Agile Project Management in Libraries: Creating Collaborative,Resilient, Responsive Organizations

Libraries must continually adapt to meet the ever-changing needs of users. Doing so requires the ability to be flexible and respond quickly. This is a case study of how The George Washington University Libraries rethought its approach to collection development using a cross-functional, team-based strategy that leveraged the benefits of Agile project management. Adopting an Agile approach to collection development maximized the impact of the library’s financial resources and enabled staff to develop new skills. This project underscores the value of collaboration, agility, and experimentation in libraries.     

Why accessibility is hard and how to make it easier: Lessons from publishers

The requirements for providing publications in an accessible form have recently become much clearer and easier to comply with. They are based on standard web accessibility guidelines that are commonly used globally, and the format for interchange is EPUB, a format many publishers already produce in their normal production process. Nevertheless, accessibility still proves difficult to accomplish for most publishers. This article refers to informal interviews and the author's own experiences to examine the issues that are challenging to publishers and their suppliers, assessing the level of effort required to address them, discussing the factors that make them difficult, and suggesting strategies for reducing the effort required. The article concludes that the best solution is to build accessibility into the publication workflow upfront as this can dramatically reduce the cost and effort required to make publications accessible.     

Modulation of an activity response with associative and nonassociative fear in the rat: A lighting differential influences the form of defensive behavior evoked after fear conditioning

Rats confronted with the onset of a light gradient display a transient increase in locomotion called theactivity response (AR) and a dark preference (Godsil & Fanselow, 2004). These experiments demonstrate that the magnitude of the AR can be blunted with Pavlovian fear-conditioning procedures via associative and nonassociative fear. Although manifested in decreased locomotion, the blunted AR effect was not due to increased freezing or immobility behaviors. Instead, rats displayed reduced rearing and an increase in a class of behaviors calledstationary activity. These results suggest that the lighting differential supplied by the cue influences the topography of defensive behavior and reduces the expression of freezing. This procedure provides a means by which to examine learned and unlearned defensive responses to the same stimulus.     

The Middle East Books Market: a Personal Overview

A concise review is presented of the essential elements of the book publishing and bookselling business in a complex and diverse market. Demographics create the diversity while Arabic is the one language spoken across a multitude of different countries. Three features are common to all of these countries and they are: the dominance of English as the second language, education has and will remain to be a priority, and economic pressures cause price sensitivity to be a major challenge especially in the educational market segments. It is the price sensitivity as a key factor for the lack of respect for intellectual property and copyright regulations. A review of distribution and retail stores is a very important topic in relation to this complex collection of countries. The emergence of e-books is discussed especially in the educational, professional and reference market segments. Finally, there is a review of the Arabic language publishers and local book fairs to bring this article to closure.     

Establishing a Counselling Service for Teachers

This paper is about the experience of preparation for incorporation in a sixth form college. The purpose of the paper is to take an analytical and reflective view of recent practice and developments which may have applications for all education managers facing externally imposed change. Its focus is on communication and consultation structures, the changing balance of power as institutions become independent of local authorities, and industrial relations in a new culture. It concludes that, without a full understanding of internal processes and structures and a strategy for strengthening them, colleges will continue to be ill‐equipped for survival as incorporated institutions.     

The effects of instructional method upon the acquisition of inquiry skills

This study investigated the effects of Guided Discovery vs. Didactic methods of instruction upon the acquisition of certain inquiry skills. At the same time, the effects of method on the attainment of factual-conceptual achievement was assessed. Hypotheses of no interaction of the methods variable with the learner variables—sex, measured intelligence, creativity, interest in science, general scholastic achievement, and science achievement—were also tested. The sample consisted of 140 8th-grade students. The duration of the experimental unit was six weeks. The subject matter was the same for each, “Early Man in America.” The results favored the Didactic group for the factual-conceptual achievement and the Guided Discovery for the acquisition of inquiry skills. However, in the latter there was an interaction of method with levels of measured intelligence and achievement.