The Impact of the Monographs Crisis on the Field of Communication

This study replicates and extends Yates and Chapman's [(2007), Behavioral & Social Sciences Librarian, 26(1), 39–51] study of references from Communication Monographs, Communication Research, and Journal of Communication for the years 2010 and 2015 to draw further conclusions on the use of monographs in journal literature in the field of communication. Results show that the use of monographs in these journals has been outpaced by references to journal articles by a ratio of 5 to 1. The references were further analyzed by date and publisher. The authors then selected a random sample of the monographs cited in the journals to explore the availability of these monographs in electronic format and found that many are available as ebooks, particularly the more recent titles. The authors also examined the references from a collection of scholarly books in communication from 2005, 2010, and 2015 and found that the use of monographs may be declining slightly. The most notable trend in these references was the increase in the number of references to items in other formats such as film, television, comic books, and websites. The authors conclude that the monographs crisis is indeed affecting citation patterns in the field of communication.     

Introducing Open Government Data

This article provides an overview of open government data. It outlines what it is, provides examples, and summarizes library engagement with these data. The professional and academic literature and other web sources were examined along with government policies and portals. Open government data is a fairly recent and evolving phenomenon that promotes government transparency and invites citizen participation and innovative reuses of public data. Libraries have been responding to this release of data in a number of ways including offering data literacy instruction and special services and programs.     

The Interaction of Early Maternal Responsiveness and Children's Cognitive Abilities on Later Decoding and Reading Comprehension Skills

This longitudinal study evaluated the extent to which maternal responsiveness across early childhood and children's cognitive skills predicted children's 8-year decoding and reading comprehension skills for children who varied in biological risk (term, n = 83; preterm, n = 155). Patterns of maternal responsiveness during infancy (6, 12, and 24 months) and preschool (3 and 4 years) revealed 4 maternal clusters that varied in consistency and level of maternal responsiveness. Although not predictive of decoding skills, the interaction between children's 4-year cognitive ability and maternal responsiveness cluster predicted children's reading comprehension skills at 8 years of age, regardless of risk. Although consistently high levels of maternal responsive parenting across early childhood related to literacy outcomes for all children in the study, responsive parenting had a stronger relation to later reading comprehension skills for children with lower cognitive abilities, particularly when mothers demonstrated high responsiveness in children's infancy.