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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 239 of 293

  • 2 - Scholarly communications: the view from the library

    • By Rick Anderson, Associate Director for Scholarly Resources and Collections at the University of Utah's Marriott Library
  • Edited by Hazel Woodward, Lorraine Estelle
  • Book:
    Digital Information
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    15 December 2009, pp 35-56

  • Summary

    Where we are now: two crises for libraries, one crisis for Publishers

    Our current situation is highly unsettled. Three primary factors combine to threaten both the ongoing viability of scholarly publishers and the traditional position of academic libraries as information brokers and intermediaries. The first two, the crisis of searching and finding, and the crisis of the collection, stem from radical changes in the information environment, fostered by the advent of digital technology in general in the 20th century, and the emergence of Google in particular. The third, the crisis of price, has been looming for decades (Panitch and Michalak, 2005), and has been discussed and debated at length for almost as long.

    Libraries – the crisis of searching and finding

    Google's stated reason for being is to ‘organize the world's information’. However, its actual modus operandi is much more ingenious than that. In fact, what Google's search engine does is interrogate the world's information – not all of it, but a far larger portion of it than any single library could ever hope to own, let alone index. Having interrogated the information, Google then organizes the search results by relevance. The company is notoriously (if understandably) cagey about its exact methods of relevance ranking, saying only that relevance is assessed ‘by considering over a hundred factors, including how many other pages link to the page, the positions of the search terms within the page, and the proximity of the search terms to one another’ (Blachman and Peek, 2007). Google's use of external links to assess relevance is particularly noteworthy, and while it is far from a foolproof system, it is much more effective than traditional relevance ranking, which is usually based on the prevalence of search terms. To illustrate the difference: when processing a search for the terms ‘westminster’, ‘abbey’ and ‘london’, a search engine using traditional relevance ranking will identify as many websites as possible containing those terms, and will place at the top of the result set those websites that contain the most repetitions of those three words. Google will also gather as many websites as possible, but will place at the top of the result set those sites to which many other sites have linked.

  • 9 - Professional development

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Supporting Research Students
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    15 December 2009, pp 165-174

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In this chapter I consider different approaches to professional development for library and information workers who are supporting research students. These include support offered by professional organizations and networks, provision offered by higher education institutions, and research degrees. The chapter ends with conclusions relating to the book as a whole.

    In Chapter 1, I noted that although the library and information profession is a graduate one there are relatively few practitioners who have obtained a research degree. This means that most LIS practitioners will not have experienced and internalized the processes involved in gaining a doctorate. However, many will have experience of undertaking research activities, e.g. a dissertation as part of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree, or an investigative project as part of normal professional activities. What are the differences between an investigative workplace project and academic research of the type done by doctoral students? Some authors, e.g. Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2000), summarize the differences between academic research and investigative work-based activities, which they label ‘evaluation’. Some of these differences are outlined in Table 9.1.

    However, the distinction between research and evaluation is not as clear cut as is suggested by Table 9.1 and there is overlap between the two concepts. An important distinction between the two is that research is concerned with adding to theory and contributing to academic knowledge, while evaluation is often concerned with judging the quality and impact of an activity or initiative and then using the findings to inform practice, often at a very local level. After reading the foregoing, some readers may identify that they have been involved in evaluation activities, e.g. evaluating student satisfaction with library services, measuring part-time students’ use of library and information services or exploring the impact of a new online service for distance-learning students. These types of activity provide a good basis for developing further knowledge about research and the research process.

    Professional organizations and networks

    A number of organizations provide access to professional development activities relevant to library and information workers who wish to support research students. In the UK these include generic professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP), with its specialist groups. Many other professional associations and networks exist, and the following are indicative of the types of organizations that are active in the field in the UK.

  • 8 - Introduction to research communities

  • Barbara Allan
  • Book:
    Supporting Research Students
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    09 June 2018
    Print publication:
    15 December 2009, pp 141-164

  • Summary

    Introduction

    This chapter considers the importance of research communities in the context of supporting research students. The research process resulting in the publication of new knowledge was described in Chapters 1 and 2. As part of this process, academic researchers may be members of a number of different research communities, including communities based on specific research interests, those that come together around specific activities, e.g. publication of scholarly journals, and online communities. As part of their research development process, doctoral students have the opportunity to join different research communities. This is important because it provides them with access to up-to-date information and ideas, and enables them to network, and it may also have an impact on their future employment.

