Classifying The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle

This study focuses on the library classification practices of The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle. The Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle has been called an enigmatic work by scholars, and the mystery has carried into library classification. The work's language of origin is not its national language. The work's varied acceptance as fact and fiction also plays into its classification practices. For many years, The Pseudo-Turpin was believed to be a true account, so it was classed as history. While the work has standard literature classification numbers, even its literature classification practices are varied.     

The Next Forty‐Nine Years

This article is expanded from a commencement address delivered by author Wes Jackson to graduating seniors at Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland, May 20, 2007. It adds detail to his longstanding argument that the environmental majority is mendaciously optimistic in suggesting that new—and sometimes still uninvented—technology will solve the world's food and energy problems. Jackson lays out statistics on how fast the world is using up its energy sources, noting that biofuels such as agriculture‐based ethanol will provide insufficient energy to power U.S. cars and trucks even if we use all of the food in the world to produce motive power. Jackson's previous article, “Conceptual Revolutions: Who Needs Them? Why?” was published in Public Library Quarterly 24‐3 (2005). The two articles form an intertwined statement on world resource limitations and opportunities. These articles were selected for inclusion in PLQ for the fundamentally different view they offer library professionals on the biofuels‐and‐ecology debate, in the hopes of balancing competing points of view in library collections.     

How Does a Pre-Assessment of Off-Campus Students’ Information Literacy Affect the Effectiveness of Library Instruction?

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the impact that pre-tests have on the effectiveness of library instruction when students are given feedback on their pre-test performance. Librarians and academic faculty partnered to measure library instruction outcomes in two Master's degree classes. The Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA) was used as a pre-test (before instruction) and a post-test (after instruction) in Class 1 and as a post-test only in Class 2. Students who completed both tests performed significantly better on a post-test, earning higher scores on obtaining information and overall information literacy. They reported greater library/research experience and less reliance on browsing. Compared to students who did not take a pre-test, students who received pre-test-based feedback had higher scores on library/research experience and lower scores on reliance on browsing. To enhance the effectiveness of library instruction, students can be given pre-test-based feedback that compares their actual and perceived literacy and encourages the use of library databases.     

Leading them to books—For life

Promoting lifelong reading, learning, and library use is a goal of most youth-serving librarians. The Young Adult Services Department of the Mesa, Arizona, Public Library is finding that more teens are entering adulthood each year as library users and supporters, and they are bringing their children to the library, too. This article shares a YA librarian's perspectives on how to provide successful reader advisory for teens and how to get young adults to read on their own, building the foundation of a lifelong interest in reading, an interest passed from generation to generation. Building this foundation depends on dedicated, well-trained specialists in YA library service, the publication of well-written and attractive books for teens, school and public library administrative support. Diane P. Tuccillo has been head of the Young Adults Services Adult Services Department at the Mesa (Arizona) Public Library since 1980. She has had articles published in a variety of professional journals includingEmergency Librarian, Voice of Young Advocates (VOYA), andThe ALAN Review, and is a regular book reviewer forVOYA, Kliatt Young Adult Paperback Book Guide, andSchool Library Journal.     

Librarianship and Information Science in the Maghreb 1966–1999: An Annotated Bibliography

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in the Maghreb. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, andEducation Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print versions of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive critique of the entire Maghrebi library and information science literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country analysis of librarianship and information science within the region. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.     

高校图书馆开放存取信息服务的若干问题

开放存取信息服务是一种新型的图书馆服务,以动态性、融合性和个性化为主要特征。当前我国高校图书馆信息服务尽管形成了一定的工作模式,但是还存在诸如信息整合不完整、监管力度不力以及人员培养不到位等问题。将开放存取模式恰当地运用到高校图书馆信息服务中,能够进一步提高我国高校图书馆服务质量。     

Librarianship and Information Science in the Maghreb 1966–1999: An Annotated Bibliography

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in the Maghreb. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, andEducation Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print versions of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive critique of the entire Maghrebi library and information science literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country analysis of librarianship and information science within the region. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.     

An open invitation to join HILJ [Journal] Club

Journal clubs are an effective means to increase skills in handling evidence and support the continuing professional development of library and knowledge services workers. This editorial examines the progression of HILJ Club, an online journal club, from an idea to the launch of a dedicated platform. One article is selected per issue of the Health Information and Libraries Journal with an open discussion invited following a brief summary and reflections by a host. Participation in HILJ Club is growing. Future success is reliant on wider engagement, and an invitation is extended to join in the discussions or even host an edition.     

Bibliographical control in South Africa

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, and reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in Islamic East Africa. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, and Education Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print copies of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive analysis of the entire East African library literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country breakdown of librarianship within the region. Islamic East Africa for the purposes of this work incorporates the nations of Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.     

