Mission-Focused Collections: Rebirth of the Seminarbibliothek as an Ebook Collection

German universities built over the years highly specialized book collections for use by faculty and graduate students. The German term, seminarbibliothek, is often applied to these types of collections, although examples can be found in universities across Europe. The purpose of this article is to examine a similar type of collection using ebooks in veterinary science and to compare this collection to the standard subject classified ebook collections. Most collection development in college and university libraries focuses on academic subjects. The type of collection being described here focuses on a mission. A mission-focused collection increases the use of library holdings and greatly benefits the stakeholders within the institution. This study looks at how such a collection might be formed and defined and what possible effects this might have on the use of collections of this type.     

Another Bridge Across the Access to Justice Gap: LII's Virtual Reference Desk

The Legal Information Institute (LII) has been at the forefront of access to justice for 25 years as the first organization to publish online the United States Code. More than just publishing the law online, the LII has been the leader in helping people find and understand the law since 1992, through innovative technologies they've created or employed for use with their collections and through partnerships with other like-minded organizations, groups, and individuals. Two decades later, the LII was inspired to help more people trying to find and understand the law. This summer will mark the third anniversary of the LII's virtual Reference Desk.     

Copper(II) hydroxide on artefacts: Corrosion,conservation, colourants

Copper(II) hydroxide (as the rarely occurring mineral spertiniite) is formed under alkaline, oxidising conditions. It has been observed as a naturally occurring corrosion product of brass in sea water. But most occurrences on copper alloys are due to conservation treatments using basic solutions (sodium hydroxide or ammonia) or to intentional patination. Classical brass centrepieces (c. 1800), ‘cleaned’ with ammonia solution, developed a blue spertiniite patina in gaps, where evaporation was hindered. Additional to the danger of stress corrosion cracking this is another reason now outlawing this treatment. Copper pigment layers will transform to copper hydroxide when exposed to bases. The treatment of basic copper salts with bases has been used intentionally in the production of Bremen blue and similar pigments which can be composed of copper hydroxide as well.     

Reflections on light monitoring: Evaluating museum lighting options for modern and contemporary art

Spectrometric handheld light meters that can provide adequate data for evaluation of replacement bulbs for contemporary art objects are now commercially available. This approach was taken to assess potential replacements for the incandescent street lamps in Chris Burden's Urban Light at LACMA, Los Angeles, USA. These meters are also useful tools for monitoring and characterizing museum lighting, which are currently done with illuminance (lux) meters. The new spectral light meters will enable conservators to tailor lighting recommendations for individual artworks, when spectral information from these meters is combined with damage function data on artists’ materials. The latter information can be obtained for some materials by a small modification to the microfade testing procedure, as exemplified by microfading colored samples Henri Matisse created during the design phase for La Gerbe.     

Foreign Systems of Communication

Gunnel Rikardsson's The Middle East Conflict in the Swedish Press: A Content Analysis of Three Daily Newspapers 1948-1973 (Stockholm: Esselte Studium, 1978—price not given, paper)

Ron Sanders' Broadcasting in Guyana (London and Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978-13.95 or$9.50, paper)

Charlotte Brunsdon and David Morley's Everyday Television: 'Nationwide' (94 pp.)

Revue Francaise de Communication (CEEPP 38, rue de Bassano, 75008 Paris, France—various rates from different regions: about $38.00 to the USA/quarterly)

A Comparison of Commercial Television in the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Canada, Japan and Australia (Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, 153 Walker St., North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia—apparently free on request, paper with spiral binding)

Dean T. Jamison and Emile G. McAnany's Radio for Education and Development (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1978—$15.95/7.95)     

Multimodal learning analytics to investigate cognitive load during online problem solving

To have insight into cognitive load (CL) during online complex problem solving, this study aimed at measuring CL through physiological data. This study experimentally manipulated intrinsic and extraneous load of exercises in the domain of statistics, resulting in four conditions: high complex with hints, low complex with hints, high complex without hints and low complex without hints. The study had a within-subject-design in which 67 students solved the exercises in a randomized order. Self-reported CL was combined with physiological data, namely, galvanic skin response (GSR), skin temperature (ST), heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). Multiple imputation was used for handling missing data from resp. 16 and 19 students for GSR/ST and HR/HRV. First, differences between conditions in view of physiological data were examined. Second, we investigated how much variance of self-reported CL and task performance was explained by physiological data. Finally, we investigated which features can be used to assess (objective) CL. Results revealed no significant differences between the manipulated conditions in terms of physiological data. Nonetheless, HR and ST were significantly related to self-reported CL, whereas ST to task performance. Additionally, this study revealed the potential of ST and HR to assess high CL.     

Investigating pre-service teacher motivation across cultures using the Teachers’ Ten Statements Test

Motivations for choosing teaching as a career were investigated in 200 pre-service teachers from Canada and Oman. We used a novel structured qualitative approach and two theoretical models to analyze how pre-service teacher career-choice motivation varied according to cultural context. The results of the study showed that Canadian participants made more self-references, and expressed higher levels of individual-focused motivation and social utility value as career motivators than did Omani participants. Participants from Oman expressed greater endorsement of teaching as a fallback career and higher levels of socio-cultural influences than Canadian participants. Results extend teacher motivation “teacher motivation theory” by investigating socio-cultural influences.