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Article
Publication date: 1 September 2005

Richard A. Fenner, Charles M. Ainger, Heather J. Cruickshank and Peter M. Guthrie

The paper seeks to examine the latest stage in a process of change aimed at introducing concepts of sustainable development into the activities of the Department of Engineering at…

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Abstract

Purpose

The paper seeks to examine the latest stage in a process of change aimed at introducing concepts of sustainable development into the activities of the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University, UK.

Design/methodology/approach

The rationale behind defining the skills which future engineers require is discussed and vehicles for change at both undergraduate and postgraduate level are described. Reflections on the paradigms and pedagogy of teaching sustainable development issues to engineers are offered, as well as notes on barriers to progress which have been encountered.

Findings

The paper observes that the ability to effectively initiate a change process is a vital skill which must be formally developed in those engineers wishing to seek sustainable solutions from within the organisations for which they will work. Lessons are drawn about managing a change process within a large academic department, so that concepts of sustainable development can be effectively introduced across all areas of the engineering curriculum.

Practical implications

A new pedagogy for dealing with changes from the quantitative to the qualitative is required, as the paper questions where the education balance should lie between providing access to technological knowledge which can be applied to designing hard solutions, and training engineers to rethink their fundamental attitudes towards a broader, multiple perspective approach in which problem formulation and context setting play a vital role in reaching consensual solutions.

Originality/value

The paper reviews previously recognised key themes for engineering education for sustainable development, and proposes three further essential ingredients relating to an engineer's ability to engage in problem definition, manage change in organisations, and understand the nature of technical and business innovations.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 6 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

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Article
Publication date: 1 April 1917

Prominence is given in this issue to the interesting Diamond Jubilee celebration held last month in connection with the Norwich Public Library. It was a courageous but entirely…

47

Abstract

Prominence is given in this issue to the interesting Diamond Jubilee celebration held last month in connection with the Norwich Public Library. It was a courageous but entirely proper thing to hold this celebration in war time, because although it was calculated to raise opposition from short‐sighted people, at the same time it was good policy to affirm that the Public Library is an essential part of national economy even in the greatest of wars. Excellent arguments on behalf of this last proposition were advanced at that meeting in the happy speech made by Mr. L. Stanley Jast, which we hope to see published in even fuller form sooner or later, and equally in the letter from Sir Frederic Kenyon. This gains greatly in force from the fact that Sir Frederic is not only an officer in the Army, but is, we believe, at this moment serving in France. If any of our readers have had doubts about the present seasonableness of their work, and there may conceivably be such, they may wisely ponder the letter and again take heart of grace. As for the celebration as a whole, it was, as we have said, opportune; it was also skilfully engineered and advertised, and was an undoubted success upon which the Norwich Library Committee and Mr. G. A. Stephen have every reason to congratulate themselves.

Details

New Library World, vol. 19 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

Available. Content available
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Publication date: 27 May 2020

Abstract

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Teaching and Learning Strategies for Sustainable Development
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78973-639-7

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Article
Publication date: 1 April 1961

FRANK SWINNERTON

Luck, altruism, shrewdness, parsimony, industry, generosity, and what some authors (and librarians, perhaps) call hardness of heart have always been the characteristics of a…

32

Abstract

Luck, altruism, shrewdness, parsimony, industry, generosity, and what some authors (and librarians, perhaps) call hardness of heart have always been the characteristics of a successful publisher. He has first of all been a man of energy, sure of his own judgement, ready to accept losses, and (after success) conceited about his flair. In early days ready to work until all hours and to read every manuscript submitted to him (although comparatively few unsolicited manuscripts are worth publishing), he has been forced with the growth of his business to accept advice from employees of a peculiar type—those who, with no wish for glittering rewards, can tell him exactly what he needs to know about the inevitable avalanche. He has made friends in all professions; and these friends, also disinterested, have lent him their brains, instructing him in all sorts of possibilities in their own fields. He has used these friends without scruple.

Details

Library Review, vol. 18 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0024-2535

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Article
Publication date: 1 August 1899

In the second edition of Greenwood's “Public Libraries,” 1887, p. 137, there is a description of the Dent Indicator, from which it may be gathered that such an indicator was…

