How Are Medical Librarians Addressing Health Literacy Barriers?

The purpose of this literature review was exploring how medical librarians are addressing health literacy barriers, with an emphasis on enhancing the patient care experience. This literature review contributes up-to-date information related to health literacy barriers, with a specific focus on medical librarianship and enhancing the patient care experience. Medical librarians can positively impact health literacy barriers. By partnering with other healthcare professionals, medical librarians are in a position to ensure health information can be understood, which will ultimately improve health literacy and enhance the patient care experience. Improving health literacy rates may improve health outcomes and decrease healthcare costs.     

Conversations among Coal Miners in a Campaign to Promote Hearing Protection

Although working in a coal mine can diminish one's hearing capabilities by 50%, not until 2000 did federal laws require companies to establish noise standards in order to help prevent hearing loss among their employees. Since then, researchers have worked with safety administrators to develop effective messages promoting hearing protection and testing. This research assessed the effects of campaign messages on discussing campaign postcards and talking with others about a helmet-sticker incentive. The results, which are discussed with a focus on future campaigns, indicate that hearing-related attitudes, intentions, and behaviors are the most influenced by messages that were affectively neutral and least influenced by messages that were affectively negative.     

The bookstore war on Orchard Road: a study of contemporary sponsors of literacy and ideologies of globalized book retailing in Singapore

Based on a year's worth of fieldwork in Singapore, this article is a case study of the much-publicized ‘bookstore war on Orchard Road’ that pitted Borders' American ‘loosey-goosey’ model of bookselling against Kinokuniya's ‘serious’ Japanese model. It examines the distinctive role that country-of-origin effects play in the cultural practices and perceptions of these two global sponsors of literacy, which have in recent decades rivaled traditional sponsors of literacy such as libraries in guiding individuals on ‘what, when and how’ to read. An analysis of the Orchard Road bookstore war captures some of the competing ideologies of textual practices circulating in Singapore as cosmopolitan print consumers and their professional counterparts express their acceptance and/or rejection of particular bookselling practices. For the professionals, good bookselling involves the promotion of local print cultures. In contrast, the cosmopolitan consumers seldom mentioned this criterion. In fact, many of them were drawn to the ‘globality’ of transnational booksellers. While print professionals clearly favored Kinokuniya's globalization localization practices over Borders, a clear-cut preference did not emerge among cosmopolitan consumers. This study suggests that country-of-origin effects likely informed the way in which print professionals and cosmopolitan consumers perceived Borders and Kinokuniya and the globalization localization strategies of these global sponsors of literacy.     

Research/Reference Works

Margaret Labash Young, Harold Chester Young, and Anthony T. Truzas, et al. Directory of Special Libraries and Information Centers (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1977---published in two volumes with an updating service at prices noted below)

Anthony Kruzas and Linda Verekamp Sullivan, eds. Encyclopedia of Information Systems and Services (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1978---$95.00)

Paul Wasserman, et al, eds. Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources (Detroit, Mich.: Gale Research Co., 1976---$48.00)

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978---$39.50)Albert Walker's “Public Relations Bibliography: Sixth Edition, 1976-77,” Public Relations Review 4:4 (Winter 1978)

Ron Nordland, Names and Numbers: A Journalist's Guide to the Most Needed Information Sources and Contacts (640 pp.)

Jerry M. Rosenberg, Dictionary of Business and Management (564 pp.)

Scientific American Cumulative Index, May 1948 -June 1978 (Scientific American, P.O. Box 5947, New York, N.Y. 10017---$38.50 prepublication, and $45.00 afterwords)     

The City Personified: The Geopolitical Narratives of Rudy Giuliani

The article examines the growing interest in political celebrity and urban branding within media and cultural studies. It stresses the significance of narrative strategies in political statecraft, with specific reference to the intimate relationship between mayors and cities. It focuses on the figure of Rudy Giuliani, both in his period as mayor of New York between 1993 and 2001, and in his subsequent political and private lives, paying close attention to how the event of 9/11 acted as a pivot in his political career. After conceptualizing the relationship between mayors and cities through a discussion of public discourse, celebrity, and political scale, the paper then identifies three processes by which Giuliani has personified New York: first, through narrative control and self-projection within the New York political sphere, by considering his use of selected city sites as a form of synecdoche in his media strategies, and his marginalization of those who challenged him politically; second, through his elevated celebrity status and visual representation by the media in the aftermath of 9/11; and third, through the genre of autobiography and branding, via his book Leadership and related commercial activities, whereby he shifted the scale of his narrative beyond New York.     

Campaign Agenda Formation: The News Media in the Korean Congressional Election of 2000

The present study, as an international application of an agenda-setting model, investigates how campaign agendas of issues are constructed in an election. The Korean Congressional election of 2000 provided rich empirical data for this study; the political party agenda, the civic agenda, and the news agenda were measured in terms of issue salience at two different data points in time during the official campaign period. The results of the cross-lagged rank-order correlations between different agendas indicated the following. First, the party agenda as a whole had little impact on the formation of the news agenda. The party–news relationship, however, showed a different pattern at an individual newspaper level. Specifically, a more conservative newspaper was more susceptible to those parties’ agenda-setting than was its progressive rival. Second, a nationwide civic movement for political reforms slightly influenced the formation of the news agenda, especially that of the reformist newspaper agenda. Both newspapers, on the other hand, substantially influenced the civic campaign's issue emphases. Finally, there existed no significant interactions between the party and the civic agendas.     

Gender portrayal in Hong Kong and Korean children's TV commercials: A cross‐cultural comparison

This study examined gender portrayal in a sample of 345 television commercials broadcast during children's programmes in Hong Kong and Korea using content analysis. Literature suggests that Hong Kong culture differs from Korean culture on the dimension of Masculinity/Femininity proposed by Hofstede. The differences between the two countries provide a valid test of theory, and suggest hypotheses about the gender portrayal in children's advertising. The results of the study showed, contrary to expectations from Hofstede's framework, that the gender portrayal of central characters and the level of gender stereotyping in Hong Kong commercials was similar to those of Korean commercials. Possible explanations include the emerging homogeneous youth market using a standardized advertising strategy, and the rising concern for women's rights in Korea.     

Structural change in search engine news service: a social network perspective

This research investigates structural change made by Naver's online news section and how it has impacted the overall traffic flow of Korea's online news. This paper examined 45 websites in 2008 and 2010, and the total number of pages viewed within these sites was considered in the analysis. Social network analysis was applied to study the relationships between the news sites. The analysis through degree centrality and Bonacich powers shows that there has been a shift in market leadership. In 2007, Naver, the top search engine in Korea, stepped down from its leading position after they started to provide news services. Daum, the second largest search engine, has taken over the central position as the most influential news site. Based on the results of this study, practical implications for online service markets and theoretical implications for online services are recommended accordingly.