    This chapter covers the following topics: introduction to communities, including communities of practice and communities of interest; research communities; information sharing in research communities; professional associations; academic conferences; online networking; and implications for library and information workers.

    What are communities?

    A body of people in the same locality; a group of people who have common interests, characteristics or culture.

    (Chambers Dictionary, 2002)

    Membership of one or more research communities, involving either groups of academics and research students, or groups of academics, research students, practitioners and other stakeholders, offers doctoral students an opportunity to come together and share ideas and experiences, tackle professional and work-based problems and issues, and engage with their future professional communities. Research communities are often established to enable like-minded people or individuals with a common interest to work together and share ideas or develop new knowledge within a specific subject. Sometimes communities develop within or across organizations as the result of a particular organizational structure, e.g. a graduate school or postgraduate society or research centre. They may also develop as a result of the need to accelerate research in a particular subject or because of the interests and enthusiasm of a group of individuals who want to work together.

  • 8 - Truth commissions and the construction of collective memory: the Chile experience

  • from Part 3 - Records loss, destruction and recovery
  • Edited by Jeannette A. Bastian, Ben Alexander
  • Book:
    Community Archives
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 133-148

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Following the death of Augusto Pinochet in December 2006, Michelle Bachelet, the current President of Chile, reacted to the news. Herself a victim of torture from the Pinochet regime, President Bachelet stated, ‘I'm not going to deny, in this moment, that I have a very fixed concept concerning a painful, dramatic and complex period that our country lived through … What we learn from the past ought to help us confront the future’ (Reel, 2006).

    Records became a powerful resource during this process of ‘learning from the past’. In the US, the 24,000 documents produced by the Chile Declassification Project became strong evidence of the role of the US government during the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the establishment of the Pinochet dictatorship. In Chile, the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation presented a report documenting 2279 cases of human rights violations. Organizations of victims’ relatives and human rights groups along with the human rights programme of Chile's Ministry of Interior have played an important role in establishing memorials. Additionally, the Archbishopric of Santiago de Chile established an archive that is considered the main repository of materials documenting the repression during the Pinochet years. Pinochet's death also displayed the profound divisions among Chileans over his legacy. While one sector went into the streets to celebrate, others gathered to cry over the death of one whom they saw as Chile's saviour from communism. A fragmented and divided memory of the Pinochet years is still present in Chilean society.

    This essay discusses the role of archives and records in Chile during its transition to democracy, with a focus on the work of the National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation. In addition, I will discuss the concept of memory from the Chilean experience, and the role played by archives in the shaping of the country's collective memory.

    Transitional justice in Latin America

    The period from the 1960s to the 1980s saw an unprecedentedly high level of violence and political repression in Latin America with the establishment of dictatorships in South America and civil wars in Central America. In the midst of the Cold War, Latin America went through a polarized and traumatic period during which gross atrocities took place.

  • 1 - ‘It is noh mistri, wi mekin histri.’ Telling our own story: independent and community archives in the UK, challenging and subverting the mainstream

  • from Part 1 - A community archives model
    • By Andrew Flinn, Director of the Archives and Records Management MA programme in the Department of Information Studies at University College London, Mary Stevens, post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Information Studies at University College London (UCL)
  • Edited by Jeannette A. Bastian, Ben Alexander
  • Book:
    Community Archives
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 3-28

  • Summary

    And it is that history that I want to retrieve – the history that we made in this country, the history that Claudia Jones inspired. The history of us as black settlers, not coloured immigrants, the history that black workers contributed to the workingclass struggle, which has been ignored by white historians, the history of the struggles of black women to overcome the particular racisms visited upon them … the history of black youth rebellion … It is that history I want to talk about …

