Consultative Paper on the Secondary School Curriculum

After introducing the author, some themes central to the article are explored through one school's eight year involvement with the Improving the Quality of Education for All (IQEA) school's improvement initiative. A short account of Sharnbrook Upper Schools evolving journey is presented, based around three different models. From this issues related to maintenance and development, and to leadership are explored. The final phase of the article suggests limitations to the models of transactional and transformational leadership as a means of providing leadership for the long haul in school improvement. Deriving from an analysis of contemporary research about leadership and from grounded understandings about alternative approaches to leadership (in both principle and practice) new leadership themes are presented, which are based around values, shared leadership contexts and capacity creation through learning.     

A Community of Practice: Librarians in a Biomedical Research Network

Providing library and reference services within a biomedical research community presents special challenges for librarians, especially those in historically lower-funded states. These challenges can include understanding needs, defining and communicating the library's role, building relationships, and developing and maintaining general and subject specific knowledge. This article describes a biomedical research network and the work of health sciences librarians at the lead intensive research institution with librarians from primarily undergraduate institutions and tribal colleges. Applying the concept of a community of practice to a collaborative effort suggests how librarians can work together to provide effective reference services to researchers in biomedicine.     

Popular Music

Frank Tirro Jazz: A History (New York: Norton, 1977—$16.95 in trade edition; $12.95 in text edition, both hardback)

Leonard Feather Inside Jazz (New York: Da Capo, 1977—$4.95, paper)

Jim Haskins The Cotton Club (New York: Random House, 1977—$15.00, with paperback edition available)

Jeff Todd Titon Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977—$16.50)     

Technology and culture

INTERFACE CULTURE: HOW NEW TECHNOLOGY TRANSFORMS THE WAY WE CREATE AND COMMUNICATE by Steven Johnson (San Francisco: HarperEdge, 1997‐$24.00, ISBN 0–06–251433–4, 272 pp., index)

IMMERSED IN TECHNOLOGY: ART AND VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS edited by Mary Anne Moser with Douglas MacLeod (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997‐$22.50, ISBN 0–262–63183–0, 368 pp., technical glossary, 64 illustrations, 18 in color)

INTERNET DREAMS: ARCHETYPES, MYTHS, AND METAPHORS by Mark Stefik (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996‐$30.00/$15.00, ISBN 0–262–19373–6 hard, 0–262–69202–3 paper, 412 pp., further reading, sources, contributors, index)

POSTMORTEM FOR A POSTMODERNIST by Arthur Asa Berger (Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press/Sage, 1997‐$36.00/17.95, ISBN 0–8039–8910–2 hard, 0–8039–8911–0 paper, 184 pp., cartoons, bibliography, index)

THE NETWORKED SOCIETY: HOW TECHNOLOGIES ARE TRANSFORMING MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS, AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS: A Report of The Fifth Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, Aspen, Colorado, August 15–18, 1996 by David Bollier and Charles M. Firestone (Washington: The Aspen Institute, 1997‐$10.00, ISBN 0–89843–213–8, 43 pp., endnotes, appendix)

THE McDONALDIZATION OF SOCIETY: AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CHANGING CHARACTER OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL LIFE by George Ritzer (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1997 [2nd ed.]—$17.95, paper, ISBN 0–8039–9076–6 hard, 0–8039–9077–4 paper, 265 pp., bibliography, index)

PARCHMENT, PRINTING, AND HYPERMEDIA: COMMUNICATION IN WORLD ORDER TRANSFORMATION by Ronald J. Deibert (New York: Columbia University Press “New Directions in World Politics,”; 1997‐$49.50/$ 17.50, paper, ISBN 0–231–10712–9 hard, 0–231–10713–7 paper, 329 pp., illustrations, charts, index)

BEYOND THE HORIZON: COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE by Stephen Lax (Luton, England: John Libbey Media/University of Luton Press, 1997—price not given, ISBN 1–860–20514–3 paper, 133 pp., technical illustrations, index)

CYBERSCHOOLS: AN EDUCATION RENAISSANCE by Glenn R. Jones (Englewood, MA: Jones Digital Century, Inc., 1997—$19.95, ISBN 1–885400–60–8, 180 pp., appendices, index)

THE ORYX GUIDE TO DISTANCE LEARNING: A COMPREHENSIVE LISTING OF ELECTRONIC AND OTHER MEDIA‐ASSISTED COURSES by William E. Burgess (Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1997 [2nd ed.]—$98.50, ISBN 1–57356–073–1, 497 pp.)

