Riding the Rural Library Circuit

The circuit rider librarian concept is discussed. The implementation and growth of the circuit librarian programs serving mral hospitals in New York and Pennsylvania are reported. The circuit rider librarian's schedule and functions are discussed, including time spent on the road and at Ihe resource library, reference services and other library services. Financing, budgeting, and personal contact are stressed. Detailed reference statistics are provided to illustrate the growth of library services; statistics are also analyzed by requester category. Future directions, potential, and recommendations are given for the creation of circuit library programs.     

Analysing students’ engagement and learning presence in an educational blog community

This paper is a narrative about the use of narrative as a means to understand how the use of technology assisted the educational community of Hong Kong during the SARS crisis of 2003. It is not a carefully planned conventional research study. It is based on seven narratives written by staff at The Chinese University of Hong Kong about their experiences during SARS. The experience of an online conference run by the author has also been considered. Overall, in our context, technology was able to come naturally and appropriately to the fore in our time of crisis. For me, it is a message that technology is now a mainstream tool that can be rapidly mobilized and that is very satisfying indeed.

Die Verwendung der Berichterstattung zum Verständnis der Annäherung eines Fernstudiums an ein Hochschulstudium während der SARS‐Krise in Hongkong. Dieses Referat bezieht sich auf die Berichterstattung als Mittel zum Verständnis, wie die Verwendung von Technologie die Bildungsgemeinschaft von Hongkong während der SARS‐Krise von 2003 unterstützt hat. Es handelt sich hierbei nicht um eine sorgfältig geplante, konventionelle Forschungsstudie, sondern dieses Referat basiert auf sieben durch das Lehrerkollegium der Chinesischen Universität in Hongkong verfassten Berichten. Die Erfahrungen einer Online‐Konferenz, die der Autor durchführte, wurde ebenso berücksichtigt. Im unserem Kontext stellten wir fest, dass im Allgemeinen in Krisenzeiten die Technologie auf natürliche und passende Weise in den Vordergrund rückt. Für uns ist dies ein Hinweis, dass Technologie heute ein alltägliches und überzeugendes Mittel ist, das schnell eingesetzt werden kann.

Utilisation du récit pour comprendre la convergence de formation par correspondance et de formation institutionelle pendant la période de SARS à Hong Kong. Cet exposé se réfère à l'utilisation du récit pour comprendre comment l'utilisation de la technologie a assisté la communauté de formation de Hong Kong pendant la crise SARS en 2003. Il ne s'agit pas d'une étude de recherche classique projeté soigneusement mais se réfère à sept récits du corps enseignant de l'université chinoise de Hong Kong sur leurs expériences pendant le SARS. L'expérience d'une conférence en ligne dirigée par l’auteur a également été considérée. En total, dans ce contexte, nous pouvons résumer que dans les temps de crises, la technologie passe au premier plan de manière naturelle et appropriée Pour nous, ceci est un message que la technologie est devenu un instrument quotidien et satisfaisant qui peut être mobilisé rapidement.     

Social media for professional development and networking opportunities in academia

The research reported on in this article explores the use of social media for work-related or professional purposes. In particular, it focuses on the perceptions and use of social media by academics in the UK. The purpose of the research was to explore the potential social media has to facilitate the changing landscape of higher education and support the individual academic in their role. Of particular interest is how specific social media tools are being used to enhance networking opportunities and contribute to career progression. The use of social media was explored in detail through interviews and a survey. Typical activities that are currently being undertaken were identified and user group profiles developed that articulate different levels of engagement with these tools and the motivations that each group of users have for using social media. The study found that, with increasing levels of activity, the number of motivations for using social media increase, as does the perceived number of successful outcomes, including contributions towards career progression. The main barriers to using social media were identified as a lack of time and skills to undertake these activities, as well as a negative perception of social media. Recommendations for increasing participation are to provide practical training, including the sharing of good practice, and to initiate dialogues within institutions regarding the potential career progression opportunities that social media may afford.     

Investigating the lives of new teachers through ethnographic blogs

This article addresses key issues embedded within what some commentators are describing as a ‘virtual’ or ‘digital’ ethnography. Namely, that through the adoption of new (virtual) spaces for ethnographic inquiry it is possible to trouble previous notions of site, place, space and meaning when collaborating in online fields. This article is located within a growing international debate in the field of education concerning digital ethnographic methods. While addressing the issues of what is ‘virtual ethnography’ the article draws briefly upon research based on a period of online ‘field work’ which has lasted for 18 months, exploring the transitional habitual social practices of new teachers as they enter first-time full-time employment in the UK This inquiry positions both the researcher and participants as co-constructors of both the site of virtual interaction, and to a certain extent, as collective decision-makers as what contributes as field and field notes. The article will explore the emerging methodological practices behind this virtual ethnography, exploring the potential use of blogs as an ethnographic tool.     

