Yaming Fu, Elizabeth Lomas, Charles Inskip and Jenny Bunn
The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and understand international users' library experience in the Digital Age in order to inform library service design and ensure it…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe, analyze and understand international users' library experience in the Digital Age in order to inform library service design and ensure it provides an inclusive environment. In this study, the behavioral and experiential aspects of user library experience are merged to develop essential interconnections between information behavior (IB) and user experience (UX) in the context of the academic library with the goal of constructing a more holistic understanding of ‘library experience.
Design/methodology/approach
The study was built on the concept “library experience” through analyzing its essential components of IB and UX. It was developed through findings from mixed methods research, consisting of the quantitative investigation from a library log analysis, and qualitative investigations via cognitive mapping exercises and semi-structured interviews, both targeted on the largest single group of international students in United Kingdom – international Chinese students.
Findings
The findings demonstrated the complexity and multilayered characteristics of international Chinese students' library context, and three unique contexts emerged from the data shaping their library experience. Building on the previous findings on the connections between IB and UX, the work attempted to redefine “library experience” by joining both behavioral and experiential aspects. It is found that the key components of cultural library experience are the multilayered context, cultural group's perception needs, sense-making process and subjective evaluations.
Originality/value
This study joins the behavioral and experiential perspectives together to explore library experience in a more holistic way and proposes a systematic structure to understand and analyze library experience, especially that of international users in a cross-cultural context, which, in turn, will better serve their information needs and inform the design of a more equal and inclusive library system.
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Charles Inskip, Andy MacFarlane and Pauline Rafferty
The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the classification of commercial popular music when large digital collections are organised for use in films.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the classification of commercial popular music when large digital collections are organised for use in films.
Design/methodology/approach
A range of systems are investigated and their organization is discussed, focusing on an analysis of the metadata used by the systems and choices given to the end‐user to construct a query. The indexing of the music is compared with a check‐list of music facets which has been derived from recent musicological literature on semiotic analysis of popular music. These facets include aspects of communication, cultural and musical expression, codes and competences.
Findings
In addition to bibliographic detail, descriptive metadata are used to organise music in these systems. Genre, subject and mood are used widely; some musical facets also appear. The extent to which attempts are being made to reflect these facets in the organization of these systems is discussed. A number of recommendations are made which may help to improve this process.
Originality/value
The paper discusses an area of creative music search which has not previously been investigated in any depth and makes recommendations based on findings and the literature which may be used in the development of commercial systems as well as making a contribution to the literature.
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Charles Inskip, Andrew MacFarlane and Pauline Rafferty
If an information retrieval system is going to be of value to the user then it must give meaning to the information which matches the meaning given to it by the user. The meaning…
Abstract
Purpose
If an information retrieval system is going to be of value to the user then it must give meaning to the information which matches the meaning given to it by the user. The meaning given to music varies according to who is interpreting it – the author/composer, the performer, cataloguer or the listener – and this affects how music is organized and retrieved. This paper aims to examine the meaning of music, how meaning is communicated and suggests this may affect music retrieval.
Design/methodology/approach
Musicology is used to define music and examine its functions leading to a discussion of how music has been organised and described. Various ways of establishing the meaning of music are reviewed, focussing on established musical analysis techniques. It is suggested that traditional methods are of limited use with digitised popular music. A discussion of semiotics and a review of semiotic analysis in western art music leads to a discussion of semiotics of popular music and examines ideas of Middleton, Stefani and Tagg.
Findings
Agreeing that music exists when communication takes place, a discussion of selected communication models leads to the proposal of a revised version of Tagg's model, adjusting it to include listener feedback.
Originality/value
The outcome of the analysis is a revised version of Tagg's communication model, adapted to reflect user feedback. It is suggested that this revised communication model reflects the way in which meaning is given to music.
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A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that…
Abstract
A distinction must be drawn between a dismissal on the one hand, and on the other a repudiation of a contract of employment as a result of a breach of a fundamental term of that contract. When such a repudiation has been accepted by the innocent party then a termination of employment takes place. Such termination does not constitute dismissal (see London v. James Laidlaw & Sons Ltd (1974) IRLR 136 and Gannon v. J. C. Firth (1976) IRLR 415 EAT).
