Search results

The most widely used method of qualitatively evaluating a library's collections is the list‐checking method, a process in which the library's holdings are compared with one or more lists of selected titles. The types of lists commonly used are published, standardized lists representing core or basic collections, catalogs of other libraries, or specialized subject bibliographies. The literature on this method of collection evaluation is extensive, dating back to the 1930s; covering the types of lists used for evaluations, the advantages and disadvantages of using such a method, and the various ways of implementing this type of evaluation.

According to an old saying, the best library in the world is one that is empty, for all its books have been borrowed. But modern libraries are bursting with books and other resources and their burgeoning collections defy conventional stock‐taking. The unprecedented growth of knowledge in contemporary times has created complex problems and new challenges, not the least important of which is collection evaluation. This essay describes one way to meet this increasingly important problem by taking a new approach and creating a new model.

Each special collection starts out as a core assemblage of books. As the collection's size increases, its quality (it is assumed) does as well. If a library is lucky, it will have a bibliographer in charge of such a collection: someone knowledgeable of the ins and outs of his or her discipline; someone who keeps “current with a discipline's investigations and monitor[s] its evolutions.” In reality, however, the person in charge of developing a particular collection often may not have a good scholarly foundation in the subject, particularly in a public library, where there is less of a tradition of hiring subject specialists as bibliographers than there is in academic libraries. Once a collection has grown considerably in size and scope, and has benefitted from the tastes and choices of a number of bibliographers of varying backgrounds and qualifications, it becomes necessary to assess the quality of the collection. One practical way to evaluate and build a collection, which can be used by those who do not possess a thorough scholarly foundation in the subject in which they collect, is outlined below.

SHERRIE S. BERGMAN is College Librarian of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She served previously as director of the Roger Williams College Library and on the library reference staff at the New School for Social Research.

A prominent field of research in Library Science during the past thirty years has been collection assessment of college and university libraries. No other subject has received the attention in library literature as has the question of how to evaluate a collection to determine whether it adequately supports the goals, curriculum, and needs of the sponsoring organization. Collection assessment has also attracted more interest from scholars outside the library profession than any other aspect of librarianship. Research in this area should be of value to collection development personnel in all college and university libraries.

This paper aims to offer empirical evidence about the effect of the interaction between the audit committee and the internal audit function (IAF) on the moral courage of the chief audit executive (CAE).

A mixed approach was followed. In the first stage, questionnaires were sent to CAEs of 60 listed, financial and non-financial Tunisian companies. To enhance the depth of the analysis, in the second stage, semi-directed interviews with 22 CAEs from listed financial and non-financial Tunisian companies were performed.

This paper found that the existence of private access to the audit committee has a positive effect on the moral courage of the CAE. The number of meetings between the audit committee and the CAE, the examination of internal audit programmes and results together with the contribution of the audit committee to the appointment and dismissal of the CAE do not show a significant link with the moral courage of the CAE. It also found an insignificant relationship between the audit committee’s examination of interaction between management and the IAF and the moral courage of the CAE.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this paper fills one of the major research gaps in the auditing literature by demonstrating the critical role of audit committee–internal audit interaction in promoting the CAE’s moral courage to behave ethically.

This chapter aims to enhance understanding of the main drivers of internal auditors' moral courage to speak up about sensitive information and their cause-and-effect relationships. We use cognitive mapping method to analyze 20 chief audit executives' cognitive maps in Tunisia. A collective map was grounded through assembling the full individual maps. Using the Decision Explorer software for our analysis, we find that the state hope, whistle-blowing policy, self-efficacy, perceived supervisor support and independence of internal audit function are the main drivers for internal auditors' moral courage. Our findings are also supplemented by semi-structured interviews. Our chapter offers a novel methodological contribution to auditing literature as well as new empirical evidence (contribution to knowledge) on the drivers of internal auditors' moral courage.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

This article analyses the issue of discipline violations in a Russian textile company. Discipline violations proliferated in Soviet times and were tolerated by managers. The cause has been identified in the limited form of control exercised over the production process, resulting from the social relations existing in the Soviet Union. Evidence from the case study indicates that no fundamental change has occurred in this area since the transition. The research documents the material and psychological hardships experienced by workers, the relational practices constraining line managers, and it tries to discern the conceptual and operative limits of disciplinary campaigns by top management.