Aggregators: Cornerstone or Annex?

With the goal of building a high quality academic library collection in mind, the Serials Librarian and the Collection Assessment Librarian at Middle Tennessee State University evaluated the value of journal content accessed through a journal aggregator database. Data from EBSCOhost, UlrichsWeb, and Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Journal Citation Reports were used to evaluate content with respect for subject, quality, and coverage. An important goal of the project was to share the analysis with library liaisons in an effort to assist them with collection development responsibilities. The analysis raises questions about the relationship between discovery, access, and collection development.     

The Exhibition: Lecture or Conversation?

The problem for art museums of striking a balance between accessibility and scholarship comes to a head in the special exhibition. This article suggests that one way to involve the viewer in this balance is to approach the exhibition not so much as a lecture but as a conversation, with the consequence that the focus is on those issues that are open to verification or resolution by the viewer.     

Serial or Monograph: Who Decides?

Some types of publication are viewed by librarians as serials and by publishers as monographs. In the pre-digital environment, cataloging rules and library workflows were developed to manage these publications. The shift to electronic publishing, distribution, and access brings new considerations into play. This article describes current cataloging practice and examines the effects of these shifts on library catalogs and user access through them.     

Unsolicited merchandise: Gift or sale?

Receipt of unsolicited materials by libraries raises questions of liability and responsibility for payment. This article provides a discussion of the law surrounding unsolicited merchandise and references to the state and federal statutes which provide protection for the recipient of unordered goods.     

Library lists: core or apple?

Core lists for medical libraries are intended to offer a minimal coverage of the medical literature. But they have grave drawbacks: (1) The coverage of some specialties is so minimal in several well-known lists as to be misleading. (2) A small hospital lacking a specialist in a particular branch of medicine does not need a specialist journal in that branch. Such a journal is better borrowed from a neighbouring hospital where the appropriate specialist can also be consulted. (3) Many hospitals will stick only to the core list, leading to excessive uniformity across the country.What librarians should be offered is a list of about 300-400 journals from which to make a selection on the following criteria: (1) The preference of the doctors who use the library. (2) The availability of journals in neighbouring libraries. (3) The budget.     

Cyber Ethics: Bodies or Bytes?

Information ethics requires: (1) an ethical theory that recognizes the importance of the body; and (2) a materialist theory of information. Alasdair MacIntyre's ethics of acknowledged dependence is an example of the former. It holds that the virtues we need to achieve both personal and common moral goods recognize networks of dependence based upon bodily vulnerability and disability. Pierre Lévy's theory of collective intelligence is an example of a view that disregards both requirements. Based upon a secular appropriation of medieval angelology, it holds that in cyberspace, social relations are dematerialized, and that information is an incorporeal substance flowing between disembodied minds. The new anthropological space of virtuality that Lévy holds to be ushered in by new electronic information technologies proposes a radical rethinking of ethics. But on close inspection, his information ethics turns out to be stripped of any serious moral dimension. To address serious moral issues, information ethics cannot abstract from our bodily animal nature. Several recent studies recognize that information is an effect of social relations between embodied subjects. They provide the materialist information theory required for meaningful information ethics.     

End-user full-text searching: Access or excess?

The study examined and assessed the search techniques of trained end-users and determined whether or not they were searching the system effectively. One hundred and thirty-one users searched a full-text system and completed a survey that asked them to evaluate the system and describe their search strategy and techniques. Overall, 55% of the total indicated dissatisfaction with their searches. Correlations between native language and searching results and satisfaction are shown. These findings suggest that computer literate end-users with prior experience searching other databases and formal training experience more difficulties than is commonly realized. Implications for training are discussed.     

UNIMARC Format Relevance: Maintenance or Replacement?

This article presents an empirical study focused on a qualitative analysis of the UNIMARC format. An analysis of the structural quality of the data provided by the format is evaluated to determine its current suitability for meeting the requirements and trends in data architecture for the information network and the Semantic Web. Driven by a set of quality characteristics that identify weaknesses in the data schema that cannot be bridged by simply converting data to MARC XML or RDF/XML, we conclude that the UNIMARC format is not compliant with the current metadata schema desiderata and must be replaced.     

出版活动新平台:APP or WeChat?