THE U.S. ALL MEDIA E‐MAIL DIRECTORY: COMMUNICATE VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL WITH MAGAZINE, NEWSPAPER, TV AND RADIO MEDIA AND CONTACTS NATIONWIDE by Paul J. Krupin (Kennewick, WA: Direct Contact Publishing, 1997‐$49.00, ISBN 1–885035–03–9, 229 pp., index)

THE RISE, DECLINE, AND RENEWAL OF SILICON VALLEY'S HIGH TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY by Dan M. Khanna (New York: Garland “Garland Studies on Industrial Productivity,”; 1997‐$52.00, ISBN 0–8153–2724–2, 182 pp., tables, notes, bibliography, index)

THE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWLEDGE‐BASED RESOURCES IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRY by Russell W. Wright (New York: Garland “Garland Studies on Industrial Productivity,”; 1997‐$37.00, ISBN 0–8153–2785–4, 108 pp., tables, diagrams, bibliography, index)

MOTHS TO THE FLAME: THE SEDUCTIONS OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY by Gregory J. E. Rawlins (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997‐$10.00, paper, ISBN 0–262–68097–1, 184 pp., subject index)

TIME DETECTIVES: HOW SCIENTISTS USE MODERN TECHNOLOGY TO UNRAVEL THE SECRETS OF THE PAST by Brian Fagan (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1995‐$14.00, paper, ISBN 0–684–81828–0, 288 pp., index)

COMMUNICATION, TECHNOLOGY, AND POLITICS IN THE INFORMATION AGE by Gerald Sussman (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1997‐$56.00/$27.95, ISBN 0–8039–5139–6 hard, 0–8039–5140‐x paper, 317 pp., tables, references, subject index)

THE NEW COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGIES by Michael M.A. Mirabito with contributions by Barbara Morgenstern (Boston, MA: Focal Press, 1997 [3rd ed.]—$32.95, paper, ISBN 0–240–80258–6, 256 pp., index)

COORDINATING THE INTERNET edited by Brian Kahin and James H. Keller (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press “Publication of the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project,”; 1997‐$25.00, paper, ISBN 0–262–11230–2 hard, 0–262–61136–8 paper, 491 pp., glossary of acronyms, tables, charts, notes, index)

THE INTERNET & WORLD WIDE WEB: THE ROUGH GUIDE by Angus J. Kennedy (London and New York: Rough Guides [distribution by Penguin Group], 1997‐$8.95, paper, ISBN 1–85828–288–8, 432 pp., illustrations, index)

TELECOMMUTING: MODELING THE EMPLOYER'S AND THE EMPLOYEE'S DECISION‐MAKING PROCESS by Adriana Bernardino (New York: Garland “Garland Studies on Industrial Productivity,”; 1996‐$46.00, ISBN 0–8153–2723–4, 169 pp., tables, charts, references survey instruments, index)     

International trends in health science librarianship. Part 5 Latin America and the Caribbean

This is the 5th in a series of articles exploring international trends in health science librarianship in Latin America and the Caribbean in the first decade of the 21st century. The invited authors are from Argentina, Bermuda and Mexico. Future issues will track trends in Central Europe and the Middle East. JM     

Assessing the impact of football-based health improvement programmes: stay onside,avoid own goals and score with the evaluation!

Health improvement is an important strand of the Premier League’s ‘Creating Chances’ strategy. Through community programmes, professional football clubs offer health-enhancing interventions for a number of different priority groups at risk from a range of lifestyle-related health conditions. However, while national guidance recommends evaluating health improvement interventions, concerns remain about how to do this most effectively. This study aims to investigate the popularity of football-based health improvement schemes and assess the challenges associated with their evaluation. Adapted from existing methodologies, a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to an ‘expert’ sample (n?=?3) of football-led health evaluators. The sample was selected because of their experience and knowledge of performing evaluations of football-led health improvement programmes. Our ‘experts’ offered reasons for the popularity of football settings as channels for health improvement (including the reach of the club badge and the popularity of football), the justification for evaluating such schemes (including confirming effectiveness and efficiency) and the challenges of implementing evaluations (capacity, commitment and capability). Finally, a selection of key considerations for the evaluation of the impact of football-led health improvement programmes (obtaining expert guidance, building capacity and planning for evaluations) are discussed.