The business of negotiating for hospital librarians

Although many hospital librarians may find it difficult, negotiating with vendors has become a basic skill of library acquisitions. This article reports the results of a non-scientific questionnaire administered to hospital librarians and vendors attending a chapter meeting of the Medical Library Association in 2003. The answers revealed that vendors regard libraries as businesses, and while admitting that the role is often uncomfortable for them, librarians acknowledged that negotiating skills have become an important aspect of their jobs. Questions to help guide librarians through the negotiation process are provided in the Appendix.     

Employing Travel Time to Compare the Value of Competing Cultural Organizations

A number of studies have applied non-market valuation techniques to measure the value of cultural goods. Virtually all of these studies are single case applications and rely mostly on stated preferences, such as contingent valuation techniques. We compare the relative value of multiple, competing goods and show how revealed preferences, in particular travel time, may be used for this. In addition, we account for heterogeneity. Using a unique transaction database with the visiting behavior of 80,821 Museum Cardholders to 108 Dutch museums, we propose a latent class application of a logit model to account for the different distances of museums to the population and for differences in willingness-to-travel.     

The responses of fatty acid-binding protein and creatine kinase to acute and chronic exercise in junior rowers

The responses of fatty acid-binding protein (FABP) and creatine kinase (CK) were compared in a group of junior rowers during 5 weeks of training. Acute exercise induced a larger increase in FABP (70-362%) than in CK (24-156%). When the chronic effect of exercise was studied, the baseline FABP levels were independent of previous training. However, the baseline CK level was dependent on the training that took place during 1 day before (F = 4.362, p < .01) and on the combined training on the previous 2 days (F = 4.606, p < .005). The present results suggest that FABP and CK could be used to monitor acute exercise and chronic exercise, respectively.     

Everything you need to know about technology

Technological change in publishing comes in three forms: (1) software applications intended to increase efficiency of existing processes; (2) entirely new publishing opportunities, and (3) pressures exerted on the system of publishing. For educators and publishers, this poses a challenge. Teaching computer applications is often indistinguishable from mere skills-training, and may be inappropriate for most professional publishing education programs. The study of possible business opportunities may be impractically abstract, and consequently may be viewed with indifference by professional publishers. The study of systemic change requires a more inclusive definition of scope than is enjoyed by most academic and in-house education programs. In every case, fostering an understanding of the context and process of change itself is crucial for meaningful education. The author uses examples based in traditional scholarly publishing as illustrations. Czeslaw Jan Grycz was previously design and production manager of the University of California Press. This article is adapted from a paper presented at the founding meeting of the International Association for Publishing Education, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C., May 1991.