SYReLIB – Enhancing the global connections of Syria's academic community

This is a brief report on a pilot project funded by the European Commission TEMPUS programme concerned with the modernisation of the university libraries in Syria and the enhanced visibility of the research outputs of the Syrian academic community. As background, it outlines the current state of the country's electronic and scholarly publishing, and the development of national and university computer networks. It reviews the project's contribution to introduction of automated library management systems with online catalogues and institutional repositories, and the expansion of journal collections. The issues likely to impact on further developments are discussed. Aspects of current professional education, including a shortage of qualified librarians with contemporary professional knowledge and skills, inhibit development. Other major challenges are the lack of effective strategic planning and poor management systems.     

“Authentic” talk in broadcast news: The construction of community

Some recent assessments of public communication have demonstrated a concern for “authentic” forms of discourse in public life. This article uses a methodology derived from conversation analysis to examine different forms of public discourse in news interviews. Previous studies taking this approach have outlined the protocols for formal news interviews, but this article also looks at some types of “conversational” news interviewing that are increasingly prevalent in contemporary broadcasting. The modes of address (to the overhearing audience) in these types of interview can be usefully compared to the inclusive, sociable address associated with some genres of popular entertainment. It is suggested that the effect of “communality,” constructed by these conversational forms of talk, might be one factor in the development of new forms of participatory “public‐ness,” around some types of news events.     

Imagining transformative spaces: the personal–political sites of community archives

Although much has been written about formal archival spaces, little scholarship has addressed the physical spaces of community archives. This paper asks: How do community members imagine the physical spaces that steward identity-based community archives? Based on focus groups with more than 54 community archives users at five different community archives sites across Southern California, this paper examines how members of marginalized communities conceive of the physical space inhabited by community archives representing their communities. The sites explored range from a prominent location on a university campus, to storefronts, strip malls, and small cinderblock buildings. Yet across sites, users spoke about community archives spaces as symbolic and affectively moving locations. Many users described their community archives site as a “home-away-from-home,” marked by intergenerational dialog and a profound sense of belonging. For other users, community archives sites were described as “politically generative spaces” which foster dialog and debate about identity, representation, and activism and enable the community to envision its future. And yet, while the very existence of community archives is political, many participants felt that the full political potential of these sites is not yet realized. By listening to the voices of the communities represented and served by community archives, our research both indicates that a shift is warranted in archival metaphors of space and reveals how community archives are personally and politically transformative spaces for the communities they represent and serve.     

“A community of common descent”: Planning the documentation of diaspora through the Electronic Irish Research Experience

ABSTRACT

In 2014, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library at the University of Montana–Missoula was awarded a one-year National Leadership planning grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to explore the development of EIRE, the Electronic Irish Research Experience. EIRE was conceived as a digital humanities project to address gaps in the scholarship on the Irish in the United States by bringing private and institutional archival collections together online. Throughout the planning year, the Mansfield Library and its partners refined the scope of EIRE, prioritized certain aspects of the project over others, and grappled with questions of sustainability, accessibility, and resource allocation. This article shares our vision, process, results, and lessons learned.     

How far does scientific community look back?

How does the published scientific literature used by scientific community? Many previous studies make analysis on the static usage data. In this research, we propose the concept of dynamic usage data. Based on the platform of realtime.springer.com, we have been monitoring and recording the dynamic usage data of Scientometrics articles round the clock. Our analysis find that papers published in recent four years have many more downloads than papers published four years ago. According to our quantitative calculation, papers downloaded on one day have an average lifetime of 4.1 years approximately. Classic papers are still being downloaded frequently even long after their publication. Additionally, we find that social media may reboot the attention of old scientific literature in a short time.     

“Localism”; in Chinese media context: An examination of a closed circuit community cable system

The ongoing reforms in the Chinese media system have offered greater latitude for the development and operation of closed circuit community cable television. This research describes the structure and program content of one community system. Although similar to the national media model, the addition of a community channel offers a functional alternative. Local newscasts contain themes and production values similar to China Central Television (CCTV). Feature entertainment and music video request programs provide alternatives to the national and regional television channels. Increased access available through such systems has the capacity to expand the ideological range possible in Chinese life and exert pressure for further structural, operational, and ideological reform at the national level.     

The evolution of the operational earthquake forecasting community of practice: the L’Aquila communication crisis as a triggering event for organizational renewal

The scientific community of earthquake experts has long grappled with how to communicate earthquake probabilities successfully to non-scientific publics. Perhaps most central to their concern is the widely held belief that scientists can actually predict earthquakes when, in fact, they cannot. The potential consequences of this miscommunication problem were appallingly realized as a result of the 6 April 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy. Failed risk communication among scientists, a public official, and L’Aquila residents prior to the earthquake resulted in 309 deaths, 1500 injuries, and 65,000 people displaced from their homes, as well as the sentencing of six scientists and one public official to six years in prison for manslaughter. This paper examines how and why the L’Aquila Earthquake communication crisis ultimately redefined the international scientific earthquake community of practice and its discourse beyond that of community resilience to organizational learning and renewal.     

Radio in Paris: Can community stations survive?

