Feminist issues in development

The United Nations Decade for the Advancement of Women, from 1975 to 1985, leaves a legacy of a deeper understanding of the issues, and the emergence of new networks with the experience and commitment to work for further changes. However, the role and status of women did not improve. There is a new commitment to struggle for the ending of all oppression, injustice and violence of all kinds at all levels. Feminism is a consciousness of all forms of women's oppression and a commitment to work against them. Feminist critiques illuminate the larger structures that oppress both women and men. New development theories embracing feminism are necessary to understand how patriarchy and economic systems propogate oppression. The production-oriented approach to rural development is flawed n failing to address women's lack of access to land, credit, training and new technologies. Overwhelming household tasks, cultural norms, and traditional attitudes limit women's involvement in training programs and other development activities. The basic needs approach to rural development provides access to vital services to meet a family's basic needs for nutrition, housing and clothing, and allows people's participation in decision making. However, women have little actual role in decision making so their needs, concerns and perspectives are not taken into account. Women are treated as instruments to achieve goals without appreciating their perspective. Project-based approached emphasize short term goals rather than laying the foundation for longterm changes. Few projects address structural issues or empower women. Projects must include education to increase personal growth and self reliance. Development planning can be enormously enhanced by taking gender differences into account and recognizing that people, specially poor women, can promote their own devleopment. Longterm strategies that challenge existing structures, address the existing economic order, and, most of all, recognize women's voices are needed.     

Race-mixing and science in the United States

Scientific racism was widely used as a justification to oppose race-mixing in the United States. Historians have justly criticized this abuse of science, but have overlooked some of the important ways in which science was used in the 1930s and 1940s to overturn scientific racism and opposition to race-mixing. Of particular importance was the cultural anthropology of Franz Boas and the evolutionary biology of Theodosius Dobzhansky, which supplied arguments against racism and fundamentally altered the scientific understanding of race.     

论知识管理与图书馆在知识管理过程中的社会功用

在当今信息-知识时代迅速发展和非连续性变化的社会环境中，一切社会群体、组织和个人只有持续不断地进行知识生成和创新、实现自我超越才能适应这一环境，赢得社会竞争优势和生存与发展的机会。知识管理就是这样一个通过对相关信息和知识资源充分开发利用而实现的一个组织知识的知识生成管理、组织知识管理和社会知识管理三个层次。图书馆在知识管理的三层结构中具有不可替代的重要社会功用。     

GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information) study on health professionals' search requests and continuing education needs

Health sciences librarians are being called upon to be more proactive in their institutions' continuing education efforts. In an effort to identify whether search requests indicated CE needs, a study was conducted by a group of members of GaIN (Georgia Interactive Network for Medical Information). MEDLINE requests from health care professionals for subject specific clinical topics were collected during a six-month period via a standard search request form created for the study. Copies of all completed requests were collected and broad ICD-9 codes assigned to the search topics. Institutional reports were generated for each participating library to share with hospital CE coordinators. They were also compiled for the group as a whole, and reflected the "hottest" topics requested during the study period for physicians and for non-physicians (nurses, allied health, administrators). A survey to hospital librarians and CE educators showed some value in the reports, but greater potential for further collaboration between librarians and CE coordinators.     

Tracing the evolution of critical evaluation skills in students' use of the Internet

This paper documents the evolving uses of the Internet made by public health graduate students and traces the development of their search methods and critical evaluative criteria. Early in the first semester and again six months later, twenty-four graduate students in a problem-based learning curriculum, which emphasizes evidence-based critical thinking skills, were required to describe their most helpful resources and to evaluate these resources critically. The answers were coded for the types of resources the students used, how frequently they were used, and why they were used. Student perception of the usefulness of resources, especially the Internet, and ability to evaluate these resources critically changed greatly. Initially, 96% of the students stated that the Internet was their most helpful resource. Six months later, these students continued to use the Internet; however, it was not their most useful source. At the later point, students had very specific uses for the Internet. Their most frequently used evaluation criterion was the reliability and objectivity of the source of the information. By the end of the first year of study, the majority of the students demonstrated an understanding of the principles of evidence-based practice and applied them to their research and analysis of information resources.     

鲍士伟与中国图书馆的发展:国际合作的一个篇章

本世纪20年代,美国图书馆学家鲍士伟先生对中国进行了短暂的七周考察,旨在鼓动公共资金对中国发展公共图书馆事业的投资。这一事件构成了当时中美图书馆界一大“热点”。本文就是遵循这一历史事实,探索中国图书馆当时所处的大环境、鲍先生访问背景和相关的人物,及其对这一创举所具备的短期和长远影响进行客观评价。     

Nurses' use of computer databases to identify evidence for practice--a cross-sectional questionnaire survey in a UK hospital

The objectives of this study were to determine nurses' use of electronic databases to inform practice. A questionnaire survey of 114 nurses working on five acute wards in a large inner city teaching hospital investigated their general use of computers and the three databases, CINAHL, MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library. Eighty-two qualified nurses responded (response rate 72%). The results show limited confidence and low frequency in using the databases. Thirty-four per cent expressed low confidence using CINAHL. Twenty-seven per cent used CINAHL on a regular basis. Twenty-two per cent never used it. Eighteen per cent were unaware that it was available locally. Knowledge and use of MEDLINE was even lower with only 18% using it regularly. Knowledge of the Cochrane Library was extremely limited, with 75% unaware of its existence. Use of a home computer and higher education were associated with higher frequency of use of CINAHL and MEDLINE. If nurses are to make use of electronic resources to contribute to evidence-based practice, effort needs to be put into ensuring that already qualified nurses have basic computer skills and specific knowledge of available resources. More emphasis should be placed on 'evidence-based' resources, such as the Cochrane library, as sources of information for practice.