Introduction: memory ethics��or the presence of the past in the present

This special issue of Archival Science examines the orientations, paradoxes, and tensions evident in the ethical struggles over the construction of the past and the degree to which archival agency can intercede in supporting a broadly drawn historical justice that also engages contemporary issues. Inspired and framed by a May 2008 conference hosted by School of Information and Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the following essays offer case study examinations of how archival institutions and archivists contribute to societal memory systems through both their action and inaction, especially in regard to societal struggles over the meanings to be derived from the past.     

Is the partnership working?: evaluating the approval plan vendor

An evaluation of a Blackwell U.S.–U.K. approval plan is ongoing during 1997–98. The goals of this evaluation are: to determine if appropriate books are being received in each subject; to obtain feedback from faculty members involved in selection; and to evaluate Blackwell as an approval plan vendor. The plan’s purpose and context are also being reviewed, especially budgetary and staffing issues. An evaluation procedure was written, statistical reports and lists of titles received on each profile were produced and distributed to departments, and discussions were held among liaison librarians and faculty members analyzing this data. Blackwell’s performance as an approval vendor will be measured against specific performance criteria, including publisher coverage and prevention of duplication. Results from the project to date include revision and improved coordination of subject profiles, experience using Blackwell’s Collection Manager Web site, and preparation for possible participation in an OhioLINK statewide approval plan.     

Radio and Localism: Has the FCC Dropped the Ball?

Although no news of the FCC task force initiative on localism came forth between 2004 and 2006, members of Congress have taken an interest in the effects of localism in radio broadcasting. This interest can be attributed to the view that radio consolidation has minimized local radio service. As well, satellite-delivered radio has begun to encroach on local radio as it now provides traffic and weather updates in selected metropolitan markets. This article investigates the status of radio and localism, an issue that affects listeners across the nation.     

Brazil: Has the Country of the Future Become the Country of the Present for Book Publishing?

This article analyses the growth of the Brazilian book market in the decade from 2004 to 2013 and compares it to Brazil’s GNP growth. It also studies the recent developments of three factors that should contribute to the performance of the Brazilian book industry: the growth of the middle class, the decrease of functional illiteracy and the higher number of college institutions and college students in the country. This article shows that despite these factors, the Brazilian book industry is underperforming and not living up to its potential.     

Records storage in the cloud: are we modelling the cost?

Cloud services are increasingly seen as a flexible strategy for platform, infrastructure and software. Given the cloud’s claimed economic benefits archives and records professionals are now using cloud services for the storage of digital records and data. However, in determining whether or not to use the cloud for records and/or data storage, what models are available to them for estimating the cost and the medium-to-long-term financial implications for their organisations? This article identifies models available for estimating cloud storage costs and presents the results of an international survey into their use in the decision-making process with a series of real use case examples illustrating their value. The study highlights a series of important implications for archivists and records managers. These include the importance and challenges of using the models, their lack of widespread use, their adequacy, and the multiple players who should be involved in their application and development. Archivists and records managers need greater awareness and understanding of the models so they can play a central role in the cloud storage decision-making process and in the development of more effective costing models.     

Propaganda and rush Limbaugh: Is the label the last word?

A content analysis measured the performance of much‐labeled talk show host Rush Limbaugh against traditional and modem standards of propaganda. A month of Limbaugh's syndicated radio program was recorded off air. The tapes were randomly sampled for topic segments defined as the units of analysis. Trained coders working in pairs rated each sampled segment on 40 questions, grouped to test seven hypotheses about Rush Limbaugh's performance, and t‐tests were used to test the variance of scores from the neutral median. Although Limbaugh was not found to use the majority of traditional and modem propaganda techniques or to conceal the source and purpose of the ideas he presented, he was found to have a political agenda, to espouse that agenda openly, and to employ a minority of propaganda techniques. The findings support the notion that analysis of the message source, individual techniques of presentation, and the totality of the message may be more important to effective understanding than the assigning of labels.     

The h-index: A case of the tail wagging the dog?

From the way that it was initially defined (Hirsch, 2005), the h-index naturally encourages focus on the most highly cited publications of an author and this in turn has led to (predominantly) a rank-based approach to its investigation. However, Hirsch (2005) and Burrell (2007a) both adopted a frequency-based approach leading to general conjectures regarding the relationship between the h-index and the author's publication and citation rates as well as his/her career length. Here we apply the distributional results of Burrell, 2007a, Burrell, 2013b to three published data sets to show that a good estimate of the h-index can often be obtained knowing only the number of publications and the number of citations. (Exceptions can occur when an author has one or more “outliers” in the upper tail of the citation distribution.) In other words, maybe the main body of the distribution determines the h-index, not the wild wagging of the tail. Furthermore, the simple geometric distribution turns out to be the key.     

