Meta-analysis: a tool for medical and scientific discoveries.

Medicine has made increasing use of meta-analysis, largely as a quantitative procedure for combining results of clinical trials. Meta-analysis begins with a comprehensive review of the literature. The next step is a systematic analysis of the quality and content of each study. Finally, results are combined statistically and conclusions are drawn from this new overview of the data. This paper presents a brief historical perspective on the use of meta-analysis in medicine with emphasis on the medical library. The authors conclude that in the future, medical librarians will play a significant role in the application of this useful technique.     

Chaos theory, informational needs, and natural disasters

This study applies chaos theory to a system-wide analysis of crisis communication in a natural disaster. Specifically, we analyze crisis communication during the 1997 Red River Valley flood in Minnesota and North Dakota. This flood, among the worst in modern American history, consumed entire metropolitan areas, displacing thousands of people. The conditions and decisions leading to the disaster, and the subsequent reactions are retraced. Communication related to river crest predictions (fractals), the shock at the magnitude of the crisis (cosmology episode), novel forms of reorganizing (self-organization), and agencies that aided in establishing a renewed order (strange attractors) are evaluated. Ultimately, we argue that preexisting sensemaking structures favoring rationalized, traditional views of a complex system led officials to make inappropriately unequivocal predictions and ultimately diminished the effectiveness of the region's crisis communication and planning.     

经营交通广播的几个观念问题

北京电台的交通广播开播已经8年了，我们总该进行一些思考，才对得起过去的日月。思考，不是谈经验，尽管其中有经验的成分。只要能给读者一些启发，也就足够了。     

培养21世纪电大图书馆馆员的科研能力

培养电大图书馆馆员的科研能力,能进一步提高图书馆的管理服务质量。本文就如何增强图书馆员的科研意识,提高图书馆员的科研能力,提出自己的看法。认为要转变现代教育新观念,增强图书馆科研意识,应提高图书馆员的科研的理论素质;馆员应在读者服务工作中实践、观察、分析、思考、选好题;提高撰写图书馆的科研论文的写作能力;以及建立激励机制,鼓励馆员参与科研、多出成果。     

Can Knowledge of Erasure Behavior be Used as an Indicator of Possible Cheating?

What is the typical amount of student answer‐changing that takes place in a low‐stakes test environment? Can we use this information to look for evidence of improper answer‐changing (cheating) on high‐stakes test?     

An intrapreneurial approach to integrating information production services into an academic medical center library

The many challenges faced by health sciences libraries of all types and sizes often require innovative solutions. When an innovative solution involves calculated risk taking, the approach is called intrapreneurial. At the University of Miami School of Medicine, an intrapreneurial approach solved the fiscal problems of the biomedical communications unit. The Louis Calder Memorial Library inherited these problems when the Department of the Library and Biomedical Communications was created in the early 1980s. In this paper, two intrapreneurial programs are described, and the benefit and suitability of this management style to information services are demonstrated.     

Supervisors' In-Session Behaviors and Cognitions

A multiple case study of four supervisors indicated that numerous factors shape supervisors' in-session performance and revealed a complex interplay between thoughts and behaviors.     

Among the eminent,the aspiring,and the young: A short history of new world writing

New World Writing, a magazine founded by New American Library in 1952, quickly became an important vehicle for liberal intellectual and literary thought. In addition to providing an outlet for new writing, the magazine became an important acquisitions tool for NAL. Throughout its lifetime, New World Writing remained a showcase for many of the finest writers of the 1950s, including Christopher Isherwood, Louis Auchincloss, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Jack Kerouac, and Gore Vidal. He is the author of Under Cover: An Illustrated History of American Mass Market Paperbacksand Heavy Traffic and High Culture: The New American Library as Literary Gatekeeper. He is working on a study of American literary agents     

英国与“四国公约”（1933．3-7）

1933年7月英、法、德、意四国“谅解与合作公约”的缔结，是希特勒上台后欧洲大国间第一次外交互动的产物。英国出于挽救裁军大会的考虑，对意大利倡议的“四国公约”极力推崇，并在协调法德分歧、促成公约的缔结等方面发挥了主导作用。虽然“四国公约”最终因法德两国政府拒绝批准而成为一纸空文，但英国在“四国公约”问题上的表现，却从一个侧面折射出德国纳粹势力上台初期，英国对外政策的基本走向：即力图通过促成普遍裁军来实现欧洲大国间的和解，从而避免可能的战争风险。     

Can a Teacher‐Led State Assessment System Work?

Recent implementation of Nebraska's Standards-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System (STARS) introduced a unique opportunity to examine the benefits and drawbacks of a teacher-led state assessment system. STARS is unique among state assessment systems in that statewide tests are replaced by locally developed assessments designed by teachers. Benefits of this system are found to be greater teacher use of results for instructional planning, greater diagnostic utility of the assessments, and gains in assessment literacy. Disadvantages include the time-consuming and stressful nature of creating localized assessments. Compatibility of STARS with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act are discussed.