    Sivanandan, 2004

    … the strongest reason for creating the archives was to end the silence of patriarchal history about us – women who loved women … we wanted our story to be told by us, shared by us and preserved by us. Nestle, 1990, 87

    Introduction

    As the quotations opening this chapter suggest, the act of recovering, telling and then preserving one's own history is not merely one of intellectual vanity; nor can it be dismissed – as some still seek to do – as a mildly diverting leisure activity with some socially desirable outcomes. Instead the endeavour by individuals and social groups to document their history, particularly if that history has been generally subordinated or marginalized, is political and subversive. These ‘recast’ histories and their making challenge and seek to undermine both the distortions and omissions of orthodox historical narratives, as well as the archive and heritage collections that sustain them (Hall, 2005, 28). Archivists and others concerned with exploring archives and their power are beginning to examine the significance that engaging with archival materials – and the history created from them – can have for individuals. Rather less has been written, in the UK at least, on the impact that creating archives and ‘making histories’ can have on the development of subversive and counter-hegemonic social or public memories (Johnston, 2001; Flinn, 2007; Hopkins, 2008).

    This chapter seeks to add to the literature by examining independent community archives as social movements (or as elements of social movements) and by identifying individuals involved in community archives as political and cultural activists campaigning for equality and cultural recognition and against racism and discrimination.

  • 6 - Making the most of knowing your users

  • Sheila Pantry, Peter Griffiths
  • Book:
    How to Give Your Users the LIS Services They Want
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 73-86

  • Summary

    This chapter looks at how you can improve your strategic planning through analysis of user behaviour by:

  • ➡ making the link to strategic planning

  • ➡ better marketing

  • ➡ keeping the customers satisfied

  • ➡ keeping upstream management satisfied

  • ➡ making sure that your organization recognizes the importance of its library and information service

  • ➡ communications

  • ➡ achieving cost benefits and making better use of budgets.

    • Better strategic planning through analysis of user behaviour

    Library and information services do not operate in ‘steady state’. They are – or should be – central to every organization irrespective of the field of activity (or ‘sector’ – by which we mean categories like academic, governmental, workplace, public, legal, financial, technical, scientific or medical). In order to remain in that central role they need constantly to be assessed, evaluated and monitored.

    Making the link to strategic planning

    It will be part of your strategic planning processes for the LIS to check for and evaluate the many new and competing services and products that constantly arrive on the scene. You should recognize that this is also part of your organization's strategic planning process, so user requirements should be kept in mind as part of your planning and evaluation processes. How can this be done?

    Marketing is one way (and we discuss this in a moment) but it's also important to make the leaders of your user community aware of the assumptions or decisions you have made, and to share the information with them. This can be done succinctly – you have no need to go into every detail. In this way you can be sure that these decision makers have a summary of your evidence in front of them, and could ask for further information about particular issues of concern.

    It is not among the main aims of this book to provide detailed guidance on the processes of strategic planning for libraries but there are a number of texts that provide further information (such as Corrall 2000 and 2003 or the documents on the web indexed from LibrarySupportStaff.com at www.librarysupportstaff.com/strategicplan. html).

  • 8 - Tracking the future

  • Sheila Pantry, Peter Griffiths
  • Book:
    How to Give Your Users the LIS Services They Want
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 97-118

  • Summary

    In this chapter we look at some ways and methods of tracking the future, keeping ahead of the competition and anticipating your users’ needs, by:

    ➡ keeping a watch on the wider changing world

    ➡ thinking about your networks – what can they tell you?

  • — people

  • — management networks

  • — technical networks

    • ➡ learning lessons

    ➡ changing customers’ requirements

    ➡ making friends – what the suppliers are offering – both electronic and print sources

    ➡ making use of new ways of working and partnerships.

    Keeping a watch on the wider changing world

    It is essential to keep a very watchful eye on the wider changing world. What often develops in a different sector, e.g. retail, may be taken as the norm and expected in the information sector. As we have already seen, knowing your users and helping them to define their needs is one of the main ingredients that will achieve success in keeping at least one step ahead of their information demands. This is especially important when creating electronic information services, since the ready availability of e-services may mean that your users keep their requirements to themselves under the impression that they can get everything from the web or from desktop information services.

