高校图书馆电子阅览室持续发展的调查分析

通过对西北农林科技大学图书馆电子阅览室的调查可知,目前电子阅览室存在机器老化严重、读者用机需求锐减、支出大于收入导致恶性循环等问题。电子阅览室可采取逐步分批次更新计算机、设立专区、加强图书馆数字资源建设、提高学生检索能力、开展创新服务等策略,开辟一条可持续发展之路。     

Dialectical Tensions Underpinning Family Farm Succession Planning

Though succession planning is vital if a farm is to survive, many farm families fail to take necessary succession planning actions. Semi-structured interviews conducted with 20 members of nine small-farm families in Pennsylvania revealed that dialectical tensions surrounding a farm transfer influence succession planning readiness and action. This report identifies five indigenous dialectical tensions that influence succession planning and describes five praxis patterns families use to manage them. Practical applications are outlined for agriculture estate planning professionals and others involved in family inheritance communication services to provide effective assistance to farm families in their succession planning efforts.     

Farmers’ Perceptions of Necessary Management Skills in Finland

Abstract

The main aim of this pre-study was to provide a preliminary overview of Finnish farmers’ motivation and capacity prerequisites for adopting and improving their management skills. Motivation was studied by asking farmers what farm management tasks and skills they consider important. Capacity was evaluated by asking farmers to rank management tasks and skills according to their perceived difficulty. Data (n=130) were collected by means of a questionnaire that was sent to a selected group of insured of the Finnish Farmers’ Social Insurance Institution. The most challenging management tasks and topics, that is, those to which most farmers gave high ratings in terms of both importance and difficulty, consisted of applying for subsidies and getting information on them, of the investment decision process, and of maintaining safety, health, and the ability and motivation to work. These are the main areas that should receive more attention in full-time education curriculums and extension initiatives.     

The State of Agricultural Extension: An Overview and New Caveats for the Future

Abstract

Purpose: This review paper presents an overview of changes in agricultural extension on a global scale and helps to characterise on-going developments in extension practice.

Design/methodology/approach: Through a critique and synthesis of literature the paper focuses on global political changes which have led to widespread changes from production- to market-oriented extension systems and goes on to discuss pressures on unsustainable public extension systems to reform.

Findings: It is estimated that there are over 800,000 official extension personnel globally, most of whom work in the public sector in developing countries. This review highlights the important consequences for developing countries of global extension reform and the high percentages of farmers reliant on agriculture, making effective agricultural extension a key strategy in tackling poverty and strengthening rural development. It outlines the manner in which governments around the globe have experimented with alternative approaches to extension reform, such as privatisation and cooperatives, and demonstrates how public sector extension has come to be viewed as problematic.

Practical implications: This paper identifies the practical realities of adopting alternative approaches to extension, especially in the context of poverty. It considers the challenges in reforming extension to act as facilitator and enabler, rather than as service provider, and the difficulties in moving towards reforms that promote pluralism and innovation.

Originality/value: This paper contributes to current global debates on reforming agricultural extension by providing learning of how extension services have changed. The paper provides new insights from which lessons can be drawn for future extension reform.     

Rural Child Labour: Views of Extension Agents in Ethiopia

Abstract

Purpose:

Whilst children working in agriculture and domestic work is an inherent part of growing up and essential for survival, if boys and girls lose out on education they are less equipped to respond to inevitable environmental shocks and to negotiate agri-food value chains. This article investigates views of extension agents on children working.     

Grassroots to Grassfed

Abstract

A partnership formed between a special library and a public library system to address the information needs of local farmers is the subject of this paper. The special library partner is an information center for agricultural medicine and health. The public library system is one which serves its fourteen member libraries in central New York. These libraries, together with several community-based organizations, combined their leadership, resources, and expertise in a successful outreach effort that saved a village library, improved community relations, enhanced awareness of the role of libraries, and disseminated information necessary for sustaining a viable and healthy farming community.     

以梵高《农鞋》分析苏珊·朗格符号论美学

苏珊·朗格是卡西尔的门徒,为著名符号论美学家,其关于符号论美学的研究使符号论美学自成一派,对符号论美学的发展做出了巨大贡献。但是,我们不能忽视在苏珊·朗格的符号论美学思想之中仍有不当之处,存在片面性。文章以梵高作品《农鞋》为切入点,主要简析苏珊·朗格符号论美学思想中的一些缺陷和不足。     

苏轼涉农诗初探

在苏轼现存的诗作中,有不少是描述生产劳动、农民生活状况以及农村乡风民俗的篇章。苏轼把对农民的热爱都倾注于自己的诗篇里,描述他们的辛勤劳作和丰收喜悦,同时也指出他们的不幸与痛苦,这些都体现了苏轼对劳动人民的深切关怀。苏轼的归隐思想在其诗作中亦多有反映。     

Conditions influencing rural and town women's participation in the labor force : Some important considerations

This paper suggests that changes in the basic conditions of subsistence of Bangladeshi families, particularly increasing destitution and landlessness, are prime factors in forcing increasing numbers of rural and urban women into the wage sector of the economy. It has been found that as an initial step towards women's control over their own lives, participation in the labor force may be considered an advance for women in comparison to previous forms of labor. It is suggested, however, that the patterning of wage labor in less developed capitalist countries, to the extent that it follows Western trends, has every possibility of duplicating in Bangladesh the structures of women's exploitation and differential income earning opportunities hindering women's development in other countries, It is also suggested that traditional forms of social control legitimating and governing the subordination of women in Bangladesh are being undermined by worsening socio-economic conditions. It has been found that the traditional system controlling women's subordination, which is known as purdah, may be losing saliency for increasing numbers of rural families. This leads one to conclude that the development and extension of a wage economy brings new forms of social control involving contradictory results, exploitation, and dependence on the one hand, and changing conditions of independence and control on the other.