Book reviews

Association of Research Libraries     

Untangling the jungle of e-journal access issues using CRM software

Librarians have been struggling for years with the variety of issues arising while troubleshooting access to electronic journals. This article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of using a Customer Relations Management (CRM) software, originally designed for a call center, to communicate with patrons and track access issues. Utilizing the e-mail software used by the Reference Department at the University of South Florida, we assign incidents, correspond with patrons and staff, write internal notes, maintain transactions, and pull statistics. Hopefully, library vendors will develop software oriented to the needs of libraries to assist in managing access problems for e-journals.     

Paving Consensus: Enacting, Challenging, and Revising the Consensus Process in a Cohousing Community

This study focused on a cohousing community's use of consensus to make a decision about surfacing a parking area. It revealed that the community's use of consensus decision making allowed the residents to balance three goals: making an appropriate decision, meeting members' needs, and maintaining the community's well-being. Reaching agreement, however, was complicated by members' value differences and discontinuity in their participation. The analysis of this case reveals three qualities characteristic of the enactment of consensus: the role of structured communication within and between group meetings, a tension between maintaining process openness and reaching decision closure, and the expectation that group members will work within the consensus process. The analysis also highlights the importance of timing in the interpretation of conflict in a consensus-oriented group and the role of process change when a group reaches the limits of members' commitment to consensus.     

Managing Uncertainty for Preventive Conservation

ABSTRACT

This paper examines how conservators engage with uncertainty when creating preventive conservation strategies. It argues that by recognising contexts in which uncertainty will be encountered conservators can develop effective management strategies. A typology of uncertainty explores a range of categories of uncertainty, their experience in preventive conservation and identifies distinct approaches to manage them. Managing uncertainty may include acts of defining its parameters, exposing and resolving through communication or protecting from with contingency. Whatever approach is adopted it must be accepted that uncertainty cannot be avoided. It is important therefore to aim to live well with uncertainty and the paper advocates for preventive conservation applications of strategies recommended in health care for patients with life-threatening illnesses. These strategies include working on things that can be controlled, goal setting, acceptance and factoring in emotions. The ability to identify contexts in which uncertainty is inbuilt should trigger those concerned with preventive conservation to activate strategies developed for managing and living well with uncertainty.