January 15, 1973 Ironfoundry — Statutory duty — Breach — Noxious dust — Prolonged inhalation of noxious dust — Chronic lung illness — Employers' actual or constructive knowledge…
Abstract
January 15, 1973 Ironfoundry — Statutory duty — Breach — Noxious dust — Prolonged inhalation of noxious dust — Chronic lung illness — Employers' actual or constructive knowledge of health hazard — Test to apply when determining constructive knowledge — Whether employer should be aware of recent medical or scientific knowledge — Factories Act, 1961 (9 & 10 Eliz.II, c.34), ss.4(l), 63(1).
The necessity of standards of purity for certain kinds of agricultural produce being now recognised by the new Adulteration Act—4, (1)—no apology is needed for attempting to bring…
Abstract
The necessity of standards of purity for certain kinds of agricultural produce being now recognised by the new Adulteration Act—4, (1)—no apology is needed for attempting to bring the application of the principle into actual practice. Some few standards have already been generally adopted, and the legalization of limits relating to many of those substances with which the Adulteration Acts deal would undoubtedly be welcomed.
The information which has hitherto appeared in the daily press as to the evidence laid before the Departmental Committee which is inquiring into the use of preservatives and…
Abstract
The information which has hitherto appeared in the daily press as to the evidence laid before the Departmental Committee which is inquiring into the use of preservatives and colouring matters can hardly have afforded pleasant reading to the apologists for the drugging of foods. It is plainly the intention of the Committee to make a thorough investigation of the whole subject, and the main conclusions which, in the result, must bo forced upon unbiassed persons by an investigation of this character will be tolerably obvious to those who have given serious attention to the subject. At a later stage of the inquiry we shall publish a full account of the evidence submitted and of the Committee's proceedings. At present we may observe that the facts which have been brought forward fully confirm the statements made from time to time upon these matters in the BRITISH FOOD JOURNAL, and amply justify the attitude which we have adopted on the whole question. Representatives of various trade interests have given evidence which has served to show the extent to which the practices now being inquired into are followed. Strong medical evidence, as to the dangers which must attach to the promiscuous and unacknowledged drugging of the public by more or less ignorant persons, has been given; and some medical evidence of that apologetic order to which the public have of late become accustomed, and which we, at any rate, regard as particularly feeble, has also been put forward. Much more will no doubt be said, but those who have borne the heat and burden of the day in forcing these matters upon the attention of the Legislature and of the public can view with satisfaction the result already attained. Full and free investigation must produce its educational effect ; and whatever legal machinery may be devised to put some kind of check upon these most dangerous forms of adulteration, the demand of the public will be for undrugged food, and for a guarantee of sufficient authority to ensure that the demand is met.
The new sub‐department of the Local Government Board, recently created for the purpose of dealing with problems relating to the food supply as regards character and quality, is…
Abstract
The new sub‐department of the Local Government Board, recently created for the purpose of dealing with problems relating to the food supply as regards character and quality, is one apparently whose energies will, in the first place, bo chiefly directed to the institution of some control over the purity of the milk supply of the country. This National Pood Bureau appears to be primarily the outcome of the appeals that have been made from time to time to the authorities to exercise the powers invested in certain Government departments more stringently. Presumably attention will not be limited to the milk supply, important though that be, but in the near future various questions relating to cattle in general will bo dealt with. The two subjects of milk and meat are too closely allied to permit of each one being treated separately or without reference to the other. At the same time, if these closely related questions of milk and meat are to be adequately dealt with it is impossible to leave out of sight the subject of the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of the imported meat that comes in such immense quantities into this country from abroad. At the present time the bulk of the meat so imported reaches this country from the United States, and in increasingly large quantities from South America. The justifiable outcry that was raised some years ago regarding the American meat packing scandals has, it would seem, quite died down; but unfortunately we have the strongest evidence that the temporary falling off in the trade in imported preserved meat between this country and the United States, which followed upon the agitation, has had but little salutary effect, and that the quality of the meat sent to this country from the United States still leaves much to be desired.