The Professor-Librarian: Academic Librarians Teaching Credit-Bearing Courses

Many academic librarians have ideas or opportunities for teaching information literacy courses for the library, outside the scope of their regular positions. Some additional librarians are asked to consider teaching credit-bearing courses for other departments at their institutions, based on graduate degrees they hold in fields besides library science. Academic librarians who face either option are often asked to provide detailed information on how colleagues at other institutions handle arrangements: payment, coverage of library services while they are teaching, and proving their suitability for teaching in a given subject area. Unfortunately, the data available on their work is both scant and scattered. The authors surveyed librarians at 350 academic libraries across the United States to gather and analyze data on these and numerous related aspects of librarians’ teaching for departments outside the library. They also collected and analyzed comprehensive background information on these “professor-librarians.”     

They Think Less of My Handwritten Essay If Others Word Process Theirs?

A study was undertaken to determine the effects on essay scores of intermingling handwritten and word-processed versions of student essays. A sample of examinees, each of whom had produced both a handwritten and a word-processed essay, was drawn from a larger sample of students who had participated in a pilot study of a new academic skills assessment battery. Students'original handwritten essays were converted to word-processed versions, and their original word-processed essays were converted to handwritten versions. Analyses revealed higher average scores for essays scored in the handwritten mode than for essays scored as word processed, regardless of the mode in which essays were originally produced. Several hypotheses were advanced to explain the discrepancies between scores on handwritten and word-processed essays. The training of essay readers was subsequently modified on the basis of these hypotheses, and the experiment was repeated using the modified training with a new set of readers.     

A circuit for the limitation of discharge in G-M counters

A simple two tube feedback arrangement to limit the discharge in a counter to a small segment of its length subsequently restoring all but a small portion of the tube to full sensitivity in about a microsecond, has been achieved. The procedure results in a marked reduction in dead-time, and a correspondingly large increase in life. For example, a 20-cm. counter may be operated at a rate of 20,000 counts per second with a loss no greater than that normally encountered at 1000 counts per second. Counting rate data are given along with studies of the discharge distribution with and without the cut-off procedure. Alteration in the dead-time picture is illustrated by oscillograms.     

“How are running shoes assessed? A systematic review of characteristics and measurement tools used to describe running footwear”

Background: Many footwear characteristics are argued as risk factors for running related injuries (RRI). Several footwear assessment tools are available; however, their use in studies of RRI is unknown. Objective: This systematic review evaluated the characteristics and methods of assessing footwear in studies of RRI. Design: Five online databases were searched for studies on adult runners, in running style footwear, who experienced running-related pain or injury. The methodological quality of included articles was independently assessed by two raters using a modified Downs and Black checklist. Study and participant characteristics, footwear assessment tools used, and footwear characteristics reported were extracted for qualitative synthesis. Results: Twenty-four articles were included in the review. Low risk of bias was determined for 11 (44%) of the included studies. Twenty-eight different footwear characteristics were grouped into four categories: nomenclature, measurements, qualitative features, and subjective features. Fifteen different methods for assessing the 28 footwear characteristics were reported among the included studies. Only three methods were described previously, as valid and reliable. Conclusion: Differences in assessing footwear may mask the link between footwear characteristics and injury risk. Systematic footwear assessments and nomenclature are needed to evaluate the effects of footwear characteristics on RRI.