Book reviews

^cAbd al‐Malik b. Habib. Kitāb al‐Ta'rij (La historia). Edición y estudio por Jorge Aguadé. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas & Instituto de Cooperación con el Mundo Arabe, 1991 (Fuentes Arabico‐Hispanas, 1). 163 + 224 pp. [Arabic title: Kltāb al‐Ta'tikh]

Kedar, Benjamin Z., ed. The Horns of Hattin. Jerusalem and London: Yad Izhak Ben‐Zvi, Israel Exploration Society and Variorum 1992. 368 pp., 12 plates; $74.75 (cloth).

Köprülü, Mehmed Fuad. The Seljuks of Anatolia: Their History and Culture According to Local Muslim Sources. Translated and edited by Gary Leiser. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1992. xi +101 pp., $22.00 (cloth).

Cameron, Averil and Conrad, Lawrence I., eds. The Byzantine and Early Islamic Near East: Problems in the Literary Source Material (Papers in the First Workshop on Late Antiquity and Early Islam). Princeton: The Darwin Press, 1992. xiv + 428pp., 12 plates; $29.25 (cloth).

Vereno, Ingolf. Studien zum ältesten alchemistischen Schrifttum. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1992 (Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, 155). 414pp.

Tolan, John. Petrus Alfonsi and his Medieval Readers. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1993. xv + 288pp., $34.95 (cloth), $16.95 (paper).

Lassner, Jacob. Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1994. 281 pp., $19.95 (paper), $49.95 (cloth).

Menocal, María Rosa. Shards of Love: Exile and the Origins of the Lyric. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1994. xv + 295pp., $34.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper).

Massignon, Louis. The Passion of al‐Hallāj, Mystic and Martyr of Islam. Translated and edited by Herbert Mason. Abridged edition, Bollingen Series XCVIII. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xxxi + 293pp.

Viguera Molins, Maria Jesús. El Islam en Aragón. Saragossa: Caja de Ahorros de la Inmaculada, 1995 (Colección “Mariano de Pano y Ruata”, 9), 174 pp., 182 ills. in colour, maps, diagrams, charts etc No price stated.     

Google Scholar's Coverage of the Engineering Literature 10 years Later

In 2008 Meier and Conkling first tested Google Scholar's coverage of the engineering literature against citations gathered from the Compendex database. Since that time, other studies have used the same methodology and found improvement in Google Scholar's coverage. This study uses engineering dissertations from Proquest Dissertations & Theses to create a data set of citations for the comparison of fee-based databases, Compendex and Scopus, against Google Scholar. From 1950 to 2017 Google Scholar outperformed both Compendex and Scopus in discoverability of citations in nine engineering subjects. These results have implications for collection management and information literacy program planning for librarians.     

Shared Entertainment,Shared Opinions: The Influence of Social TV Comments on the Evaluation of Talent Shows

The present research investigated whether co-viewer comments in social TV interactions are able to enhance or weaken media effects. With the example of talent shows, the valence of co-viewer comments (pro/contra/none) as well as the type of content (antisocial behavior vs. conventional performance) were varied in an experiment (N = 117). Results showed that participants’ own comments and their private attitudes about the judges varied in line with comment valence. Findings suggest that social TV viewers are prone to social influence of their co-viewers, which might amplify problems regarding the portrayal of antisocial behavior in reality TV.     

Cindy Sherman: A Play of Selves. A collaborative approach to conservation

In 2013, The Better Image (TBI) was contacted to examine A Play of Selves, a unique work created by artist Cindy Sherman during her graduate studies in 1975. The work is composed of 244 paper doll-like photographs of Sherman that are presented within 72 frames. During initial condition checks, it was noted that a number of individual elements had begun to show signs of chemical staining. Over the course of 2013/2014, a collaborative response was developed with the help of the artist, the artist's printer, the representing gallery, TBI staff and the owner. The main goal was to address the physical and chemical issues present and preserve this work for future exhibition and study. Determining an effective decision- making model based on a hierarchy of values was crucial before undertaking any conservation treatment, as there were several invested parties, each with a different perspective. The focus of this paper is the interplay of our responsibilities as conservators with the concerns of the artist, her gallery, her printer, and the owner to balance aesthetic vs. physical integrity of the artwork, reversibility of treatments, importance of record keeping while developing a balanced response within a world of rapidly disappearing traditional photographic papers.     

