. The results led to a comprehensive study, which included material analysis. This article outlines the steps undertaken to determine the extent and type of corrosion, its possible cause(s), and potential remediation. The survey included 136 bronzes, of which 40 were selected for an in-depth study. Indoor air quality tests of the current building, housing the collection since 1988, were carried out. The dossiers and database records of the selected sculptures were reviewed to investigate their condition, treatment, and storage history. The metal, patina, and corrosion products were subjected to analysis. More areas of corrosion were generally associated with predominantly green patinas and chloride-containing compounds identified in either patina or corrosion samples. The most frequently identified compounds in the patina samples were atacamite, a copper(II) chloride hydroxide, and cuprite, a copper(I) oxide. The most frequently identified compounds in the corrosion samples were atacamite and rouaite, a copper(II) hydroxide nitrate. The analysis determined that the current environment is not contributing to the surface alterations of the sculptures; however, past storage conditions, chemical residues from artificial patination, and likely casting residues are the main causes of the current condition.     

On Collection Size and Retrieval Effectiveness

The relationship between collection size and retrieval effectiveness is particularly important in the context of Web search. We investigate it first analytically and then experimentally, using samples and subsets of test collections. Different retrieval systems vary in how the score assigned to an individual document in a sample collection relates to the score it receives in the full collection; we identify four cases.We apply signal detection (SD) theory to retrieval from samples, taking into account the four cases and using a variety of shapes for relevant and irrelevant distributions. We note that the SD model subsumes several earlier hypotheses about the causes of the decreased precision in samples. We also discuss other models which contribute to an understanding of the phenomenon, particularly relating to the effects of discreteness. Different models provide complementary insights.Extensive use is made of test data, some from official submissions to the TREC-6 VLC track and some new, to illustrate the effects and test hypotheses. We empirically confirm predictions, based on SD theory, that P@n should decline when moving to a sample collection and that average precision and R-precision should remain constant. SD theory suggests the use of recall-fallout plots as operating characteristic (OC) curves. We plot OC curves of this type for a real retrieval system and query set and show that curves for sample collections are similar but not identical to the curve for the full collection.     

Finding the Oysters with Pearls Among Poetry Magazines

The problems of selecting periodicals in a specific field are illustrated in the area of American and Canadian poetry. Selection sources are evaluated, frequently used criteria are critiqued and collection development goals are suggested. The article closes with reviews of the ten best journals and selections for Canada and each geographical area of the United States.     

A study of the collection inventory assessments for psychology in the Canadian conspectus database and an analysis of the conspectus methodology

A study of the Canadian Conspectus online database explored the reliability of the data and assessed the validity of the Conspectus methodology. A cross-library analysis demonstrated that the assessments for existing collection strength (ECS) and current collecting intensity (CCI) for the 51 subdivisions of psychology were not representative of the libraries' collection sizes or their materials budgets. The CCI assessments for each library for the subject subdivision for memory (BF370-BF395) were also examined. The results of correlation analyses demonstrated that the library's collection size and its materials budget were better predictors of the level of current collecting intensity (as measured by the number of recent acquisitions on memory) than the CCI assessment. Findings drawn from the literature of psychophysics and opinion measurement, as well as from relevance research, demonstrate problems with biasing effects in the category scaling methodology used in the Conspectus.     

A multi-collection latent topic model for federated search

Collection selection is a crucial function, central to the effectiveness and efficiency of a federated information retrieval system. A variety of solutions have been proposed for collection selection adapting proven techniques used in centralised retrieval. This paper defines a new approach to collection selection that models the topical distribution in each collection. We describe an extended version of latent Dirichlet allocation that uses a hierarchical hyperprior to enable the different topical distributions found in each collection to be modelled. Under the model, resources are ranked based on the topical relationship between query and collection. By modelling collections in a low dimensional topic space, we can implicitly smooth their term-based characterisation with appropriate terms from topically related samples, thereby dealing with the problem of missing vocabulary within the samples. An important advantage of adopting this hierarchical model over current approaches is that the model generalises well to unseen documents given small samples of each collection. The latent structure of each collection can therefore be estimated well despite imperfect information for each collection such as sampled documents obtained through query-based sampling. Experiments demonstrate that this new, fully integrated topical model is more robust than current state of the art collection selection algorithms.     