‘Play mas’: carnival in the archives and the archives in carnival: records and community identity in the US Virgin Islands

Over the past several decades, scholars concerned with post-colonial and indigenous populations have focused on archives as one method of excavating the cultures and lives of marginalized peoples. The limitations of textual and bureaucratic records, combined with the recognition that an archive can consist of interrelated knowledge constructs composed of many different kinds of documentation, have led these scholars to seek ‘archives’ beyond the walls of official buildings. For archivists likewise engaged in documenting post-colonial and other communities, expanding the definitions of what an archive could be, and suggesting new ways of seeing ‘records’, offers the potential of creatively representing and preserving the cultural expressions of these communities. This paper examines carnival as a cultural archive. Carnival, an annual tradition in many Caribbean islands was initially created by both enslaved and freed Africans as a counter-narrative to the festivals of the colonizers. In the US Virgin Islands, carnival began in the eighteenth century when the islands were Danish colonies. It was briefly revived at the beginning of the twentieth century and again in 1952 as an annual public celebration, which it remains today. While carnival produces traditional records, the week-long event also embodies the continuum of a local culture through a variety of non-traditional records that transmit genealogies, folkways, food customs, and history.     

Clinical librarianship in the UK: temporary trend or permanent profession? Part I: a review of the role of the clinical librarian

BACKGROUND: This paper is the first of a two-part series of articles presenting the role of the clinical librarian (CL) in the UK today. It situates the CL concept historically, and specifically reports the findings from a study in 2002 (Skinner, The Role of the Clinical Librarian in the UK. MSc Dissertation. Loughborough University: Department of Information Science). RELEVANCE: The impetus for the 2002 study was the awareness of an increase in job advertisements within the NHS for roles seeking to enhance the practice of evidence-based medicine, which included elements of clinical librarianship. Therefore the research was undertaken to establish whether this increase was coincidental, or the beginning of a new professional role for librarians. METHODS: A content analysis of CL job advertisements, examining job titles and duties was undertaken. Twenty-three advertisements were scrutinized, and these results are presented here. As a complementary investigation, a postal questionnaire was sent to a sample of practising CLs in the UK. RESULTS: Several duties can be classified as core to the role of the CL. However there is a great diversity of duties attached to this core, reflecting an absence of nationally accepted practice. CONCLUSION: Further work was necessary to assess current practice and how clinical librarianship can continue to grow at local and national levels. This is addressed in Part Two of this series.     

You are the weakest link — goodbye: serving the information-hungry corporate end-user

How can the information professional rise to the challenge of serving the modern corporate user? This paper examines the stresses and strains within the system and draws parallels with developments in the academic world from which corporate information providers can learn valuable lessons.     

Perceptions of the Future of Cataloging: Is the Sky Really Falling?

Cataloging procedures have evolved in many academic research libraries over the past 10 years. Some predicted trends—outsourcing, original cataloging by paraprofessionals, more digital material—have been borne out. Others, such as a decline in the amount of material to catalog or in the number of professional catalogers, have not. Changes have been mostly procedural and have not affected the catalog itself. Recently, however, the emergence of powerful Internet search engines has allowed researchers to bypass the catalog. This has led some to question the wisdom of continuing it and others to vigorously defend current practice. In 2005–2007 this debate became especially heated, but a consensus appears to be emerging that although the character of the professional cataloger's job will continue to evolve over the next 5 to 10 years there will not be a revolution. The cataloger's basic skills will still be needed and the fundamental nature of cataloging will remain much as we know it.     

Diversity Efforts at the Los Angeles Times: Are Journalists and the Community on the Same Page?

Survey data from Los Angeles Times editorial employees and residents of Los Angeles County were gathered to determine respondents' views of the newspaper's efforts to increase minority coverage, specifically with regard to the market-driven nature of those efforts. How respondents perceive market-driven journalism and the extent to which newsroom and community perceptions of it are similar were specifically addressed. This is an important and neglected area of research. Results suggest that people, whether journalists or readers, neither dismiss nor embrace market-driven journalism outright.     

Information Provision and the Carceral State: Race and Reference beyond the Idea of the “Underserved”

This article addresses an approach to library services for people who are incarcerated that meets the situated information needs and desires of people within jails and prisons. By creating a flow of information between LIS students and individuals who are incarcerated through a Reference by Mail program, resources available to incarcerated people are increased while students engage in a humanizing and self-reflexive project, with the understanding that the regulation of information within jails and prisons has lasting effects for the life chances of incarcerated people.     

In the shadows of the continuum: testing the records continuum model through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘Migrated Archives’

This article offers a test of the records continuum model. As a case study I use the Foreign and Commonwealth Office “Migrated Archives”, those records first made known to the public in 2011 during the court case against the British government. Through this case, records from over 30 former colonies were found to have been stored away by the FCO, since the colonies had become independent. While testing the continuum model with this case, I simultaneously use the records continuum model to tell the history of the Migrated Archives. My research finds that by highlighting the hidden moments—the shadows of the continuum—the Migrated Archives reveals that the continuum model can be too dependent on pluralization and a culture of openness and accessibility. Using the term “shadow continuum,” I attempt to rectify this situation by allowing for continuum model processes to continue, albeit in the shadows.     

Hide and Seek: Neoliberalizing the State and “Stating” the Neoliberal in the Italian Media System

The author claims that neoliberal discourse plays “hide and seek” with the state, which appears at the same time absent and present, negated, and necessitated. In order to test its limits, the paper historicizes such discourse by engaging with the Italian case. More specifically, this study examines the most representative figure of Italian neoliberalism, former prime minister and media tycoon, Silvio Berlusconi, and his ambiguous relationship with the state. Drawing on Marx and Gramsci's conceptualization of the state, the paper sheds light on the Italian context as well as the more general characteristics of the neoliberal state.