The New National School Library Standards: Implications for Information Literacy Instruction in Higher Education

This paper explores the new American Association of School Libraries (AASL) National School Library Standards relative to the information literacy pipeline as K-12 students reach university-level learning environments. Shifts in the standards, and therefore eventual shifts in this pipeline, are examined. The new school library standards integrate standards for learners, school libraries, and school librarians. This paper will focus exclusively on the standards for learners, as this is where the primary crossover between high schools and academic libraries takes place. Potential implications and future directions for academic librarianship, especially relative to information literacy instruction, are discussed.     

A Vendor Perspective: What Do All of These Changes Mean for Vendors?

Vendor keynote speaker Caitlin Trasande addressed the practical and applied implications of how government mandates and regulations drive innovations and research information management technologies, while tying in remarks made by Jane Marks, the publisher keynote speaker, and Scott Plutchak, the librarian keynote speaker. She is uniquely positioned to do this as she has been at Digital Science for 5 years, most recently as Head of Research Policy; holds a PhD in Neurobiology; and was very recently appointed Senior Strategy Editor at Nature. Trasande used products developed by Digital Science as examples to demonstrate how all sectors of the scholarly community are finding solutions to help enable compliance with mandates, such as those on data and Open Access. She also provided a futuristic look at how the UK government has begun to ask funded researchers to document the social impact of their research; how Digital Science worked with the UK government, and how likely this is to also happen in the United States.     

Influence of carbohydrate mouth rinsing on running and jumping performance during early morning soccer scrimmaging

Carbohydrate mouth rinse (CMR) is a novel method proposed to enhance endurance performance lasting ≤ 60 min. The current study examined the influence of CMR on anaerobic performance tasks in 11 collegiate female soccer players after an overnight fast. Athletes completed two experimental sessions, during which carbohydrate (CHO; 6% maltodextrin) or taste- and colour-matched placebo (PLA) mouth-rinse solutions were administered in a counterbalanced, double-blinded design. Three rounds of a 5-min scrimmage bout and series of performance tests including a single countermovement vertical jump (1VJ), a set of four consecutive vertical jumps, a 72-m shuttle run (SR72) and 18-m sprint comprised each trial. Thirst sensation (TS), session TS, ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) and session RPE were assessed as secondary outcomes. The first SR72 approached significance (p = 0.069), but no significant between-trials differences were observed for any of the mean performance tasks. The highest 1VJ scores did not differ for the first (CHO = 47.3 ± 3.4, PLA = 47.7 ± 3.5 cm; p = 0.43), second (CHO = 48.0 ± 4.1, PLA = 47.9 ± 3.5 cm; p = 0.82) or third bout (CHO = 47.4 ± 3.9, PLA = 48.1 ± 3.9 cm; p = 0.26). TS approached significance (p = 0.053) during the first bout. No significant differences (p > 0.05) were found for any of the perceptual variables. Current results fail to support ergogenic influence of CMR on anaerobic performance tasks in collegiate female athletes.     

The U.S. Military Veteran in News Photographs: Representation and Stereotypes

Commenters have expressed concern over media content related to military veterans, saying journalists fail to provide the public with an accurate understanding of what it means to be a veteran. Nevertheless, few studies have examined the representation of veterans in news media content. The present study analyzed 740 photographs shared by regional news outlets on the popular social media platform Twitter. Coders documented the representation of veteran groups (gender, race, and service period) and stereotypes concerning veterans (homelessness, charity, and trauma) in the images. Results showed that the photographs rarely communicated stereotypes about veterans. Photographs overrepresented female veterans, although male veterans remained the significant majority. Minority veterans were underrepresented. Photographs most often contained images associated with World War II.     

Web 2.0 Technologies and Back Channel Communication in an Online Learning Community

Communication, collaboration and community development are processes that contribute to student satisfaction and learning in online courses. This paper describes a study that investigated how campus and distance graduate students in a library science program communicated with one another outside the official boundaries of their courses. We conducted a survey to answer two research questions: 1) What Web 2.0 technologies do students use to communicate with one another outside of the formal structure of their online courses? and 2) What do they talk about in such communication? The results showed that, while students used a variety of technologies to communicate with one another, those enrolled at a distance made greater use of technology to communicate with one another. Moreover, clear preferences emerged according to age. Younger students preferred mobile technologies while older students experimented with a wider range of web-based technologies. We interpret these results and offer recommendations for practice based on our interpretation.     