    One of the other main ingredients for success is knowing what your users are planning – how they are going to demand products and services in future. These will have such an impact on the services that you are currently offering that your own customers may decide to take up the competitors’ service. For example, if you are offering services to a specific group of users such as a research group and you wish to offer e-journals instead of paper-based services, you may find that the e-journal subscription agents decide to contact the research group directly. There is no real reason, if they receive a sufficiently cost-effective offer, why the research group should not take this offer up. They may feel that they would be in control of their own budget and of their choice of journals without having to deal with a third party – your information service.

  • 5 - Using information about past user behaviour

  • Sheila Pantry, Peter Griffiths
  • Book:
    How to Give Your Users the LIS Services They Want
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 61-72

  • Summary

    In this chapter we look at:

  • ➡ the value of information about past user behaviour

  • ➡ the content of library surveys, and how this influences the way that users respond

  • ➡ what the results of your information audit may tell you about user needs

  • ➡ how to use the results of surveys to adjust services

  • ➡ how to use the results of surveys to decide whether to close services or create new ones

  • ➡ the value of information over time.

    • The value of information about past user behaviour

    What information do you already hold about your users and what can you learn from it? Past behaviour is no guarantee of future behaviour, of course, so is it worth keeping old data? There may be changes in the size or composition of your user group, and older reviews are unlikely to cover some of the services your LIS now offers, just as they may include some services that have since closed. Historic data will of course allow you to paint a picture over time of how the LIS is used, and how users regard it and its services, allowing you to track trends and comparative figures to support business cases and help with fund allocation. But there is also great value in reading the detail, because of what it tells you about the way that users have interpreted the questions put to them. You may be able not only to identify areas where jargon or lack of understanding is confusing your users (and maybe dissuading them from asking the LIS to provide a new service you would like to offer) but also gain understanding about the way that your users work and how they involve the LIS in that work.

    An important byproduct of reviewing what you already know will be to highlight other information stores in your organization, and this may lead you to consider whether these should be brought within your library and information service, or whether you should influence their management in any other appropriate ways.

    Library surveys

    Do you issue library surveys? Many libraries do, not only to discover what users require, but in order to decide what services to provide and in order to allocate budgets to them.

  • 6 - Archiving the queer and queering the archives: a case study of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA)

  • from Part 3 - Records loss, destruction and recovery
  • Edited by Jeannette A. Bastian, Ben Alexander
  • Book:
    Community Archives
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 97-108

  • Summary

    As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm an identity I was unhappily piecing together.

    Edmund White, Out of the Closet, on the Bookshelf (Kester, 1997, 121)

    Introduction

    In 1987 Canadian sociologist Gary Kinsman published a landmark study titled The Regulation of Desire – Sexuality in Canada. It is widely considered to be the first critical examination of the history of homosexuality in Canada, or, in Kinsman's own words, an ‘excursion towards a queer history of Canada’ (1987, 65). In outlining his research methodology, Kinsman acknowledges a problem with sources and interpretation:

    Because of the socially organized ‘private’ or ‘personal’ character of intimate sexual relations there has been little public record of same-gender sex aside from the ‘deviant’ or ‘criminal’ behaviour found in police records, government reports, newspaper articles, medical and psychiatric discourse, and sex advice literature. Since same-gender eroticism was stigmatized, historically valuable diaries and letters have not been preserved. The voices of those people engaged in same-gender sex have thereby been silenced.

    Kinsman, 1987, 66

    Kinsman concludes that, given the absence of personal records, researchers interested in queer studies in Canada have often had to rely on the evidential value of public records, which necessarily document only the official version of this issue. Researchers have thus had to read the records ‘against the grain’ in order to grasp some sense of the everyday lives of queer Canadians in the past. The focus that public archives had placed on records that describe individual homosexual acts as criminal offences necessarily excluded from the archival fold any records that spoke of a community of people marginalized by the sexual policies of the state. What Kinsman strongly implies is that traditional archival institutions in Canada have not been accountable to queer people and to researchers interested in the historical construction of sexuality.