One hundred and fifty years of sprint and distance running – Past trends and future prospects

Sprint and distance running have experienced remarkable performance improvements over the past century. Attempts to forecast running performances share an almost similarly long history but have relied so far on relatively short data series. Here, we compile a comprehensive set of season-best performances for eight Olympically contested running events. With this data set, we conduct (1) an exponential time series analysis and (2) a power-law experience curve analysis to quantify the rate of past performance improvements and to forecast future performances until the year 2100. We find that the sprint and distance running performances of women and men improve exponentially with time and converge at yearly rates of 4% ± 3% and 2% ± 2%, respectively, towards their asymptotic limits. Running performances can also be modelled with the experience curve approach, yielding learning rates of 3% ± 1% and 6% ± 2% for the women's and men's events, respectively. Long-term trends suggest that: (1) women will continue to run 10–20% slower than men, (2) 9.50 s over 100 m dash may only be broken at the end of this century and (3) several middle- and long-distance records may be broken within the next two to three decades. The prospects of witnessing a sub-2 hour marathon before 2100 remain inconclusive. Our results should be interpreted cautiously as forecasting human behaviour is intrinsically uncertain. The future season-best sprint and distance running performances will continue to scatter around the trends identified here and may yield unexpected improvements of standing world records.     

Service user and carer involvement in students’ classroom learning in higher education

The following article presents a small-scale qualitative study in which the student learning experiences from service user and carer (SUAC) involvement in social work, mental health nursing and social welfare courses at an English university were evaluated for any effects on student perceptions, knowledge, skills and practice. Using focus group methodology, student participants reported positive outcomes from exposure to SUAC classroom inputs such as a greater valuing of SUAC knowledge as expert knowledge, help with the development of empathy and an appreciation of constructive challenges to mainstream curricular delivery. Notes of caution were identified, particularly in respect of the sometimes unexpected levels of emotion displayed by SUAC presenters. Recommendations for meaningful SUAC involvement in higher education are made regarding the need to involve SUACs across the whole duration of a course; the need for the preparation of both students and presenters regarding boundaries; the fit of presentations with intended learning outcomes; more partnership delivery in classrooms between academics and SUACs (possibly with a differentiation between theoretical and practice inputs); the opportunities for SUACs to present their own situations as real rather than hypothetical case studies for students and the possibilities that may result from introducing a ‘buddying’ system between students and SUACs throughout their studies. It is suggested that the insights from this small-scale study merit further exploration on a larger scale if policy and practice in the field of service and user involvement in higher education are to move forward in an inclusive manner.     

The unintended consequences of school inspection: the prevalence of inspection side-effects in Austria,the Czech Republic,England, Ireland,the Netherlands,Sweden, and Switzerland

It has been widely documented that accountability systems, including school inspections, bring with them unintended side effects. These unintended effects are often negative and have the potential to undo the intended positive effects. However the empirical evidence is limited. Through a European comparative study we have had the rare opportunity to collect empirical evidence and study the effects (both intended and unintended) of school inspections (a key system of accountability) in a systematic way, across seven countries. We present the findings of the unintended effects in this paper. Survey self-report responses from school principals in each country, with differing school inspection systems, are analysed to measure the prevalence of these unintended effects and to investigate the part played by pressure to do well in inspections. A key finding is that increasing pressure in school inspection systems is associated with the undesired effect of the narrowing and refocusing of the curriculum and instructional strategies. We also show that a proportion of school principals admit to misrepresenting the school in data sent to the inspectorate and show evidence for formalisation/proceduralisation (excessive focus on records) and ossification (fear of experimentation in teaching), although these factors are less related to changes in pressure.