Intentional Informationists: Re-envisioning Information Literacy and Re-designing Instructional Programs Around Faculty Librarians' Strengths as Campus Connectors,Information Professionals,and Course Designers

This article adds to the recent literature that questions, and hopes to redefine, the information literacy notions and practices in academic libraries and their institutions. The authors draw on research in the area of social justice to express the need for academic libraries to explore new avenues to insure their institution's graduates are not merely competent consumers of information. The authors put forward the notion of the intentional informationist, who they define as having the contextual, reflective and informational skills to identify information opportunities, tackle complex information problems and pitfalls, and provide solutions or considerations that do not just meet her individual needs. In addition, they pose questions and detail opportunities, partnerships, and examples of curricular and co-curricular integration to engage students beyond the library, instruction sessions, a single course, or graduation requirement.     

A Cataloger’s Perspective on Cataloging Backlogs

Abstract

Backlogs in cataloging are an unpleasant fact for many library technical service departments. While backlogs may be strategic in nature and smooth out the workflow from acquisitions to cataloging, many are simply uncataloged gifts, unfinished retrospective conversion projects, or low-priority uncataloged collections—all waiting to be addressed when everything else is caught up. Catalogers are often stereotyped as perfectionists; in reality, the nature of our work requires us to be very pragmatic. By substituting a less than full record, progress on reducing backlogs is possible.     

Children's conceptions of the earth,sun and moon

Understanding of the Earth/Sun/Moon system represents a major cultural nexus in the history of ideas as well as being an important conceptual area in junior science teaching. The situation is one in which the objects in question can be observed but do not lend themselves to hands‐on experience in the case of the Sun and Moon or to obvious meaningful experience of the system in the case of the Earth.

Children from 9 to 12 years of age were questioned using a clinical interview technique and stimulus materials, about the shape, size and motion of the Earth, Sun and Moon. A number of alternative views appear to be held. The use of a similar procedure with a group of children would seem to offer a powerful teaching methodology in which both teacher and students gain from the dialectic learning situation that is developed by this technique ‐ apart from providing insights concerning children's understanding.     

Creating a dialogue between sociological and egalitarian theory in education

No one discipline has a monopoly on the truth, especially in the analysis of a complex subject such as equality. If we are to deepen our understanding of inequality in education, we must open a dialogue with other disciplines, most especially with egalitarian theory. Bearing in mind the limitations of writing in a majority language tradition, the article explores the potential for creating a dialogue about equality between sociologists and critical and feminist egalitarian theorists. What sociologists can gain from egalitarian theory is a deepening of their understanding of the interface between the ethical and the empirical, of the interrelationship between fact and value in social life. In addition, egalitarian theory has the capacity to broaden our understanding of inequality in education beyond the distributive view of social justice that has dominated thinking in education to date. Drawing on the work of egalitarian theorists the article outlines four particular interpretations of equality that have relevance for researchers in education.     

Breaking silence: educating citizens for love,care and solidarity

An indifference to the affective domain and an allegiance to the education of the rational autonomous subject and public citizen are at the heart of formal education. The impact of Cartesian rationalism is intensifying with the glorification of performativity measured by league tables and rankings. The citizen carer and the care recipient citizen are only recognised in the educational arena when professionals are being trained to manage those in need of care. Education for informal care labour, solidarity work and love labour is generally not part of the formal educational trajectory. Because the scholarly understanding of work has been equated with economic self preservation and self‐actualisation through interaction with nature, education is seen as preparation for this type of work. Education is indifferent to other‐centred work arising from our interdependencies and dependencies as affective, relational beings. In particular it has ignored the centrality of nurturing for the preservation and self‐actualisation of the human species. In this article the authors argue that sociologists need to engage with the extensive feminist scholarship on care if they are to challenge the deeply care‐less view of the citizen that is implicitly accepted in new and older forms of liberal thinking. The rational economic actor model of the citizen is contrasted with the care‐full view of the citizen and the implications of both for education are explored.     

Reflections of Program Faculty on NIA-Supported Research Training

From the program faculty of St. Scholastica's National Institute on Aging Summer Institute on the Psychology of Aging, 7 members responded to a series of questions posed to them in individual telephone interviews. They represented a wide range of disciplinary interests and institutions. Their motivation for participation, their advice for both program participants and others at similar institutions, and their sense of the niches that could be filled by aging research conducted at primarily undergraduate teaching institutions differed among the faculty in provocative ways. At the same time, their positive experiences with the program, willingness to return, and respect and admiration for its goals and its director were very apparent. This suggests that programs such as this might provide opportunities for faculty development, with benefits extending also to the faculty who bring their expertise to the program. The motivations and benefits mentioned are consistent with those identified in the mentoring literature. The results suggest that programs such as this can provide opportunities for faculty development, with benefits also extending to the program faculty who bring their expertise to such a program.     

Focus on dementia care: Continuing education preferences,challenges, and catalysts among rural home care providers

ABSTRACT

Home care staff who provide housekeeping and personal care to individuals with dementia generally have lower levels of dementia care training compared with other health care providers. The study's purposes were to determine whether the professional role of home care staff in a predominantly rural region was associated with preferences for delivery formats of dementia-specific continuing education (CE) programs, and challenges and catalysts to attending CE on any topic. From January through March, 2014, 82 of 111 eligible home care staff in one Saskatchewan health region completed a cross-sectional postal survey (73.9% response rate). The survey included 41 nurses/case managers (client care coordinators, assessors, and team managers) and 41 continuing care aides (home health aides). Nurses/case managers and aides were equally likely to report moderate to high interest in locally delivered CE and low interest in Internet-based and computer-based CE. Compared with nurses/case managers, aides were more likely to report challenges to CE attendance due to CE not being a requirement of their position or relevant to their work. Low staffing levels were the top challenge regardless of professional role. Nurses/case managers and aides were equally likely to identify locally offered programs and paid time off as the top two catalysts of CE attendance. Given the growing number of individuals with dementia receiving home care services, the current study suggests that continuing education should be offered locally and included in rural staff’s paid time in order to encourage attendance.