The Research Library as Digital Curator at Virginia Tech

Research libraries provide a significant portion of the open access materials available on the Internet, and an examination of the efforts of one such library will illustrate the role of these institutions in creating the current information environment. The Virginia Tech University Libraries established the Scholarly Communications Project (SCP) even before the Gopher protocol opened up databases housed at research libraries to librarians with Internet access. The SCP was primarily intended to take advantage of evolving technologies to produce and distribute academic journals without the costs associated with traditional publishing, and that journal archive, the EJournals, is still at the heart of what has become the Digital Library and Archives (DLA).     

Using OCLC WorldCat Language Indexes to Quantify Slavic and Eurasian Language Collections and Answer Complex Bibliographic Questions

The author presents strategies any librarian or researcher with access to OCLC WorldCat may use to answer many kinds of questions concerning foreign-language materials in their own or other libraries. These advanced searching strategies, some not obvious and some even hidden in the WorldCat interface, may also be used to help collection managers generate valuable information about their library’s collection strengths in specific languages, and by extension, make comparisons with collections at other institutions. Special attention is devoted to certain problems associated with Slavic and Eastern European languages.     

Classifying documents with link-based bibliometric measures

Automatic document classification can be used to organize documents in a digital library, construct on-line directories, improve the precision of web searching, or help the interactions between user and search engines. In this paper we explore how linkage information inherent to different document collections can be used to enhance the effectiveness of classification algorithms. We have experimented with three link-based bibliometric measures, co-citation, bibliographic coupling and Amsler, on three different document collections: a digital library of computer science papers, a web directory and an on-line encyclopedia. Results show that both hyperlink and citation information can be used to learn reliable and effective classifiers based on a kNN classifier. In one of the test collections used, we obtained improvements of up to 69.8% of macro-averaged F ₁ over the traditional text-based kNN classifier, considered as the baseline measure in our experiments. We also present alternative ways of combining bibliometric based classifiers with text based classifiers. Finally, we conducted studies to analyze the situation in which the bibliometric-based classifiers failed and show that in such cases it is hard to reach consensus regarding the correct classes, even for human judges.     

面向大学生创新能力培养的高校图书馆开放课程资源建设(下):图书馆教育职能创新

教育职能是高校图书馆的重要职能之一,但传统的教育职能非常单薄。随着开放课程运动的兴起,高校图书馆建设开放课程资源实属必要。目前,涉足开放课程资源建设的高校图书馆还不多见,主要原因有:对图书馆教育职能认识不足,现有部门设置所造成的障碍;与教务处职能存在冲突,缺乏成功经验可以借鉴。作为高校图书馆,应当积极参与学校的教育教学过程,对图书馆组织结构进行适当调整,注意协调各方面的关系,更重要的是做好规划,勇于尝试,整合资源,构建统一平台。安徽省高等学校数字图书馆的建设经验对国内高校图书馆开展开放课程资源建设应有所启发。     

Mass Digitization of Books

Mass digitization of the bound volumes that we generally call “books” has begun, and, thanks to the interest in Google and all that it does, it is getting widespread media attention. The Open Content Alliance (OCA), a library initiative formed after Google announced its library book digitization project, has brought library digitization projects into the public eye, even though libraries were experimenting with digitization for at least a decade. What is different today from some earlier digitization of books is not just the scale of these new initiatives, but the quality of “mass.”     

公共产品理论视野下图书馆产品的生产与供给问题研究

图书馆产品的本质属性是准公共产品。其生产可不以营利为目的，也可以营利为目的；可由政府投资，也可由社会力量投资；可采取公共生产方式，也可采取非公共生产方式；可实行事业型生产，也可实行产业型生产。公共供给、市场供给和混合供给是图书馆产品供给的三种基本方式。混合供给方式较之公共供给方式和市场供给方式有更高的效率。图书馆产品生产与供给有多种组合方式。     

Public Libraries as Rhetorical Devices: Reimagining Print,Dewey, and Memory as Invention in the Digital Age

This article frames the public library and its system of organization as rhetorical tools. By providing an historic overview of libraries and their formation, the author recognizes the severed connection between library systems and the field of rhetoric, specifically the rhetorical canon of memoria. He seeks to reconnect memoria to the public library by recognizing the place-based nature of both classical memoria and library classification systems. The implications, he contends, run deep in libraries as seemingly neutral entities shape collective memory and education. Finally, the author provides a section that focuses on how digital-age libraries could be shaped, maintained, and managed in a way that recognizes memory as a rhetorical tool that aids in knowledge formation.