Conservation Heating 24 Years On

ABSTRACT

Control of relative humidity (RH) for collections care is challenging in U.K. historic houses because they are often highly ventilated with poor heat retention, a porous building fabric and naturally tend to high (60–80%) RH if unheated. The significance of the building means that large-scale modifications and installation of air handling systems may be unfeasible and undesirable for the conservation of the building. In the late 1980s the National Trust, for English, Wales and Northern Ireland, investigated conservation heating as an RH control method that works with the natural environment of historic buildings, mimicking historic heating and requiring only modification of existing heating services or a light touch installation of new heating systems. The National Trust adopted conservation heating as its preferred method for environmental control in historic buildings from the 1990s. This method was presented at the IIC 1994 Ottawa congress on preventive conservation. Conservation heating has since been adopted by many historic house management organisations, particularly across north-west Europe, where it is well suited to the climate. This paper reviews conservation heating developments implemented by the National Trust since 1994, in response to a changing external context, new knowledge and developments in operational practice.     

Divergent production in gifted adolescents using timed vs. untimed stimuli with creative prompting

Although creativity and expertise are related, they are nonetheless very different things. Expertise does not usually require creativity, but creativity generally does require a certain level of expertise. There are similarities in the relationships of both expertise and creativity to domains, however. Research has shown that just as expertise in one domain does not predict expertise in other, unrelated domains, creativity in one domain does not predict creativity in other, unrelated domains. People may be expert, and people may be creative, in many domains, or they may be expert, or creative, in few domains or none at all, and one cannot simply transfer expertise, or creativity, from one domain to another, unrelated domain. The domain specificity of creativity matters crucially for creativity training, creativity assessment, creativity research, and creativity theory. The domain specificity of creativity also means that interdisciplinary thinking, interdisciplinary collaboration, and interdisciplinary creativity are even more important than one would assume if creativity were domain general.     

Nurseries and emotional well‐being: evaluating an emotionally containing model of professional development

Despite official endorsement of attachment principles in nursery work, these are often not translated into nursery practice. One possible reason for this is that staff training does not sufficiently address the personal implications and anxieties that children's attachments may entail for practitioners. Working from a psychoanalytic perspective on organisational functioning and group learning, this paper describes action research with a group of nursery heads who participated in a professional development programme designed specifically to explore emotional experience in professional work. The positive evaluations of the programme by heads and their staff are described including examples of experiential learning and of increased staff awareness about, and responsiveness to, the emotional experience of children. However, the research also concluded that sustained effectiveness of the model is likely to be dependent on an ongoing culture of attention to the emotional experience of nursery staff within nursery umbrella organisations.     

The effectiveness of post-16 pathways for gaining employment associated with undergraduate degree study

This article sets out to examine the effectiveness of five different post-16 study pathways and the impact that spending time away from education has on gaining employment associated with an undergraduate degree. It also explores advice and guidance for students looking at post-16 study options, higher education and employment. An initial online survey was used, followed by case studies to form a mixed-method approach. The findings suggest that a vocational pathway better prepares students for making decisions around employment and study in comparison to the more traditional A Level pathway. They also highlight that a period of one to four years after finishing post-16 study and starting undergraduate degree study is the most effective for students to gain employment associated with their undergraduate degree. Finally, it was found that most participants did not have positive experiences with advice and guidance regardless of their pathway.     

Yer Doin’ it Wrong: How NOT to Interact with Vendors,Publishers, or Librarians

Three librarians who have extensive experience working in libraries or for publishers, vendors, or consortia presented an informal discussion on librarian–vendor relationships. The audience was encouraged to participate. Problems were articulated; speakers and audience members contributed suggestions for better approaches or behaviors when handling difficult situations.     

God,Sport Philosophy,Kinesiology: A MacIntyrean Examination

Sport philosophy is in crisis. This subdiscipline of kinesiology garners little to no respect and few tenure track lines in kinesiology departments. Why is this the case? Why isn’t philosophy held in greater esteem? Is it possible that philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s (2009) diagnosis found in “God, Philosophy, Universities” could actually be fruitfully applied to kinesiology? MacIntyre argued that philosophy’s fall from grace parallels the decline of theology in universities. This is the case for two simple reasons. First, philosophy was traditionally charged with giving an account of how the different disciplines fit together on the presumption that an orderly account of the universe could be given. However, the imperative for, as well the intelligibility of, such an account is hard to defend absent God. Second, without God, it becomes very difficult to argue that the philosophic enterprise is fundamentally human. Instead, philosophy becomes an esoteric enterprise meant for specialists. If this is right, then the sanitization of God from the modern university can also explain the plight of sport philosophy. To put it simply, theology must be taken seriously if philosophy is to be taken seriously. God must be admissible in the classroom. This does not mean that students should be catechized, but rather it is to insist that scholars must acknowledge (rather than hide from or dismiss) the legitimacy of theological questions.     

Getting in,getting on,going further: Exploring the role of employers in the degree apprentice to graduate transition

Transitions from education into work, or as part of career change and development, are increasingly central to policy debate and academic inquiry. However, the role that employers play in shaping transition is often overlooked. In this paper, we examine this issue through the experiences of a graduating cohort of ‘degree apprentices’. We present original analysis of new empirical data from what we believe to be the first substantive qualitative longitudinal research conducted with those experiencing this new vocational pathway in the English Apprenticeships system. Through analysis of repeat semi-structured interviews with 22 degree apprenticeship graduates (44 interviews in total), we provide early empirical insights into experiences of this new pathway and add to existing theoretical conceptualisations of transition within the educational literature and the employer's role within it. We show that the degree apprentice to graduate transition can be broken down into three key stages: ‘getting in’, ‘getting on’ and ‘going further’, and that employers—at both strategic and relational levels—shape experiences at each stage.