    Same-gender sexual activity in Canada, as in most Western democracies, had almost always been prosecuted by the state, condemned by the Church and pathologized by science. The situation remained more or less the same until the 1960s, when the emerging civil rights movement began to foster a growing social awareness of homosexuals as a disenfranchised and marginalized group of people.

  • 2 - Understanding users – the what, why, where, when, how and who

  • Sheila Pantry, Peter Griffiths
  • Book:
    How to Give Your Users the LIS Services They Want
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 13-32

  • Summary

    In this chapter we look at:

  • ➡ the services users need or should have?

  • ➡ why we need to know about our users and their behaviour

  • ➡ where users are and how this affects their ideas of good service

  • ➡ when to talk to users about their information needs

  • ➡ how users obtain information and how to assess these ways

  • ➡ who you need to consider when planning and performing the audit – managers are customers too.

  • ➡ and finally – what next?

    • In order to get a deeper understanding of user behaviour in your LIS, we suggest that you answer a series of questions designed to examine the way that your users access and make use of information resources.

    What services do LIS users need, and what should they have?

    The users of an LIS as well as its managers and staff have a role to play in delivering a service, but often they are unaware of this and the service does not tell them about this role. This is what users should do to ensure that they get the best from their LIS:

  • • be aware of what the library and information service offers

  • • identify their information needs

  • • agree to take those needs to the LIS as first port of call

  • • communicate them to the information service staff and discuss them as required

  • • give feedback to the information service

  • • keep information service staff aware of their changing subject interests

  • • involve the information service in projects that have information implications.

    • This may seem easiest in an organization that has its own library, such as a university or a business, but it should be possible with a little thought to apply these criteria to all types of service. At the end of the day it is the user who really decides the quality of the services, by:

  • • making demands for improvements on an existing service

  • • asking for new services

  • • showing a willingness to co-operate.

    • However, it is not very reasonable to expect users to do this by themselves, so they may need help to describe what they need, and to contribute more generally to developing information services to suit their requirements.

  • 13 - Always queer, always here: creating the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

  • from Part 5 - Building a community archive
    • By Steven G. Fullwood, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
  • Edited by Jeannette A. Bastian, Ben Alexander
  • Book:
    Community Archives
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    01 November 2009, pp 235-250

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In the fall of 2007 a young New York University student named Sarah visited the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to view materials in the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive (BGLA), a project I founded a decade ago to aid in the preservation of Black queer culture and history. As I placed several boxes on the table before her, Sarah's beautiful brown face lit up like sunshine. She was ecstatic about sifting through the stacks of Black queer books of various genres dating from the mid-1970s to the present.

    ‘My brother and I were talking earlier about there being no Black gay culture. That there were only a few Black gay writers like James Baldwin and E. Lynn Harris’, she said beaming. Watching as she handled the books, opening and reading parts, her eyes large and smile broad, I shared her enthusiasm. Through Sarah's experience, I recognized myself, small and yearning, recalling that itch for knowledge about Black queerness that became the impetus for the formation and development of the Black Gay and Lesbian Archive.

    Behind the archive

    Toledo, Ohio, circa 1982. Much like any other black Midwesterner, I was born to working-class people who were products of a post-industrial town in a post-Civil Rights moment. My parents sought to raise children who would live better than they did. Racial equality trumped gay and lesbian rights. The Black Power and the Black Arts movements dictated the clothes we wore, the way we talked, the movies we saw, and even what we read. Most Black communities dealt primarily with achieving civil rights and upward mobility. By contrast, the reality of gay and lesbian life and culture was complicated. Since everyone knew somebody who was or suspected to be ‘that way’, homosexuality was tolerated in some sense. There were no specific neighbourhoods for Black queer people because Black people could not afford to, or did not want to, live away from other Black people. Neighbourhoods, schools and churches and anywhere else Black heterosexuals lived, learned or prayed, homosexuals were there, and they too lived, if quietly.

    As a teenager, my thirst for a language to describe what I thought I was or at least was becoming ravaged my consciousness.

Page 239 of 293