随着社会化媒体平台的发展与思维模式的创新,越来越多的出版活动主体希望借助平台化的模式提升自身在整个出版活动当中的地位.目前大多数出版活动主体借助自身构建的APP或者通过WeChat建立公众号,改善出版流程的工作效率与传播影响力.本文希望通过研究这两种模式对出版活动平台化运营的现实作用与效果,找寻适合现阶段我国出版企业发展的新思路.     

Analogy in persuasion: Translator's dictionary or art?

Rhetorical and communication scholars have long asserted the significance of analogy in persuasion. A variety of persuasive roles have been stipulated for analogies. These accounts are inconsistent, so individual explanations are either inaccurate or incomplete. This essay aims to refine understandings of analogy by reviewing, critiquing, and synthesizing several classical and contemporary rhetorical analyses, a cognitive model of analogy processing, and dual‐process theories of persuasion. The synthesis, which is presented in an integrated set of propositions, offers a systematic view of the potential suasory roles of explanatory and expressive analogies. Suggestions for testing the propositions are discussed as well.     

Royalty management: Cost center or income opportunity?

Conclusion By using the Royalty Income Model, and carefully examining each aspect of royalties, we have been able to find considerable opportunities to turn this cost center into an income opportunity. In an industry with razor thin margins, managing royalties based on a model can have a profound impact on profitability. There are costs associated with implementing change. These come in the form of both human and financial resources. To ensure that any investments are worth-while, it is wise to first determine the potential benefits. The Royalty Income Model provides a framework for this analysis—a systematic and relatively easy way to evaluate the opportunities for income enhancements.     

Working moms: Motherhood penalty or motherhood return?

Among many professions, the gender wage gap is a very real and pertinent concern. Research has shown that this gap can be explained in part by the motherhood penalty, which consists of costs associated with the demands of motherhood in professional life. Using a sample of 808 female professional academic librarians, we investigated the motherhood penalty by examining differences between mothers (n = 343) and non-mothers (n = 465). Within this sample, we found that there were no penalties for mothers compared to non-mothers in regard to salary, position, and perceived well-being. Implications and avenues for future research are offered.     

Medical journal publishing: one culture or several?

Medical publishing uses the skills of people from a wide range of backgrounds. In this study we set out to examine their attitudes and assess the degree of homogeneity. We gathered questionnaire responses from selected editors and medical reviewers and found that, on the whole, there was a homogeneous culture, though there were some significant differences. This has important implications for managers and trainers.     

Lead soaps in paintings: Friends or foes?

The origin(s) and role(s) of metal soaps in paints are a worldwide concern today. These hybrid compounds, containing both fatty acid chains and metals associated with a carboxylate function, are increasingly identified in paints. As reviewed in the first part of this work, the presence of metal soaps in paints is differently interpreted in scientific publications: metal soaps are sometimes considered to play a positive role as anchor points, during paint drying processes; they can also be considered as responsible for many degradation processes (protrusions, efflorescences, darkening, etc.). Their origins are also interpreted in various ways. In some paintings (in particular from the twentieth century), they have sometimes introduced on purpose, as additives, to modify the physical properties of the painting materials. In older paintings, metal soaps are usually thought to result from an uncontrolled reaction of oil with lead-based pigments, in particular lead white, red lead, and lead tin yellow. In the second part of this work, the review of historical recipes of lead-based paint shows an important number of recipes based on controlled mixing of oil with lead driers. In the third part, the experimental reproduction of such traditional recipes using walnut oil and litharge (PbO) shows that lead soaps can be formed, both in about one hour at ～100°C, or in about one month at room temperature. It shows as well that after a few years, litharge is no longer detected in the paint medium, while different lead carbonates are. Finally, the micro-infrared spectroscopy and micro-X-ray diffraction re-analysis of protrusions from a nine-year model painting shows together with lead soaps, the presence of Pb₅(CO₃)₃(OH)₂O (‘synthetic plumbonacrite’), an unusual phase recently observed in a protrusion from a painting by Vincent Van Gogh. This work highlights (i) the multiple origins and roles of metal soaps in paints and (ii) the importance of combining the analysis of fragments from historical paintings with the analysis and reproduction of historical recipes. In particular, we show that the components detected today in historical paintings may severely differ from those originally used or prepared by the painter, complicating the assessment of the painter's intentions. More than the presence of metal soaps, the key questions to be tackled should be about their origins and (re)mobilization.