Country Music Radio Part I: the Tale of Two Cities

Almost everyone knows Nashville, home of WSM Radio's "Grand Ole Opry" as "Music City U.S.A." However, Knoxville, nearly 200 miles east, also was important in the development of country music radio. Many of the early and contemporary "Opry" performers began their careers at one of KnoxvilIe's two early radio stations. Despite Knoxville's significant role as a "feeder" of talent to the "Grand ole Opry," Nashville today is the undisputed capital of country music. This paper explores the contributions of both cities to the country music industry of Tennessee, as well as reasons for Nashville's enduring prominence and Knoxville's present obscurity in this activity.     

The Conglomeration of Public Radio: A Tale of Three Cities

A relatively unstudied development in the recent history of U.S. community and public radio is the emergence of metropolitan-based public radio networks. These are being constructed by buying out college and community facilities and frequencies by larger stations, resulting in student and community radio outlets being shifted to online streams and giving universities a one-time cash infusion, though this seems to vitiate the purpose of their educational licenses.     

A Tale of Two Decades

The two major schemes for transliteration or roman- izalion of Chinese into English, Wade-Giles and Pinyin, are ex- amined. The conclusion is that bolh methods are about equally effec- tive. However, since most of the rest of the world is now using Pinyin, LC should, for practical reasons, switch to Pinyin.     

Understanding the Social Media Audiences of Radio Stations

This article investigates the online comments of news items posted on the Facebook pages of two popular Arabic-language radio channels: Radio Monte Carlo—France24 and Radio Netherlands Worldwide (RNW). This study examines over 184,000 comments with a special focus on the most liked posts in order to understand how audiences of regular radio interact on social media. The results indicate that audiences seem to be more engaged with posts that encourage participating in broad issues, interacting with clever quotes, and entering contests and less so with reading breaking news. With regards to news events and serious issues, this study also examined how social media users of these two Facebook “radio” sites responded to postings that differed from their own opinions, and seemingly actively engaged with contrasting or oppositional views or sentiments.     

Aural Atavism: The Witch's Tale and Gothic Horror Radio

This article offers a cultural historical interpretation of The Witch's Tale (1931–38), an early U.S. horror radio drama, and argues that the program's use of the Gothic genre unified its content and form. Its plays emphasized temporality to highlight the Gothic intertwining of the past and present, and offered allegories that while often rooted in the fantastic nevertheless addressed contemporary concerns—gender, Others, and socio-economic anxieties. It used sound to complement its content, evoking the supernatural and monsters, and cuing and sustaining suspense. And it tapped radio's connotation as a supernatural medium to complement and magnify its generic horror.     

Left Holding the Bag: A Tale of Two Companies

The bankruptcy of two major serial agents within twelve years calls into question whether academic libraries are appropriately monitoring and overseeing the business partners to whom we entrust very large sums of money. The background events leading to the financial collapse of RoweCom/divine and Swets Information Services are reviewed and compared, along with a discussion of industry mechanisms to judge financial stability. Without adherence to financial best practices libraries risk being “left holding the bag” of problems, blame, and lost serial money.     

A Tale of Two Libraries: A Merger and Its Challenges. A Case Study

In 2005, representatives from Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), the Universities at Shady Grove (USG), and the University of Maryland Libraries, explored a potential partnership between their libraries. With different patrons and missions, merging the two library cultures and functions presented challenges and opportunities to administrators and librarians.

This study examines the dimensions and impact on both libraries. It will inquire whether it resulted in a limited, primarily administrative arrangement, or whether the libraries were able to achieve true collaboration. The findings highlight some issues libraries could take into account before embarking into a merger process.     

Finding Power of Hidden Radio Audiences in the Fields of Guatemala

This paper provides a case study of a radio station in Guatemala notable for making programming decisions to serve rural audiences. Sometimes these broadcasters broke with accepted practice and provided programs that some listeners might consider controversial. However, the case study reveals these programs were pitched directly at an underserved niche in the audience of these broadcasters: low-income listeners from indigenous groups. This paper will document the history of these trends and discuss some of the methods of how these broadcasters serve this underserved audience.     

双城记:中国西部贫困地区学校图书馆如何服务社区

青树教育基金会是设在美国旧金山的一所海外非营利公共服务机构,也是最早进入中国西部,以"全球策划本土实施"(glocalization)为纲要援建中国西部贫困地区基础教育和文化信息服务的海外机构.基金会自2001年起在中国设立青树图书馆服务中心,逐步探索发展出一套适应中国贫困地区的援建模式,成为与中国西部图书馆联手推行新型社区图书馆的典范.     

A Tale of Two Outliers: Evidence-Based Management in Non-ARL Research Libraries and Pre-NARA Presidential Libraries

Administrators in libraries of all types face the challenge of managing and planning in times of static or declining funding and rapidly changing technology. What tools do they use to gather and employ data for decision-making and evidence-based management? Are the same tools and techniques useful for all types of libraries? Although there are established measurements and metrics for academic libraries, there are few, if any, for others such as hybrid presidential libraries which are not part of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) system. This column identifies the metrics used by the pre-NARA presidential libraries and compares them to metrics used by a subgroup of Carnegie Research 1 and Research 2 libraries, those that do not participate in Association of Research Libraries (ARL) statistics program. It identifies similarities and differences.     

The Gospel According to: A Theory of Transformative Discursive Allegory

The battle between secular culture and conservative religion is one that pervades modern society. In the face of this vehement clash, a curious collection of books has emerged that attempt to provide a means of reconciliation between faith and popular culture. The Gospel according to book series by Presbyterian publisher Westminster John Knox (WJK) Press pairs seemingly controversial artifacts of popular culture such as The Simpsons with the gospel message. These books function in a way that is similar to allegory but lacks allegorical form. This essay argues for the existence of a distinctive rhetorical strategy called transformative discursive allegory that functions to create an allegorical relationship between a secular and a sacred text. WJK's The Gospel according to book series is shown as an example of how transformative discursive allegory functions to allow the faithful to participate in popular culture while simultaneously affirming one's ideological beliefs as omnipresent in the world. The findings suggest that allegorical function and form are separate elements and that one can create an allegorical relationship without allegorical form or intent.