Moving Beyond Seating-centered Learning Environments: Opportunities and Challenges Identified in a POE of a Campus Library

Colleges increasingly are recognized as student workplaces, inspiring campus leaders to create healthier campus environments. Yet challenging this vision is burgeoning research regarding the health risks of sedentary behavior, an under-studied college health concern that implies deleterious health outcomes and, by extension, academic impediments as well.Can movement be incorporated into academic activities such as studying or reading? This question—particularly relevant to libraries due to their increasing use as study spaces—requires the expansion of standard methods of evaluating student health needs and behaviors. We propose Post-Occupancy Evaluation (POE) methods as a novel way to investigate sedentary behaviors in a campus library and identify designs and practices to help promote movement.In 2012 and 2013, as part of an undergraduate architecture class, we conducted two POEs of Berkeley's newest library to learn how the space is used and, inspired by new research about the perils of sedentary behavior, we also considered how the library could be used. Through our findings we confirmed the changing role of campus libraries as study spaces, observed social and built environment contexts of sedentary behaviors in library settings, and identified possible interventions to introduce postural variation and physical activity into observed patterns of library use.     

Retracted publications in pharmacy systematic reviews

Objective:Systematic reviews and other evidence syntheses, the pinnacle of the evidence pyramid, embody comprehensiveness and rigor; however, retracted data are being incorporated into these publications. This study examines the use of retracted publications in the field of pharmacy, describes characteristics of retracted publications cited by systematic reviews, and discusses factors associated with citation likelihood.Methods:Using data from Retraction Watch, we identified retracted publications in the pharmacy field. We identified all articles citing these retracted publications in Web of Science and Scopus and limited results to systematic reviews. We classified the retraction reason, determined whether the citation occurred before or after retraction, and analyzed factors associated with the likelihood of systematic reviews citing a retracted publication.Results:Of 1,396 retracted publications, 283 were cited 1,096 times in systematic reviews. Most (65.0%) (712/1096) citations occurred before retraction. Citations were most often to items retracted due to data falsification or manipulation (39.2%), followed by items retracted due to ethical misconduct including plagiarism (30.4%), or concerns about or errors in data or methods (26.2%). Compared to those not cited in systematic reviews, cited items were significantly more likely to be retracted due to data falsification and manipulation, were published in high impact factor journals, and had longer delays between publication and retraction.Conclusions:Further analysis of systematic reviews citing retracted publications is needed to determine the impact of flawed data. Librarians understand the nuances involved and can advocate for greater transparency around the retraction process and increase awareness of challenges posed by retractions.     

Phonological awareness, reading skills, and vocabulary knowledge in children who use cochlear implants

In hearing children, reading skills have been found to be closely related to phonological awareness. We used several standardized tests to investigate the reading and phonological awareness skills of 27 deaf school-age children who were experienced cochlear implant users. Approximately two-thirds of the children performed at or above the level of their hearing peers on the phonological awareness and reading tasks. Reading scores were found to be strongly correlated with measures of phonological awareness. These correlations remained the same when we statistically controlled for potentially confounding demographic variables such as age at testing and speech perception skills. However, these correlations decreased even after we statistically controlled for vocabulary size. This finding suggests that lexicon size is a mediating factor in the relationship between the children's phonological awareness and reading skills, a finding that has also been reported for typically developing hearing children.     

River of words as space for encounter: Contested meaning in rhetorical convergence zones

This essay explores a word-based public art project. In its quotidian presence and its technical violation of historic district codes, the project enables varied interactions. The project requires us to revise our understanding of rhetorical situation, rhetorical space, and rhetorical ecology by understanding public art as a space for encounter: places and moments that enable engagement between and among humans and place that amplify the sense of the contingency of public space. They are important realms for activating a democratic ethos for the city. This concept attends to the intentionality and contingency of rhetorical interaction seeing space as contextual but not determinative, a place of convergence. Using oral history interviews with hosts of the words and participant observation of two historic district hearings, I read the hearings, and the words, as spaces that mobilize a convergence zone between the intimate and the public. Building on encounter and spatial theory, this essay offers a defense of the mid-level as a register of political practice that can be glimpsed in cultural processes.