One small community hospital library's successful outsourcing of document delivery: an ongoing study

When DOCLINE was implemented in 1985, community hospital librarians were beginning to feel the economic pressures of the changing health care arena. However, staff and resources were often sufficient or plentiful. Now, fifteen years after the creation of DOCLINE, many existing small hospitals either no longer have a librarian, an assistant is managing the library, the librarian is managing one or more libraries of an integrated system, or the number of librarians has been reduced. A system that is heavily staff dependent is no longer feasible. In addition, as the role of the community hospital librarian evolves into one of instructor and patient education liaison, a system that does not permit the librarian to expand such services will be detrimental to the entire library program. Following is a discussion of one small community hospital's decision to outsource document delivery services as a result of staffing changes and the expansion of additional library programs.     

Pre-service teachers’ personal epistemic beliefs and the beliefs they assume their pupils to have

In their workaday life, teachers are faced with multiple complex tasks. How they carry out these tasks is also influenced by their epistemic beliefs and the beliefs they assume their pupils hold. In an empirical study, pre-service teachers’ epistemic beliefs and those they assume of their pupils were investigated in the setting of teacher education for vocational schools in Germany. Results of the empirical study point at significant inconsistencies between pre-service teachers’ beliefs, the beliefs they assume of their pupils and beliefs conducive to the curricular and didactic concept preferred for vocational schools. Partly, these inconsistencies can be explained by pre-service teachers’ learning experiences in school and university. It seems important that the education of teachers in vocational education aims at scaffolding pre-service teachers in developing beliefs that are conducive for their future profession.     

Von der Meritokratie zur Parentokratie?

In 1990, the English educational sociologist Phillip Brown argued that the age of meritocracy had been replaced by a mode of allocating life chances following an “ideology of parentocracy”. In a parentocracy, parents’ wishes and resources are decisive for the allocation of life chances of individual pupils. This proposition was taken up many times in the following years. The article argues against the parentocracy proposition and argues that meritocracy has not become weaker as a legitimatory norm of the allocation of life chances and social inequality. However, on the level of the actual operation of the educational system and its interaction with its environment, parentocracy does play a role. This is discussed using on the one hand the way in which Eton College presents itself to its environment and on the other hand how it actually recruits pupils. The article discusses this using a neoinstitutionalist theoretical frame. Finally, the article discusses the ambivalent role of performance data within the uneasy relationship of meritocracy and parentocracy.     

Carbohydrate intake and training efficacy – a randomized cross-over study

Carbohydrate (CHO) availability during endurance exercise seems to attenuate exercise-induced perturbations of cellular homeostasis and might consequently diminish the stimulus for training adaptation. Therefore, a negative effect of CHO intake on endurance training efficacy seems plausible. This study aimed to test the influence of carbohydrate intake on the efficacy of an endurance training program on previously untrained healthy adults. A randomized cross-over trial (8-week wash-out period) was conducted in 23 men and women with two 8-week training periods (with vs. without intake of 50g glucose before each training bout). Training intervention consisted of 4x45 min running/walking sessions/week at 70% of heart rate reserve. Exhaustive, ramp-shaped exercise tests with gas exchange measurements were conducted before and after each training period. Outcome measures were maximum oxygen uptake (VO_2max) and ventilatory anaerobic threshold (VT). VO_2max and VT increased after training regardless of CHO intake (VO_2max: Non-CHO 2.6 ± 3.0 ml*min^?1*kg^?1 p = 0.004; CHO 1.4 ± 2.5 ml*min^?1*kg^?1 p = 0.049; VT: Non-CHO 4.2 ± 4.2 ml*min^?1*kg^?1 p < 0.001; CHO 3.0 ± 4.2 ml*min^?1*kg^?1 p = 0.003). The 95% confidence interval (CI) for the difference between conditions was between +0.1 and +2.1 ml*min^?1*kg^?1 for VO_2max and between ?1.2 and +3.1 for VT. It is concluded that carbohydrate intake could potentially impair the efficacy of an endurance training program.     

Recent Publications in Natural History

LIBRARY AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Recent Publications in Natural History is a regular feature of Curator. It lists recent publications under various headings, Mary E. Genett–Editor