Restructuring support staff classification levels for academic health sciences library positions

Nonprofessional library support staff traditionally hold what are considered to be low-paying, nonchallenging positions. These negative factors make retaining creative and productive employees difficult. This article outlines the approach taken at the Medical College of Georgia's Robert B. Greenblatt, M.D. Library to devise a structure of library staff positions that becomes progressively more demanding. A new nine-level Library Staff Classification Plan resulted. This plan also enables and encourages employees to acquire more skills and to accept more responsibility in order to qualify for higher-level library positions or to advance their present position to receive comparable rewards. The plan expresses the level of responsibilities expected, the employee qualifications desired, and lists representative duties across the spectrum of typical library tasks.     

The new library building at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The new University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Library opened in June 1983, replacing the 1968 library building. Planning a new library building provides an opportunity for the staff to rethink their philosophy of service. Of paramount concern and importance is the need to convey this philosophy to the architects. This paper describes the planning process and the building's external features, interior layouts, and accommodations for technology. Details of the move to the building are considered and various aspects of the building are reviewed.     

Differential effects of norm-referenced and self-referenced feedback on performance expectancies,attributions, and motivation

When feedback is provided to students in a norm-referenced manner that compares the individual's performance to that of others, people who perform poorly tend to attribute their failures to lack of ability, expect to perform poorly in the future, and demonstrate decreased motivation on subsequent tasks. The present study examined the hypothesis that the deleterious effects of failure might be attenuated when failure is expressed in self-referenced terms—relative to the individual's known level of ability as assessed by other measures. In this study, subjects received feedback indicating that they did well or poorly on an anagram test, and this feedback was described as either norm-referenced (comparing the individual's performance to that of others) or as self-referenced (comparing performance to other measures of the individual's ability). As predicted, compared to norm-referenced failure, self referenced feedback resulted in higher expectancies regarding future performance and increased attributions to effort. Contrary to expectations, attributions to ability were not affected. The implications of the results for the structure of academic feedback are discussed.     

The physician as writer

A surgeon, turned writer, discusses his experiences and the perils of changing professions. He reminisces about his early formative years, growing up in Troy, New York, and investigates the beauty of language and the pitfalls of misuse.