The evaluation of international credentials and the hiring of internationally trained librarians in Canadian academic and public libraries

This study examines the way in which libraries in Canada approach the issue of the evaluation of international credentials (ICs) held by internationally trained librarians (ITLs) and the eventual short-listing and hiring of such individuals. In the United States and Canada, librarianship, a non-regulated profession, is to a large degree governed by the American Library Association (ALA), but the ALA's statements regarding ICs and ITLs are often ambiguous. It is therefore frequently left to individual libraries to decide how best to deal with ICs and ITLs. Based on a questionnaire sent to managers of large academic and public libraries in Canada, this study concludes that a significant percentage of Canadian libraries, especially academic libraries, are open to hiring ITLs insofar as these libraries and their managers do not consider an ALA-accredited degree to be mandatory for an applicant to be short-listed for a job position. At the same time, these library managers possess very little information about the state of LIS education in countries other than the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, thus making their decisions about hiring ITLs problematic. Governing bodies of librarianship may wish to consider establishing nation-wide guidelines and/or bridging education programs to facilitate the integration of ITLs with ICs into the North American workforce.     

书目员制度和美国俄亥俄大学图书馆的藏书建设系统

在实际考察的基础上,全面介绍俄亥俄大学图书馆的学科书目员制度和该馆的藏书建设体系,在将其与我国高校图书馆的采访制度进行比较后,分析了各自的优缺点。认为我国高校图书馆组织制度和藏书建设体系的改革与发展可参考借鉴美国的模式。     

Toward hospital library standards in Canada

A report is given on Canadian hospital library standards as recently developed and incorporated in a new Guide to Hospital Accreditation, 1977. The new Canadian standards are compared with MLA recommendations to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. Their development is sketched and the contribution from Quebec of a model of hospital classification is examined. This model provides differential minimal library standards based on the function of the hospital rather than on its size alone. Use of these minimal standards as a practical means of developing hospital libraries is discussed and their implications for accreditation visits are underlined.     

From South to North

Summary

Law librarians must develop a sixth sense to catch whispers in the wind and cultivate a sense of impending developments. Changes must be perceived before they happen. The increasing globalization in the law and the legal profession was perceived by the author in 1987 in New Zealand, and she details the steps taken to enable her to deal with them. These included working for a semester in an academic library in the United States, attendance at the Canadian Law Librarians Conference, and a locum as a law librarian in a Canadian law firm. The Northern American experience was invaluable in assisting the author in using the relevant legal sources and their tools that could then be applied back in New Zealand. The generic common law bond which binds these jurisdictions meant that developments in the one legal system could then be extrapolated back and related to the New Zealand situation. The author also provides hints to assist other law librarians seeking similar enrichment.     

Canadian Marconi: CFCF Television From Signal Hill to the Canadian Television Network

Canadian Marconi's CFCF was a focal point in Canadian broadcasting history. American students have a sense of RCA's historical role in US. telecommunications, but know little of the Canadian Marconi legacy. The Canadian Marconi Corporation was like RCA in the United States. It grew with technological advances, developed around established legal limitations, and was shaped by its community. It was influential in the Canadian system, the CN private Canadian network, and RTNDA-Canada. CFCF truly stands out in Canadian broadcast history.     

The evaluation of international credentials and the hiring of internationally trained librarians in Canadian academic and public libraries

This study examines the way in which libraries in Canada approach the issue of the evaluation of international credentials (ICs) held by internationally trained librarians (ITLs) and the eventual short-listing and hiring of such individuals. In the United States and Canada, librarianship, a non-regulated profession, is to a large degree governed by the American Library Association (ALA), but the ALA's statements regarding ICs and ITLs are often ambiguous. It is therefore frequently left to individual libraries to decide how best to deal with ICs and ITLs. Based on a questionnaire sent to managers of large academic and public libraries in Canada, this study concludes that a significant percentage of Canadian libraries, especially academic libraries, are open to hiring ITLs insofar as these libraries and their managers do not consider an ALA-accredited degree to be mandatory for an applicant to be short-listed for a job position. At the same time, these library managers possess very little information about the state of LIS education in countries other than the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, thus making their decisions about hiring ITLs problematic. Governing bodies of librarianship may wish to consider establishing nation-wide guidelines and/or bridging education programs to facilitate the integration of ITLs with ICs into the North American workforce.     

