The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a…
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.
The Cupcake Thief explains the workings of the U.S. court system in an easy and meaningful way. When a cupcake disappears and a student is blamed, the teacher turns the classroom…
Abstract
The Cupcake Thief explains the workings of the U.S. court system in an easy and meaningful way. When a cupcake disappears and a student is blamed, the teacher turns the classroom into a courtroom in order to determine the student’s guilt or innocence. Comparisons are made between Student Court and the United States’ court system as the reader goes through the text. Helpful information boxes, placed throughout the text, explain relevant terminology and facts related to the court system. Students explore the U.S. judicial system and relevant terminology through active participation in Reader’s Theater and a simulated classroom court system. They identify aspects of the judicial system by constructing a juror’s experience through journal writing.
Over 100 years ago, Emil Kraepelin revolutionised the classification of psychosis by identifying what he argued were two natural disease entities: manic depressive psychosis…
Abstract
Purpose
Over 100 years ago, Emil Kraepelin revolutionised the classification of psychosis by identifying what he argued were two natural disease entities: manic depressive psychosis (bipolar disorder) and dementia praecox (schizophrenia). Kraepelin's discoveries have since become the “twin pillars” of mainstream psychiatric thinking, practice, and research. Today, however, a growing number of researchers, clinicians, and mental health service users have rejected this model and call for a symptom‐led approach to prioritise subjective experience over diagnostic category. The purpose of this paper is to ask: how can the published first‐person accounts of experts by experience contribute to these debates?
Design/methodology/approach
This paper analyses the representation of psychiatric diagnosis in two prominent autobiographies: Kurt Snyder's Me, Myself, and Them: A Firsthand Account of One Young Person's Experience with Schizophrenia (2007) and Elyn Saks' The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (2007).
Findings
As well as providing a prognosis and a plan for treatment, the psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia gives shape and meaning to the illness experience and ultimately becomes the pivot or platform from which identity and memoir unfold.
Practical implications
The paper introduces two popular autobiographical accounts of schizophrenia which may be useful resources for mental health service users and clinicians.
Social implications
The paper highlights the complex ways in which people interpret and make meaning from their psychiatric diagnosis.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates that first‐person accounts make an important, if frequently overlooked, contribution to debates about psychiatric diagnosis.
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Suggests that the maintenance sector will be under strain as sales of aircraft continue to rise. Points out that many companies will need to update their paper‐based systems as…
Abstract
Suggests that the maintenance sector will be under strain as sales of aircraft continue to rise. Points out that many companies will need to update their paper‐based systems as they will need to control all aspects of their performance. Emphasizes that these companies must not lose sight of their customers’ ever‐changing requirements.
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This paper seeks to analyse a popular novel with regard to the topic of depression.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to analyse a popular novel with regard to the topic of depression.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a parallel account of psychological and literary interpretation of a novel depicting a patient suffering from depression.
Findings
The paper gives an account of a patient with experience of suffering from depression.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation of this paper lies in its analysis of only one novel with regard to depression.
Practical implications
This novel could be used for people suffering from depression.
Social implications
This is an account of life/socio‐cultural experience of a patient.
Originality/value
Greater insight into proceedings and the experience of a patient could mean possible usage for psychotherapists.
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There is evidence to suggest an association between mood disorders, in particular bipolar disorder, and creativity. This paper aims to examine the evidence that the writer Herman…
Abstract
Purpose
There is evidence to suggest an association between mood disorders, in particular bipolar disorder, and creativity. This paper aims to examine the evidence that the writer Herman Melville suffered from bipolar disorder.
Design/methodology/approach
An interdisciplinary approach is adopted, examining the genetic and biographical evidence as well as textual examples that illustrate the argument in his masterpiece Moby Dick.
Findings
Taking the genetic, behavioural, and textual evidence together, it is concluded that the likelihood that Melville did have bipolar disorder is high.
Research limitations/implications
Retrospective analysis of the biographies and work of deceased writers has acknowledged limitations. Close examination of all Melville's literary output would be useful to either add credence to this theory or refute it.