Experiments and Experiences in Liaison Activities: Lessons from New Librarians in Integrating Technology,Face-to-Face,and Follow-Up

As is the case in many university libraries, Albertsons Library at Boise State University, has hired many new librarians to replace retiring librarians. These newer librarians, typically with less than 3 years’ academic library experience, are actively engaged in meeting the opportunities and challenges of subject liaison responsibilities using innovative Web-based tools. This article addresses liaison experiences with faculty-directed blogs, personalized faculty research pages, a wiki-based liaison manual, and the use of LibraryThing as a collection development tool. An overview of these efforts confirms that new technologies are only as good as the face-to-face communication and the follow-up that accompany their implementation. Much of the content in this article was presented at the 2007 and 2008 Acquisitions Institute conferences at Timberline Lodge at Mt. Hood, Oregon.     

后博客时代高职生社会化与高职新型人才培养的双赢互动

后博客时代,以微博客为主要媒介的网络世界与社会环境、家庭环境、学校环境、高职学生自身等所处的现实世界共同影响高职生社会化与高职人才培养。高职生社会化过程就是高职人才培养的过程,高职生社会化与高职新型人才培养的双赢互动有利于提高高职生社会化和高职人才培养的质量,从而使高职生更好地适应社会、服务社会。     

A Foot in the Door

Abstract

The Houston Community College System (HCCS) is one of the largest community colleges in the nation, serving over 52,000 students. Though there is no dedicated full-time distance education (DE) librarian at HCCS, “traditional” librarians are meeting the needs of a rapidly growing population of DE and hybrid students by adapting to new roles and applying technology in innovative ways. An adventuresome cadre of information professionals has been reaching out to students to engage them where learning takes place. These “virtual librarians” are embedded in Web-based courses in order to promote library services to students who may never set foot in a HCCS campus library. As DE enrollment continues to expand, however, it has become necessary to consolidate efforts, and this is being accomplished through the utilization of a Web log (blog) and syndication tools, as well as some additional free applications.     

Developing reflective cyber communities in the blogosphere: a case study in Taiwan higher education

The purpose of this study is to highlight the possibilities and challenges that underlie efforts to integrate blogs into teacher-education programs in Taiwan higher education. The participants were 12 pre-service teachers undertaking Master's level study in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. The outcomes of the blogging project were highlighted in terms of pre-teachers' professional development on the blogs, their difficulties encountered, problem-solving strategies employed, and the students' perception of blogging. The results suggested that blogging could encourage pre-service teachers to actively and reflectively engage in knowledge sharing, knowledge transformation, and knowledge generation. Blogging also encouraged the development of numerous strategies to cope with difficulties encountered in the blogging process. Overall, pre-service teachers held positive attitudes toward blogging as a support for their professional development and were conscious of audience considerations, and so tended to select and respond to blog content deemed interesting and useful to their audience.     

Agencing femininity: digital Mrs. Consumer in intra-action

ABSTRACT

Social media is abound with women writing about consumption goods and practices associated with femininity and heterosexual nuclear family life, such as being married, dressing, cooking and home decoration. This article examines how the housewife ideal can be an attractive identity in the 2010s and, drawing on the post-humanist performativity by Karen Barad (2007), it maps the material-discursive agencies that enable the re-emergence of this figure. Building on in-depth interviews with women who refer to themselves as influencers and bloggers, and visual and textual analyses of their Instagram-accounts, including links to sponsors and comments from followers, the article analyzes how the tensions between these women's real lives and their cyber lives, become meaningful in this technological culture. The breaking of boundaries between human and non-human resulting from digital technology has re-configured the housewife role by transforming boundaries between intimate and commercial practices. By focusing on the three areas: Transforming the feminine body, Transforming Intimacy, and Entrepreneurial femininity the article shows how agency emerges from within transforming practices of body, intimacy and entrepreneurship, intra-acting within this new housewife phenomenon. In doing so it discusses the negotiations and space for agency these women thought that digital technologies provided for them.     

Feedback as dialogue: exploring the links between formative assessment and social software in distance learning

The paper explores the relationship between formative assessment and social software. Formative assessment practices though beneficial for student learning become marginalised and constrained in open and distance learning environments in higher education. Feedback is a key factor in formative assessment and learners can benefit from the deployment of emerging technologies and the opportunities for participation and dialogue afforded by social software. This paper explores and proposes a conceptual framework for this relationship. The claim is that the social dimensions of emerging technologies – specifically, blogs and wikis – allow for formative assessment practices to be re‐invented or at the very least facilitated by essentially participative and student‐focussed interventions. A comparison of these technologies against formative assessment mechanisms identifies the types of processes that these new tools might best support to encourage effective feedback approaches that both empower the learner and enhance their learning experience.