41

Abstract

In the second edition of Greenwood's “Public Libraries,” 1887, p. 137, there is a description of the Dent Indicator, from which it may be gathered that such an indicator was actually constructed. The inventor, however, is of opinion that his idea never got so far as realization in material form, though there can be hardly any doubt that Mr. Dent's indicator is the first to combine indicating with charging, and that it suggested several succeeding devices. His account of it is interesting, as it mentions the existence of an early form of card indicator which has since been reinvented in various styles. “A certain Mr. Christie, Librarian of the Constitution Hill Branch Library (Birmingham), about 1868, constructed a small rack with cards bearing the titles of a selection of the books in history, science, &c, open to the public, and the presence of one of these tickets in the rack indicated that the book was ‘in.’ If anyone wished to take one of the books thus shown, he lifted the ticket out of the rack (there was no glass in front) and handed it to the attendant who put it in a box till the book came back, and then replaced it almost anywhere in the rack. This gave me an idea that the cumberous system of day‐book, posting‐book, and constant piles of books to be marked off as returned might be done away with, if tickets in a rack representing every number in the library were substituted for book‐entry, &c.” Mr. Dent's improvement upon this idea consisted in the provision of a series of numbered shelves in columns, with spaces between to take the borrowers' cards when the books were out. The back of the borrower's card was to be ruled to allow of numbers and dates being pencilled thereon, and, of course, the presence of a borrower's card under a number indicated a book “ out.”

Details

New Library World, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Article
Publication date: 1 December 1903

OF all trades or professions, with pretensions to some measure of specialization, if not learning, librarianship is the only one which does not make preliminary technical training…

44

Abstract

OF all trades or professions, with pretensions to some measure of specialization, if not learning, librarianship is the only one which does not make preliminary technical training an absolute condition of entrance to its fellowship. We know, from past experience, that the ranks of the library profession are filled from all sorts of sources and by all kinds of men, very few of whom can show a diploma, or any kind of certificate, beyond their own word and the testimony of interested friends, to prove that they possess any special qualification for the work. In this respect librarianship differs from every other branch of the municipal and public educational services of the country. There is no independent test of fitness applied, even for positions of great responsibility, and librarians hold tenure of their offices by means of credentials which would not be accepted in the case of most town clerks, medical officers, accountants, surveyors, schoolmasters, and even sanitary inspectors. We are assumed to possess qualifications of a profound and immense range, but, beyond the undoubted power to announce this, by means of the voices and tongues with which we are lavishly endowed, our references are, for the most part, testimonies to character and experience, rather than to scientific training and professional capacity. Mr. X. spends fifteen years in the service of the O. Public Library, which was organised by a superannuated railway guard in 1862, on lines which were, no doubt, suggested by his former experience in dealing with parcels, passengers, and other luggage. This system has the merit of being based upon the science of Mathematics, because number is the main factor relied upon in every department, and for every purpose. It may, possess, moreover, an elementary relationship to the science of literature by making some use of the ordinary English alphabet, and so we have a combination of letters and numerals which is satisfactory evidence that the librarian was no fool, although he was only a railway guard. His literary methods are, therefore, of the A, B, C, 1, 2, 3. type, and all his assistants are carefully trained in the art of preserving bibliographical order by observing that 5 comes between 4 and 6, and q after p. Now, the assistant who has been brought up in this kind of library may have 15 years' so‐called experience behind him to which he can proudly refer, when applying for a chief post, and there is nothing on earth to show that he does not know absolutely everything about literature, bibliography and library methods—ancient and modern, retrograde and advanced, childish and scientific, or that he is not, in every sense of the word, a Complete Librarian. Indeed, the possession of such an imposing qualification as Fifteen Years' Experience is enough to intimidate any ordinary committee who have no standards by which to compare such a phenomenon. There is no standard by which we can at present judge the qualifications of any librarian, unless he is ass enough to reveal his shortcomings by writing books and papers, and what is really happening every day is simply that appointments are being made on the successful candidate's own valuation of his fitness. He is not tested as regards his professional ability at all, and library authorities are driven to appoint men who have had a long term of experience, no matter how elementary or antiquated it may be. They cannot do anything else in the absence of proper training schools, and certificates of special knowledge, issued by independent and impartial examining bodies. It is quite common to hear librarians boasting about their ten, twenty, or thirty years of experience, who would be sorely put to it to answer intelligently any ordinary question in English literature, systematic classification, or bibliography. These men have managed to establish a kind of freehold for mere experience, minus every other qualification, and it is their continuance in office which has prevented Public Libraries from being more liberally recognised by both State and local authorities. This absurd substitution of mere experience in feeble and unworthy methods, for systematic training in the higher departments of librarianship, has produced a race of self‐sufficient librarians—inferior in general intelligence to commercial clerks and shopmen—who have succeeded, by their narrow‐minded mal‐administration and absence of culture, to thoroughly eradicate any little scrap of confidence in the Public Library idea originally cherished by the people. It is fashionable among those gentlemen to blame parliamentary and municipal stinginess and indifference, as the sole causes of the inadequate financial provision to be squeezed out of a 1d. rate. They can account for everything on this theory—small salaries, invisible book‐funds, poor buildings equipped with inferior furniture, and so on—forgetting, in their inflated self‐sufficiency, how much of this neglect and indifference is due to their own ignorance and failure to interest either people or governors. The argument that everything must wait till the penny rate is abolished is the refuge of everyone who has failed to realize the important fact that, if recognition is wanted, it must be worked for. It may be taken as pretty conclusive that the failure of Public Libraries to obtain greater support from the people and Parliament is due largely to an all‐round failure to meet public needs in a thoroughly efficient manner. It matters not if some twenty or thirty places are managed on business‐like and scientific lines. They cannot influence other places at a distance, scattered all over the Kingdom to the number of 450, and inaccessible in other respects to the reformative effect of a good example. There are plenty of superior, cock‐sure librarians going about, with all the authority conferred by twenty years' experience—and nothing else—telling the people that the utmost degree of accomplishment to be had for a penny has been reached. This alone is enough to counteract the good work of fifty well‐managed libraries. The people say to themselves, “If our library represents all we can get for a penny, and our librarian is the sort of man we may expect in the future, what's the good of paying more for a double dose of the same kind of outfit?”

