Leadership Reflections: Resiliency in Library Organizations

Similar to individuals, organizations display characteristics that speak to qualities and abilities. Our guest writer, Lisa Bodenheimer, discusses a trait that is critical for library organizations during this period of constant change and transformation. Resiliency is the ability to rebound and flex as circumstances shift enabling an organization to thrive and adjust during difficult times. This skill is typically developed through experiences, but, as Ms. Bodenheimer outlines, organizations are able to strategize in order to build employee and organizational resilience. Such a proactive approach will enable a library organization to better weather challenging situations and times as difficulties will enviably occur. The following article provides practical suggestions for library organizations that will enable them to be more successful while leading and managing in a changing environment.     

Spatial Discovery of Linked Research Datasets and Documents at a Spatially Enabled Research Library

Current publishing practices in academia tend to result in datasets that are difficult to discover. This is because datasets are not well-integrated across academic domains and they are often not linked to the documents that reference them. For these reasons, discovering datasets across domains can be challenging; for example, discovering archeological observations and biological specimens using the same search is not widely supported, even if both datasets share a similar spatial extent, like Mesoamerica. It is also challenging to retrieve relevant documents that reference datasets; for example, retrieving a series of field reports that reference archeological observations is typically not supported. Our work develops an extensible method for: (1) geographically integrating collections across disciplinary repositories and (2) connecting datasets to related documents. We describe a collection of spatially-referenced researcher datasets, capturing their metadata elements and encoding them as linked open data. We then leverage existing library services to formalize links from datasets to documents. The system described in this work has been deployed, resulting in an experimental open data site for the UCSB campus. Results indicate that this system can be scaled-up with support from an institutional repository in the near future.     

Taking charge and letting go: exploring the ways a Transition to Adulthood project for teenagers with Duchenne muscular dystrophy has supported parents to prepare for the future

The new Special Educational Needs and Disability legislation in the Children and Families Act 2014 intends to raise the aspirations of young people with special educational needs and their families, and improve their life outcomes. But what do raised aspirations and better outcomes look like for young people who have a life‐limiting impairment? This article draws on data from a parent evaluation of a lottery‐funded Transition to Adulthood project for boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), called ‘Takin’ Charge’, focusing in particular on whether or not the project helped parents of boys with DMD prepare for the future. Key themes that emerged were the importance and novelty of older role models with DMD in the project who were able to share their journeys into adulthood, the support between families that the project enabled, the meaning of family resilience and aspirations for a normal life. The use of solution‐focused questioning with families affected by a life‐limiting impairment is also explored.     

Guiding Low Spatial Ability Individuals through Visual Cueing: The Dual Importance of Where and When to Look

Research suggests that spatial ability may predict success in complex disciplines including anatomy, where mastery requires a firm understanding of the intricate relationships occurring along the course of veins, arteries, and nerves, as they traverse through and around bones, muscles, and organs. Debate exists on the malleability of spatial ability, and some suggest that spatial ability can be enhanced through training. It is hypothesized that spatial ability can be trained in low-performing individuals through visual guidance. To address this, training was completed through a visual guidance protocol. This protocol was based on eye-movement patterns of high-performing individuals, collected via eye-tracking as they completed an Electronic Mental Rotations Test (EMRT). The effects of guidance were evaluated using 33 individuals with low mental rotation ability, in a counterbalanced crossover design. Individuals were placed in one of two treatment groups (late or early guidance) and completed both a guided, and an unguided EMRT. A third group (no guidance/control) completed two unguided EMRTs. All groups demonstrated an increase in EMRT scores on their second test (P < 0.001); however, an interaction was observed between treatment and test iteration (P = 0.024). The effect of guidance on scores was contingent on when the guidance was applied. When guidance was applied early, scores were significantly greater than expected (P = 0.028). These findings suggest that by guiding individuals with low mental rotation ability “where” to look early in training, better search approaches may be adopted, yielding improvements in spatial reasoning scores. It is proposed that visual guidance may be applied in spatial fields, such as STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine), surgery, and anatomy to improve student's interpretation of visual content. Anat Sci Educ. © 2018 American Association of Anatomists.     

Libraries and Spatial Literacy: Toward Next-Generation Education

The role of the library is to assist citizens in skills development critical to national interest and empowerment as literacy ambassadors, in general. Specifically, the work by the Federal Geographic Data Committee (1994) indicates that spatial literacy is for every citizen and not just a set of workforce specialists. Hence, the use of maps in decision making and problem solving will become fundamental to all professions, including library professionals. Thus, a spatial literacy awareness and rationale for such as standard job ability is discussed as a future librarian workforce proficiency and knowledge transfer medium.     

Early Literacy and the Public Library: An Opportunity of a Lifetime (of Reading)

In this article, author Bill Ptacek says that the future is now, and, at least from the 1970s through today, in the field of early childhood work, the future has come so fast that it is constantly upon us. That reality means that those concerned about young children in libraries have been about adaptation on a continuing basis. In this world of rapid change, innovation is constant: City firefighters come to the libraries in uniform to read stories to children, library outreach specialists take programs to daycare centers in their communities, and staff members create a space in a library devoted to early childhood reading. This tradition of rapid change means that the early childhood staff of most large public libraries in North America is changing for the future on a regular basis. The work unit should be considered seriously as one model for 21st century public library reform.     

中国教育支出与经济增长的空间实证分析

本文使用空间计量经济学方法,分析2000年中国各县教育经费支出情况,发现教育经费支出对GDP、地方财政支出和城乡居民储蓄存款余额的弹性较弱,都小于1,因此,瓦格纳法则不适用。在经济高速增长情况下,这种弱弹性限制了“4%”目标的实现。所以,当前除了要关心教育经费短缺问题,更要关心教育经费使用的低效问题。要积极探索提高既定教育投入的产出效率和效益,通过良好而科学的教育产出管理,节约教育投入,提高办学效益,以缓解现有教育投入不足的压力。     

河北省城市空间吸引范围与城市空间结构特征

利用城市空间相互作用理论的重要方法论原理——断裂点法,定性分析与定量分析相结合,计算出河北省主要城市及京津的空间吸引范围,得出河北省城市体系空间结构的现状特征.     

“给予”动词的语义和语用研究

给予动词语义上要求携带三个强制性语义成分,不同语域的动词对强制性语义成分在生命度、空间度、动词主体成分与与体成分之间的定向控制关系上有不同要求。不同动词的强制性语义成分映现为句法成分时有完全映现和不完全映现两种映现方式,句式的不同实际上反映了不同的功能要求。不同给予动词的强制性语义成分在省略、移位、变换等语用变化上也有不同特点。