Academic Libraries as Digital Gateways: Linking Students to the Burgeoning Wealth of Open Online Collections

ABSTRACT

Digital collections of full-text e-books are proliferating on the Web and provide a wealth of open content for students. To examine whether academic libraries are providing a digital gateway to these resources, ten e-book titles from open digital collections were searched in the online catalogs and Web pages of ten academic libraries serving distance learners. Only three of the digital collection e-books were available from any of the library catalogs, and none were found on library Web pages. Availability of the ten e-book titles through Google and other digital discovery tools also had mixed results. Continued projects for improved delivery of open online content are necessary. In order to fulfill their role as digital gateways for their academic communities, libraries must pursue metadata standards to support cross-searching, collaborative projects, and development of e-resource search software, which integrates with the library catalog.     

A Survey of Cataloging Education: Are Library Schools Listening?

ABSTRACT

In recent years a number of surveys of cataloging education have been conducted, and each of those surveys has suggested changes in library education. This survey reviews the current state of cataloging education by evaluating courses taught by 47 ALA accredited programs and compares the results to previous studies. This study examined the types of cataloging courses offered in LIS programs to determine if the type of course taught has changed over time. Additionally, this study examined course offering frequencies to determine if LIS programs are making the kind of courses needed to train cataloging librarians available to their students. It is concluded that although LIS programs are continuing to offer and require introductory courses in cataloging and bibliographic control, they are relying more heavily on these introductory courses to provide the bulk of cataloging education.     

Audiences and metaphors of globalization in the daimlerchryslerag merger

This paper examines the metaphors and discourse used to strategically explain and justify the 1999 global merger of the Chrysler Corporation and Daimler Benz‐ The metaphors “a single global entity,”; “a good fit,”; and “a marriage of equals”; were used by management to help construct a favorable meaning for the merger, and enhance the probability of success. These metaphors were used in messages directed toward a variety of internal and external stakeholders. The metaphors appear to have failed due to their increasing internal inconsistency and contrast with the reality of the merger.     

Boys Will Be Boys and Girls Better Be Prepared: An Analysis of the Rare Sexual Health Messages in Young Adolescents' Media

Despite concerns about high rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease in the United States, the mass media adolescents attend to most frequently include little accurate information about sexual health. In this study, a preliminary quantitative analysis of the sexual content in four media (television, magazines, music, and movies) popular among 3,261 Black and White adolescents (12–14 years old) found that less than one half of 1% of the content included information about or depictions of sexually healthy behavior. A qualitative analysis of the relatively rare instances of sexual health content revealed that across all four media the sexual health content was ambiguous and/or inaccurate, reinforced traditional gender stereotypes that males seek sex and females are responsible for protection against pregnancy, and presented puberty as funny and contraception as embarrassing or humiliating. These analyses suggest that significant changes in the media's presentations of sexuality would be required if the media are ever to be considered a healthy part of adolescents' sexual socialization.     

Communications Research

Thomas F. Gordon and Mary Ellen Verna Mass Communication Effects and Processes: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1950-1975 (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1978—$15.00),

Charles Winick, Deviance and Mass Media (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1979—$18.50/8.95),

Mail and Telephone Surveys: The Total Design Method by Don A. Dillman (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1979—$19.95)

Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education by J.P. Guilford and Benjamin Fruchter (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979—$16.00)

Jane T. Bertrand Communications Pretesting (Chicago: University of Chicago Community and Family Study Center, 1978—$3.50, paper)

Gary Gumpert and Robert Cathcart, Inter/Media: Interpersonal Communication in a Media World ( New York: Oxford University Press, 1979—$S.95, paper)     

A distance education contribution to a social strategy to combat poverty: Open University Community Education courses in Glasgow

Attacking widespread under‐education with limited resources in the scattered, oppressed adult population of South Africa is a formidable challenge. One way of meeting this challenge could be to develop adults’ critical thinking skills, using their own experience as their main educational resource. Experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, could provide a means of achieving this aim. Research carried out at a conference on experiential learning at Natal University, Durban, provided an opportunity to assess the viability, desirability and usefulness of this educational method and aim. Participants’ responses indicate that the method is promising, although further experiment and development are necessary, particularly with different groups.

Three issues are discussed in this paper: the nature of the South African educational context, the promotion of critical thinking skills as an adult education aim, and the potential of employing experiential learning technology, facilitated from a distance, as a method of developing critical thinking skills.     

Relational agency and teacher development: a CHAT analysis of a collaborative professional inquiry project with biology teachers

Teacher quality largely determines student outcomes and many argue for high quality teacher training and professional development (PD). Much PD has been heavily critiqued and what constitutes effective provision for teachers remains contested. Disenfranchisement of teachers, through neglect of prior expertise and failure to acknowledge teachers’ working contexts, some argue, are to blame. A PD project with five biology teachers and a teacher educator, grounded within a cultural, historical activity theoretical (CHAT) tradition, was initiated to address these shortcomings. Edwards’ concept of relational agency was employed to investigate and interpret teacher collaboration. Teachers’ perceptions about the project were gathered using free-response questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, with the data being analysed using a CHAT framework. The positive impact on teacher practice reported here was related to having opportunities to own and be responsible for one’s own and others’ development, exploiting the distributed expertise available and supporting collaborative work.     

Puppets Promoting Engagement and Talk in Science

Research into classroom interactions has shown that talk that promotes reasoning can help children in their learning of science. Such talk can only be generated when teachers are willing to take a dialogic approach that is stimulating and provides opportunities for children to articulate their ideas. This research set out to determine whether the use of large puppets would help teachers to change the nature of their whole class discourse to enhance children’s talk and engagement in science. The study was carried out with sixteen teachers of children aged 7–11 years in schools in London and Manchester, UK. Through adopting a mixture of research methods, including classroom observation and teacher and child interviews, the research provides evidence that the use of puppets significantly increases the amount of teacher discourse oriented towards reasoning and argument, and decreases the amount of talk that focuses on recall. Through the puppets, teachers also use more narrative to set the science in stimulating contexts, and encourage children in their contributions to whole class discussion. Interview data also show the positive effects of puppets on children’s motivation and engagement in science. The findings have led to further major funding for professional development in the use of puppets in the UK, and research into the reasons why the use of puppets is so effective.     

Challenging accepted wisdom: Looking at the gender and science education question through a different lens

This article reports on a research project designed to explore a group of women scientists' understandings of themselves and science. The project uses an unconventional methodology: - a mixture of conventional qualitative research methods and techniques developed for use in psychotherapy. Its preliminary results appear to contradict some of the assumptions on which much of past work on girls and science education is based. For example, we found that, for the women involved in this project, factors such as the presence in their lives of strong female role models and/or the use of 'girl-friendly' curriculum materials were not important in their decision to continue the study of science to university level. Other factors - some of which were quite unexpected - had a much greater effect. The article outlines the methodology of this project and some of its findings, and explores the implications of these findings for future work on the gender and science education question.