Essentialism, adaptation and justice: Towards a new epistemology of museums

This article treats the prevalent confused mixture of utilitarian, art-and-knowledge-for-their-own-sake and ideological interpretations of the purpose of museums as a problem of epistemology, arguing that that key dimensions of museum knowledge (of objects, visitors, museums themselves, and of society) need to be integrated to achieve coherence. A new object-based, visitor-centred, storytelling epistemology is proposed. This would take an interdisciplinary approach and aim to unleash, rather than mute the real power of objects. It would address human destructiveness, as well as celebrating human creativity and the wonders of nature. It would respect the meaning-making practices of real, as opposed to idealized, imaginary visitors, and promote staff self-awareness in managing bureaucratic drift into introversion and avoidance of difficult issues. Incorporating a theory of justice, it would erode boundaries created by presentation traditions which, though marginal to object experiences, discriminate in favour of specific social groups—often groups with whom staff identify. Providing a museum service on a visibly fair basis is essential for museums to achieve intellectual coherence as well as societal support.     

Open archives and their impact on journal cancellations

We report on a research study commissioned by ALPSP into the factors affecting journal cancellations and, in particular, on the impact of the free availability of journal articles via open access repositories.     

Communicating Prevention: The Effects of the keepin' it REAL Classroom Videotapes and Televised PSAs on Middle-School Students' Substance Use

This study sought to determine if exposure to two communication-oriented activities, videotapes and public service announcements, accounts for changes in substance use among adolescents participating in the Drug Resistance Strategies Project's keepin' it REAL adolescent substance use prevention curriculum. Middle-school students (4,734, 72% Latino) responded to questionnaires related to these analyses. An analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model was fit separately to six substance use outcomes. The results suggested that intervention students who saw four or five videos engaged in less substance use in the past month than did students who saw fewer videos. Having seen the PSAs one or more times did not predict the reported change in substance use.     

Program Evaluation in Libraries: Relating Operations and Clients

Evaluators of library programs have different perspectives on why to conduct an evaluation and also how to do so. The author suggests that a minimal approach to conducting a library program evaluation is to prove that the program exists. But this perspective has expanded to include different degrees of interest in the client and operations, culminating in a combined focus that leads evaluators to conduct outcome assessments. The chapter includes speculation on what motivates managers to undertake an evaluation, a review of some ways that library evaluations are conducted, and a discussion of several examples of program evaluations. Though there are not single directives for undertaking a library program evaluation, there are a variety of tools and advice to entice librarians to do more of them as a way to improve understanding the value of a library to its clientele and in society.     

Design and evaluation of a personal digital assistant- based alerting service for clinicians.

PURPOSE: This study describes the system architecture and user acceptance of a suite of programs that deliver information about newly updated library resources to clinicians' personal digital assistants (PDAs). DESCRIPTION: Participants received headlines delivered to their PDAs alerting them to new books, National Guideline Clearinghouse guidelines, Cochrane Reviews, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Alerts, as well as updated content in UpToDate, Harrison's Online, Scientific American Medicine, and Clinical Evidence. Participants could request additional information for any of the headlines, and the information was delivered via e-mail during their next synchronization. Participants completed a survey at the conclusion of the study to gauge their opinions about the service. RESULTS/OUTCOME: Of the 816 headlines delivered to the 16 study participants' PDAs during the project, Scientific American Medicine generated the highest proportion of headline requests at 35%. Most users of the PDA Alerts software reported that they learned about new medical developments sooner than they otherwise would have, and half reported that they learned about developments that they would not have heard about at all. While some users liked the PDA platform for receiving headlines, it seemed that a Web database that allowed tailored searches and alerts could be configured to satisfy both PDA-oriented and e-mail-oriented users.