Australian Book Market: An Overview

In this article, Andrew Wilkins, the former publisher of bookseller+publisher magazine, provides an annual overview of the Australian book marketplace, offering statistics on the market and analysis of the key publishers, retailers and consumer habits. The second half of the article concentrates on international rights sales, an important aspect of the Australian publishing industry. This article was originally published in 2007 as part of the annual Think Australian magazine, which aims to support Australian publishers and literary agents at the Frankfurt Book Fair (see ).     

IP Address Data and its Place in the Library Community Today and in the Future

Internet Protocol (IP) technology has played an important role in the management of access to scholarly work within institutions since the advent of electronic publishing in the late 1990s. Despite recent efforts to explore alternative modes of authentication, the ubiquitous use of IP address authentication within the systems of libraries, publishers, and third party vendors around the world suggests it will continue to play a significant role for the foreseeable future. However, recent studies show that a large amount of the IP address data held within publisher systems is incorrect, improperly assigned, or requires clarification. Poor source data carries significant risks—not the least of which translates into unreliable usage reporting for libraries and publishers. The IP Registry is designed to help mitigate these challenges by creating a Registry of cleaned data that libraries and publishers can interact with in a centralized fashion thereby helping to ensure accuracy and reducing the level of resources necessary to manage and communicate changes to existing data. The database of more than 60,000 academic, corporate, and government libraries was created through the amalgamation of raw source data from more than 170 scholarly publishers. In addition to cleaned IP address data, the Registry includes standardized English naming, aliases, local language naming (and characters), hierarchies, and organizational IDs for each record. The importance of accurately understanding current usage and how libraries utilize published content is clear. Regardless of what the future holds, the need for a clean and stable source of IP address data is real for libraries, publishers, and vendors alike.     

The Canadian Linked Data Initiative: Charting a Path to a Linked Data Future

ABSTRACT

This article is a preliminary report on the work of the Canadian Linked Data Initiative (CLDI), a collaboration between five of Canada’s largest research libraries, Library and Archives Canada, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and Canadiana.org. Although still in its nascent stage, participating institutions are working together to advance the technical services divisions of our libraries in the area of linked data. Project working groups are making progress in five main areas: grant funding, digital collections, education and training, legacy metadata enhancement, and in the evaluation and adaptation of Bibliographic Framework Transition Initiative tools. By working across geographic and institutional boundaries, the CLDI aims to chart a path to a new age of technical services, one based on the foundation of Linked Open Data.     

Professional ethics

Only one thing is definite for the future of our professional ethics. As long as there is an Association, the Code of Professional Ethics will not stabilize permanently but will continue to unfold. The members who formulated the Code as it stands at present, as well as those who subsequently interpreted it and those who recently revised it, were cautious and deliberate. They deserve respect for being caring and thoughtful. These efforts ought to be continued by their successors.     

Teaching and Learning Physics in a 1:1 Laptop School

1:1 laptop programs, in which every student is provided with a personal computer to use during the school year, permit increased and routine use of powerful, user-friendly computer-based tools. Growing numbers of 1:1 programs are reshaping the roles of teachers and learners in science classrooms. At the Denver School of Science and Technology, a public charter high school where a large percentage of students come from low-income families, 1:1 laptops are used often by teachers and students. This article describes the school’s use of laptops, the Internet, and related digital tools, especially for teaching and learning physics. The data are from teacher and student surveys, interviews, classroom observations, and document analyses. Physics students and teachers use an interactive digital textbook; Internet-based simulations (some developed by a Nobel Prize winner); word processors; digital drop boxes; email; formative electronic assessments; computer-based and stand-alone graphing calculators; probes and associated software; and digital video cameras to explore hypotheses, collaborate, engage in scientific inquiry, and to identify strengths and weaknesses of students’ understanding of physics. Technology provides students at DSST with high-quality tools to explore scientific concepts and the experiences of teachers and students illustrate effective uses of digital technology for high school physics.     

Accelerated degrees in education: a new profile,alternative access to teaching or part of a re-tooling process?

In the UK, the provision of accelerated undergraduate programmes is responding to the needs of an increasingly diverse and career-focused student body and a flexible, ever-changing labour market. These fast track degrees are particularly new in education where recent developments in school autonomy and teacher training have had consequences on the design and delivery of programmes, definition of professional profiles and implications for the future of education as a subject of study in universities. This article portrays a small-scale research study about the views of students undertaking a new two-year accelerated degree in one English university using surveys at the beginning and end of the first academic year. The great majority were not planning to attend the programme but have chosen it for its career options and for being a quicker and cheaper route to access a degree – with teaching as the career goal. After one year, students reported gains in knowledge and skills, recommended the programme and kept their intention to pursue a career in teaching. Overall, we address a gap in the literature and start the discussion about the (dis)association between the students’ career routes and goals, the provision of these programmes and the teacher training offers.