Server selection methods in personal metasearch: a comparative empirical study

Server selection is an important subproblem in distributed information retrieval (DIR) but has commonly been studied with collections of more or less uniform size and with more or less homogeneous content. In contrast, realistic DIR applications may feature much more varied collections. In particular, personal metasearch—a novel application of DIR which includes all of a user’s online resources—may involve collections which vary in size by several orders of magnitude, and which have highly varied data. We describe a number of algorithms for server selection, and consider their effectiveness when collections vary widely in size and are represented by imperfect samples. We compare the algorithms on a personal metasearch testbed comprising calendar, email, mailing list and web collections, where collection sizes differ by three orders of magnitude. We then explore the effect of collection size variations using four partitionings of the TREC ad hoc data used in many other DIR experiments. Kullback-Leibler divergence, previously considered poorly effective, performs better than expected in this application; other techniques thought to be effective perform poorly and are not appropriate for this problem. A strong correlation with size-based rankings for many techniques may be responsible.     

Japanese manga in translation and American graphic novels: A re-examination of the collections in 36 academic libraries ten years later

Ten years ago, this journal published an article comparing the collection rates of Japanese manga in English translation and American graphic novels (“American” defined as graphic novels published in North America and originally written in English) in 44 American academic libraries in 2007 and 2008 (Masuchika & Boldt, 2010). The results showed that American graphic novels were being added to American academic libraries at a faster pace than translated Japanese manga. With the growing popularity of both manga and graphic novels, it was time to revisit this phenomenon and see if any changes had occurred in collection rates within the last ten years. This study revealed that while graphic novels were being added at a significantly faster pace, manga showed no increase in the rates they were being added ten years ago.     

加拿大图书馆电子书购买许可模式与借阅政策研究

[目的/意义]了解加拿大电子书的发展情况,调研梳理加拿大图书馆电子书购买许可模式与借阅政策,为国内图书馆电子书借阅政策的制定提供参考。[方法/过程]通过文献调研和个案分析的方法总结加拿大图书馆电子书购买许可模式及借阅规则,通过网站调研的方法了解和分析加拿大2012年电子书支付费用前15名公共图书馆的电子书借阅政策。[结果/结论]加拿大图书馆电子书购买实践中存在5种以上的购买许可模式,电子书借阅也制定了非常完善的借阅政策。国内图书馆界需借鉴加拿大的成功经验,丰富电子书购买许可模式,强化相关学协会作用并从实际出发制定本馆较为完善的电子书借阅政策。     

Extending Humor Enactment Research

Humor orientation (HO) is an individual difference variable that influences production and delivery of humorous communication. Prior research indicates that people who score higher on HO enact humor more frequently and effectively, which in turn leads to more benefits and advantages in a variety of social and psychological outcomes. Research reported here extends this line of analysis with HO for its relationship to a broad gauge measure of benefit, satisfaction with life, extending HO into understudied domains. This study compared Bulgarian adults (n = 100) to several American samples. Primary findings were that Bulgarians were similar to American samples overall but scored consistently higher than Americans on satisfaction with life (SWL). HO and SWL are correlated (r = .27), a medium effect size.     

The Spectacle of Protest and Punishment: Newspaper coverage of the Melksham Weavers' Riot of 1738

The goal of this article is to demonstrate and analyse how two public broadcasters with cultural and technical mandates to foster identity formation, the BBC in Britain and the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) in Canada, came to terms with the fact that the British and Canadian identities were different, and growing more so, in the 1930s. The focus is on how two BBC officials, Malcolm Frost and Felix Greene, assessed the public broadcasting experiment in Canada and gradually came to understand that the CRBC, while a Dominion broadcaster and potential distributor of the Empire Service, was also a North American broadcaster striving to gain legitimacy and credibility with Canadian listeners accustomed to the popular commercial programming of the large American networks. It concludes with a discussion of Greene's role in the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and the appointment of Canadian-born BBC official Gladstone Murray as its first general manager.     

图书馆实施读者决策采购(PDA)的基本路径探讨

读者决策采购(PDA)是近年来在美国图书馆兴起的一种基于读者使用需求的重要馆藏资源建设模式,在简要介绍其发展状况的基础上,着重探讨实施PDA服务的基本路径,即服务平台搭建、馆员筛选、书目维护和预算调整、借阅存取、付费和预算管理,为PDA在图书馆资源建设中的应用提供有益参考。     

American Network Broadcasting,the CBC,and Canadian Radio Stations During the 1930s: A Content Analysis

Canadian historical literature of early radio broadcasting focuses largely on policy and formation of two successive public networks: the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission (CRBC) and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). This literature rests fundamentally on the assumption that the CRBC and CBC were formed to counter the threat of American cultural domination. This study is based on a stratified random sample of radio schedules selected from Vancouver, Montreal, and Halifax newspapers. This content analysis of radio schedules demonstrates an overall trend of greater U.S. programming within Canadian radio station schedules coinciding with the introduction of programs produced in the United States by the CBC.