Using focus groups to evaluate a multiyear consumer health outreach collaboration

Objectives:Academic health sciences librarians sought to evaluate the efficacy and future of the Health Information Specialists Program, a five-year consumer health information outreach collaboration with public libraries across the state.Methods:Five focus groups were held with participants from all five years of the program. Thirty-four participants from the program attended. Facilitators used structured interview guides consisting of eleven questions regarding the impact of the collaboration on participants'' abilities to connect themselves or others to health information; the usefulness of materials or knowledge gained and its applications; any consumer health outreach projects that arose from the program; and suggestions for future topics, formats, or modifications. Data was hand-coded and analyzed using the framework analysis methodology for qualitative research.Results:Participants reported feeling improved confidence and comfort in providing health information services to their patrons. Numerous instances of knowledge transfer—in their personal lives, with their colleagues, and for their patrons—were described. Participants reported improved abilities to both find and evaluate consumer health information, and many adapted class materials for their own programming or teaching. Suggestions were provided for future class topics as well as a program website.Conclusion:Based on data from the five focus groups, the Health Information Specialists Program has positively impacted participants in a number of ways. Primary among these were self-reported improvement in both health information retrieval skills and the ability to evaluate the reliability of health information online, as well as in the confidence to help patrons with their health information needs.     

The gendered emotional labor of male professional ‘freesurfers’ digital media work

Abstract

Male professional ‘freesurfers’ are paid to live an aspirational lifestyle and communicate this through their digital media work. In this article I argue that a ‘stoke imperative’ championed by the surf industry necessitates emotional labour. Stoke is surf vernacular for a clustering of feeling thrilled, joyful, pleased, happy, optimistic, excited and satisfied. The surf industry manufactures and commodifies stoke to profit from it. Emotional labour is often assumed to be what women are ‘naturally’ predisposed to and ‘better at’. It is found that male professional freesurfers are competent at employing strategies for doing emotional labour when doing digital media work, such as micro-celebrity. However, this involves negotiating expectations, traits, and values of masculinity. It is also found that digital media technologies direct a professional sport ‘technosoma’ that networks emotional labour for profit. The article extends a small body of literature on how emotional labour is practised by men in sport.     

Website creation and resource management: developing collaborative strategies for asynchronous interaction with library users

Objective: To make electronic resources available to library users while effectively harnessing intellectual capital within the library, ultimately fostering the library’s use of technology to interact asynchronously with its patrons (users). Methods: The methods used in the project included: (1) developing a new library website to facilitate the creation, management, accessibility, maintenance and dissemination of library resources; and (2) establishing ownership by those who participated in the project, while creating effective work allocation strategies through the implementation of a content management system that allowed the library to manage cost, complexity and interoperability. Results: Preliminary results indicate that contributors to the system benefit from an increased understanding of the library’s resources and add content valuable to library patrons. These strategies have helped promote the manageable creation and maintenance of electronic content in accomplishing the library’s goal of interacting with its patrons. Conclusions: Establishment of a contributive system for adding to the library’s electronic resources and electronic content has been successful. Further work will look at improving asynchronous interaction, particularly highlighting accessibility of electronic content and resources.     

Media Regulation

Clifton O. Lawhorne's Defamation and Public Officials: The Evolving Law of Libel (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1971 – $15.00)

Interpreting FCC Broadcast Rules and Regulations: Volume III (Blue Ridge Summit, Pa.: Tab Books, 1972 – $6.95, paper)     

Where Epistemology Meets Ecology: Can Environmental News Reporting Survive Postmodernism?

Several scholars have recently proposed that Richard Rorty's (1979, 1982, 1989, 1991, 1998) liberal ironist epistemology might be appropriate for journalists. In this article, I investigate the ramifications of such a move. I suggest that once Rorty's thought is placed in the context of the abandonment of logical positivism, it is seen as a rather extreme reaction in regards to both ontology and axiology. One way of making such extremity evident is by investigating the applicability of Rorty's ideas to the specific field of environmental journalism. Although Rorty claims that liberal irony will help us learn to be less cruel to each other, we should thoroughly question whether his ideas will help us know our impact on the natural world or make positive changes based on that knowledge. I conclude by suggesting that before abandoning logical positivism in favor of postmodernism, the journalistic community should seriously consider alternative epistemologies.     

Teaching-for-Learning (TFL): A Model for Faculty to Advance Student Learning

In light of the widespread recognition of the enduring challenge of enhancing the learning of all students—including a growing number of students representing diverse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds—there has been an explosion of literature on teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. Notwithstanding scores of promising new ideas, individual faculty in higher education need a dynamic and inclusive model to help them engage in a systematic and continuous process of exploring and testing various teaching and assessment practices to ensure the learning of their students. This paper introduces a model—Teaching-for-Learning (TFL)—developed to meet this need. Clifton F. Conrad received his bachelor’s degree in History and his master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Michigan. He is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and his research focus is on college and university curricula with particular emphases on program quality, liberal education, and teaching and learning. Jason Johnson received his bachelor’s degree in Comparative History of Ideas and his master’s degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Washington. He is nearing completion of his Ph.D. and working as a Teaching Assistant in Higher Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his research focuses on rhetoric in higher education. Divya Malik Gupta received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Human Development and Family Studies from Maharaja Sayajirao University in Gujarat, India. She is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.     

Teach Them to Fish: Empowering Authors to Market Themselves Online

Paradigm shifts have occurred in the publishing industry resulting in unalterable changes in how authors market themselves and their books online. The author explains the shifts and provides insight for authors and publishers.