Details

New Library World, vol. 6 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0307-4803

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Article
Publication date: 1 June 1936

IN our last issue of 1935 we published a symposium, contributed to by well‐known British librarians, on the above fascinating subject. The symposium aroused a considerable amount…

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Abstract

IN our last issue of 1935 we published a symposium, contributed to by well‐known British librarians, on the above fascinating subject. The symposium aroused a considerable amount of interest. Readers will, we feel sure, welcome the views of a number of distinguished overseas librarians on the same subject.

Details

Library Review, vol. 5 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0024-2535

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Article
Publication date: 6 July 2012

Heather Cruickshank and Richard Fenner

The purpose of the paper is to examine how a number of key themes are introduced in the Master's programme in Engineering for Sustainable Development, at Cambridge University…

1807

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to examine how a number of key themes are introduced in the Master's programme in Engineering for Sustainable Development, at Cambridge University, through student‐centred activities. These themes include dealing with complexity, uncertainty, change, other disciplines, people, environmental limits, whole life costs, and trade‐offs.

Design/methodology/approach

The range of exercises and assignments designed to encourage students to test their own assumptions and abilities to develop competencies in these areas are analysed by mapping the key themes onto the formal activities which all students undertake throughout the core MPhil programme. The paper reviews the range of these activities that are designed to help support the formal delivery of the taught programme. These include residential field courses, role plays, change challenges, games, systems thinking, multi criteria decision making, awareness of literature from other disciplines and consultancy projects. An axial coding approach to the analysis of routine feedback questionnaires drawn from recent years has been used to identify how a student's own awareness develops. Also results of two surveys are presented which test the students' perceptions about whether or not the course is providing learning environments to develop awareness and skills in these areas.

Findings

Students generally perform well against these tasks with a significant feature being the mutual support they give to each other in their learning. The paper concludes that for students from an engineering background it is an holistic approach to delivering a new way of thinking through a combination of lectures, class activities, assignments, interactions between class members, and access to material elsewhere in the University that enables participants to develop their skills in each of the key themes.

Originality/value

The paper provides a reflection on different pedagogical approaches to exploring key sustainable themes and reports students' own perceptions of the value of these kinds of activities. Experiences are shared of running a range of diverse learning activities within a professional practice Master's programme.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 13 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

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Article
Publication date: 2 February 2023

Grecia Alarcon-Pereira, Izabela Simon Rampasso, Francisco J. Tapia-Ubeda, Karol Rojas-Aguilar and Carolina Rojas-Córdova

Considering the relevance of education for sustainable development (SD) to enhancing engineers’ abilities to contribute towards sustainability-related issues, this study aims to…

366

Abstract

Purpose

Considering the relevance of education for sustainable development (SD) to enhancing engineers’ abilities to contribute towards sustainability-related issues, this study aims to help understand the global context of the insertion of SD into engineering education and to provide guidelines to further evolve research and efforts towards implementing Engineering Education for Sustainable Development (EESD).

Design/methodology/approach

This study performed a longitudinal analysis using bibliometrics and a content analysis via Conceive–Design–Implement–Operate standards. SciMAT software was used to support the bibliometric analysis.

Findings

In addition to an increase in the practical aspects presented due to a change in the approaches taken to examine key topics, evidence on important concepts such as “life cycle assessment” and “digitalisation” increased in more recent years. However, it was possible to show that, despite the evolution observed throughout the years, several important opportunities exist for engineering programmes to improve and, for researchers, to fill the related gaps in the research.

Originality/value

This study can be used as a guide for future research and as a source of insights for EESD implementation and improvement.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 24 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

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