The history of French noncommercial, community radio is traced in this article, and its current status in relationship to state‐owned and commercial radio is described. The author concludes that community stations have been put at a disadvantage through regulatory policy, especially in the relatively low power that has been assigned them, but that they play an important role by offering an alternative to the rationalized and bureau‐cratized services of Radio France and the commercial stations.     

‘A process where we’re all at the table’: community archives challenging dominant modes of archival practice

Community archives have compelled shifts in dominant archival management practices to reflect community agency and values. To analyse these shifts, we ask: In what ways do community archives and their staff challenge traditional archival modes of practice? Do community archives work within or against dominant frameworks for institutional sustainability? Do community archives challenge or replicate dominant custody practices? Based on semi-structured interviews with 17 founders, staff and volunteers at 12 Southern California community archives, this research examines the diverse models of practice utilised by community archives practitioners that diverge from and challenge standard practices in the field. By addressing these questions, our research uncovers a variety of models of practice employed by communities in Southern California to autonomously create and sustain their archives.     

The influence of fear appeals,message design,and masculinity on men's motivation to perform the testicular self‐exam

Despite the significant threat men face for contracting testicular cancer, most men remain completely unaware of this risk. Moreover, men are not regularly performing the testicular self‐exam (TSE) in order to detect this form of cancer in their bodies. The current study attempted to assess whether fear appeals targeted at men will motivate them to begin regular performance of the TSE. Additionally, the influence of message design and masculinity was also tested. Results indicate messages that follow the direction of Witte's (1992, 1994) Extended Parallel Process Model and promote both high threat and high efficacy are successful in increasing men's intentions to perform the TSE. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Evidence in seconds? Format and design considerations in the provision of reliable information to support evidence‐based practice

Evidence‐based practice is gaining support amongst health professionals. However, the major barrier remains the lack of time to read the literature. There are also problems with the take‐up and use of evidence‐based information sources such as Cochrane reviews and Effective Health Care bulletins. If such evidence is to be incorporated into local guidelines and used in day‐to‐day practice, practitioners request that these and other reliable publications be further summarized in short packages and available within seconds. The Health Evidence Bulletins Wales offer a model for this approach. The Bulletins have gone through several developmental stages leading to a novel two‐column format. In the first column, brief statements summarize the best available evidence within a topic area. In the second, full details are provided of the supporting publications (and the evidence type, or research design) with links to the full text of documents, where possible from the electronic versions of each Bulletin. Results from a questionnaire study using a random sample and unsolicited feedback suggest that this ‘two‐tier’ approach to information provision is valued by users and has implications for information services currently under development to support clinical governance.     

Do we need to move from communication technology to user community? A new economic model of the journal as a club

Much of the argument around reforming, remaking, or preserving the traditions of scholarly publishing is built on economic principles, explicit or implicit. Can we afford open access (OA)? How do we pay for high‐quality services? Why does it cost so much? In this article, we argue that the sterility of much of this debate is a result of failure to tackle the question of what a journal is in economic terms. We offer a way through by demonstrating that a journal is a club and discuss the implications for the scholarly publishing industry. We use examples, ranging from OA to prestige journals, to explain why congestion is a problem for club‐based publications, and to discuss the importance of creative destruction for the maintenance of knowledge‐generating communities in publishing.     

Whose memories, whose archives? Independent community archives, autonomy and the mainstream

Over the last three or four decades in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, an enormous variety of grassroots projects and initiatives have sprung up dedicated to recording and preserving the memories and histories of different communities, often under-voiced and under-represented within the mainstream heritage. The impetus for such projects arose from a range of motivations but in general all were responding to the desire to document, record and preserve the identity and history of their own locality and community. Some custodians and creators of these collections remain suspicious of the mainstream archival profession and are determined to preserve their independence and autonomous voice by retaining direct ownership and physical custodianship of their collections, at least for the foreseeable future. In this context, seeking to ensure that these valuable materials are preserved and possibly made accessible presents a number of challenges and opportunities, including an encouragement to re-examine some aspects of traditional professional practice. By examining independent community archive activity in the UK, and in particular in London, and its implications for community interaction and identity within the multicultural context of contemporary British culture and society, this article seeks to contribute a different but relevant perspective to international debates about contemporary professional archival theory and practice.     

Electronic journals: user realities — the truth about content usage among the STM community

Kate Worlock, a consultant for research and consultancy organization Electronic Publishing Services, reports on a study conducted for the Ingenta Institute on how UK users access, use, and pay for electronic articles from scientific journals. The findings reveal a research community increasingly conditioned to expecting content as soon as it is available for dissemination rather than waiting for the delivery of the physical journal itself.     

“Shock” meets “community service”: J.C. Corcoran at KMOX

KMOX‐AM in St. Louis hired J.C. Corcoran to try to update its sound. Corcoran and KMOX represented two contrasting styles in talk radio— “shock”; and “community service.”; These styles can be seen as reflecting two visions of America—a modernist vision of civic discourse and public participation, and a postmodernist vision in which distinctions have blurred between the public and private spheres and between news and entertainment. The authors qualitatively examine the talk on a program hosted by a “shock jock”; on a respected news‐talk radio station.