Social implications
Adding to the evidence that revered writers and artists were on the bipolar disorder spectrum helps people with the condition feel more positive and reduces stigma.
Originality/value
Close literary examination of textual examples of hypomanic writing, combined with a psychological approach to Melville's biography provides evidence that Melville's mental illness contributed positively to his creativity as a writer and is therefore evidence that this condition has some benefits to society.
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David Flood and Carol‐Ann Farkas
This paper seeks to examine the value of teaching about mental illness through the use of literature.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine the value of teaching about mental illness through the use of literature.
Design/methodology/approach
Using the examples of two colleges in eastern USA that focus on educating students for healthcare careers, the paper examines two different course formats for using literature to teach about mental illness: a course that places the topic within the larger context of medicine and literature; and a freestanding madness and literature course.
Findings
While professional education tends towards specialization, it can lead to a monocultural vision that limits approaches to patients and problems alike. Courses integrating mental illness and literature were found to be effective means of counteracting this trend.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to two healthcare‐centred colleges in eastern USA.
Practical implications
For mental health clinicians and healthcare professionals in general, literature broadens the scope of both perspectives and analytical tools for understanding mental disorders and responses to them.
Originality/value
While literature courses often contain such themes as mental illness, courses that truly integrate literature with mental illness meet a growing need for interdisciplinary education as a means of preparing more flexibly thinking healthcare professionals.
Details
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Literature and legend features many dangerous female characters. However, in fiction (and in film), it is the male psychopath who dominates. In the scientific literature, research…
Abstract
Purpose
Literature and legend features many dangerous female characters. However, in fiction (and in film), it is the male psychopath who dominates. In the scientific literature, research into psychopathy in men also dominates. Studies of the nature and treatment of this severe personality disorder in women are sparse and little is known or agreed about its presentation in this group. Consequently, psychopathy is not routinely assessed in women and the harmful potential of some can be overlooked leading to failures in the management of risk, especially towards partners and children. The purpose of this paper is to explore how psychopathic women manifest the traits of their disorder compared to men.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper focuses on the representation of women in fiction who appear to demonstrate psychopathic traits. Several relevant works of fiction will be identified but three texts are described in detail and their female characters and storylines explored.
Findings
Gender differences and practice implications are highlighted. Specifically, the paper explores the nuanced ways in which women execute their harmful conduct on others and their most likely relationships with the victims of their aggression; comparisons with men are drawn throughout. Further, comparisons are drawn between the psychopathic female characters created by men and women writers.
Practical implications
The study of psychopathic women in fiction is an invaluable adjunct to empirical research as a way of understanding the phenomenology of psychopathy in this group.
Originality/value
This paper is the first to examine the representation of psychopathic women in fiction and to propose the value of fiction in the study of this particular group of clients.
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This paper seeks to describe the advantages and limitations of using the mental illness memoir to teach future health care providers about mental illness.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to describe the advantages and limitations of using the mental illness memoir to teach future health care providers about mental illness.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of the challenges to reconstructing the mental illness experience is followed by “caveats and considerations” in employing the mental illness memoir to teach prospective health care providers about mental illness. The importance of examining the way the many factors that shape the mental illness narrative is emphasised.
Findings
While mental illness memoirs can be effective vehicles for educating students about mental illness, they may be even more valuable when accompanied by a careful examination of the factors that may have affected the construction of the narrative itself. An ecologically‐based conceptual model is proposed as a framework for systematic analysis of the mental illness memoir. A checklist of factors to employ in the analysis (inventory of influences on the mental illness narrative) is also included.
Practical implications
To use the mental illness memoir effectively as a pedagogical strategy in clinical education, one needs a strategy for organising and interpreting the characteristics of both clients and their contexts.
Originality/value
This model and the accompanying checklist incorporate a broad range of both individual and contextual factors that affect the stories individuals construct about their mental illness. The model can serve as a framework for analysis of an individual memoir and may also suggest specific avenues for further research across multiple accounts or the genre itself.