Turning the library upside down: Reorganization using total quality management principles

Professional staff at Samford University's Davis Library began to plan for vast organizational changes in the summer of 1990. This article describes their application of TQM principles to preparing for and implementing a restructuring of the Library and discusses the results of this reorganization.     

Cognitive reality of multidimensional information processing in knowledge assessment by experts

Two experiments were designed in order to examine the knowledge assessment task accomplished by French teachers assessing essays written by French native secondary school students. The focus of the study bears on the potentially multidimensional nature of the processing of evaluation cues. In the experimental conditions conventionally designed to test multidimensional evaluation models or techniques, information about each object to be evaluated (and hence, the dimensions along which objects are compared with each other) are explicitly provided to the subject from some external source. The experiments presented here were aimed at studying information processing by experts performing an evaluation task in which the experts themselves are required to: (i) define the relevant dimensions to be used in the evaluation and (ii) elaborate the necessary information about each of those dimensions for each object (in this case, native language essays). The question is to find out whether or not the information processing carried out by such subjects is multidimensional. If evaluators do in fact perform multidimensional processing of information, this implies not only that evaluation cues belong to differentiated classes (Experiment 1), but also that cues belonging to the same class are processed with respect to each other before being processed with respect to cues of another class (Experiment 2). The results obtained here support that conclusion. Both experiments used the self-paced display paradigm. Subjects were presented with segments of text on a computer screen, and the display time for each segment was recorded. Random coloration of errors belonging to three evaluator-defined classes was found to increase display time on the corresponding segments.     

Counselling in Educational Settings: Past Experience, Current Practice and Future Implications

In this paper, Jean Wright and Ann Beynon discuss their past and present experience of counselling in schools and colleges. They reflect on the way counselling in schools has declined whilst at the same time growing significantly in sixth forms and colleges of further education. Drawing on these experiences and one of the writers' recent experience of the approach to counselling in the USA, they argue that a reconsideration is needed of the value of counselling approaches in schools.     

Introducing touchscreens to black and ethnic minority groups--a report of processes and issues in the Three Cities project

There is a need for people to have access to health information but this may not be readily available for some black and ethnic minority groups living in England. This study aims to improve access to health information for ethnic minority groups by providing this in their own language, in an audio and visual format through a touchscreen computer. The study was led by health promotion and public health workers informed by advisory panels of representatives from local black and ethnic minority groups in the cities of Nottingham, Sheffield and Leicester. Discussion within the advisory panels and local epidemiological data helped to identify groups to be targeted and priority health issues to be addressed. Other issues covered during development included interface design, language translation and identification of accessible locations. A number of problems were addressed in establishing appropriate touchscreen facilities, mainly relating to producing information in an electronic format for multiple languages and populations not necessarily computer-literate. Three touchscreens, containing information on 10 health topics, translated into five languages are currently installed, one in each city. They are being rotated through a series of locations including a library, GP practice, and a temple. Their use, and satisfaction with use, is being evaluated over a 2-year period, by statistical analysis of computer logs and the collection of qualitative information by bi-lingual interviewers with users, over an 18-month period. Health information can be made available for ethnic minority groups even if they are unable to read their mother tongue. Touchscreens appear to be a suitable medium for achieving this.