Hourwatch: monitoring the inception of the National Literacy Strategy

This article outlines the preliminary findings from a small scale research project set up by a group of UKRA members to monitor teachers’ views of the literacy hour in its first year. The research draws on questionnaires, interviews and video data to reveal issues which concerned those teachers taking part in the survey and provides a snapshot of what it was like for some teachers coping with this initiative.     

The origin and development of a concept: the information society

The constructs that underlie a discipline are complex and often times uncertain. It is argued that the ways in which we perceive and conceptualize are influenced by our habits of mind and our view of the world. This paper traces the concept of the "Information Society" from its inception in the discipline of economics through its development and its subsequent diffusion to the field of information science.     

Centralization vs. decentralization in medical school libraries

Does the medical school library in the United States operate more commonly under the university library or the medical school administration? University-connected medical school libraries were asked to indicate (a) the source of their budgets, whether from the central library or the medical school, and (b) the responsibility for their acquisitions and cataloging. Returns received from sixtyeight of the seventy eligible institutions showed decentralization to be much the most common: 71 percent of the libraries are funded by their medical schools; 79 percent are responsible for their own acquisitions and processing. The factor most often associated with centralization of both budget and operation is public ownership. Decentralization is associated with service to one or two rather than three or more professional schools. Location of the medical school in a different city from the university is highly favorable to autonomy. Other factors associated with these trends are discussed.