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The paper explores the implementation and process of a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project in Jacksonville, Florida. Using PAR principles, we sought to disrupt traditional dynamics in research, co-generating knowledge with the community. We aimed to elevate disenfranchised voices and foster effective solutions for neighborhood revitalization and resilience, which are designed and led by the community. In this paper we explore researcher positionality, examining how engagement with the community context profoundly influences researchers' perspectives and roles, thereby shaping the study trajectory.

We use reflexive and thematic approaches to analyze researcher positionalities and dynamics with the community. Researchers' reflections were scrutinized with a focus on their backgrounds, adaptability to community pace of work, lessons learned and evolving perspectives on community-centered research. We present a comprehensive discussion of emerging themes and emphasize the transformative nature of PAR and the significance of the researcher pursuing a relationship of belonging within the community.

The study uncovered key themes clarifying the transformations experienced by researchers engaged in PAR. We underwent a significant shift from a predetermined, structured PAR model to a more organic, community-driven model. This shift is illustrated under key themes in the paper: being vulnerable, valuing relationships, transforming the sense of self and solidarity, focusing on the process and recognizing and valuing community-derived knowledge. We write about the metamorphosis of researchers' roles from passive observers to active and empathic participants and about the implications for our methodological approach. As a result of this adaptation, the research process was enhanced and a symbiotic learning environment was created between the researchers and the community.

This paper distinguishes itself through its community-centric approach, diverging from traditional research paradigms. It explores how PAR-based community engagement can have a positive impact on those who are involved in PAR themselves, contributing to a better understanding of reciprocal dynamics in community-based research. We hope that our process of reflection can help other disaster researchers to ask better questions of themselves when engaging with communities and be open to following the lead and the pace of the community.

Early on, public libraries in America tended toward grand appearances befitting seriousness of purpose. Library design changed gradually through the 20th century and more dramatically with automation and new technology. Today's libraries are becoming lively community cultural centers that may include art galleries, flexible auditoriums, meeting and conference rooms, media lounges, and cafés.

This chapter discusses changes in public library design. It focuses on four recent examples – two traditional libraries and two innovative libraries. The changing requirements present significant challenges for library administrators and for the architects who must design the libraries to be organized and used appropriately, now and in the future.

Purpose – This paper considers the role of relationality as an interpretive strategy in the workplace, asking how one group of low-wage workers interpret their jobs in the service economy.

Methodology – Qualitative interviews with 25 female retail workers.

Findings – I argue that these retail workers use a relational ethic to interpret various aspects of their work. Relationality colors workers’ understanding of their job responsibilities, their own accounts of self-development in the workplace, and their strategies for resolving conflict on the shop floor.

Practical implications – These findings are particularly relevant for current labor union activities, and thus I conclude by discussing the implications of this relational ethic for attempts to organize workers in the retail sector. Workers who prioritize relationships ahead of material gains in the workplace may be particularly uncomfortable with more confrontational styles of labor organization.

Originality/Value of paper – Economic sociologists increasingly stress relational aspects of the economy, such as the role of networks in enabling market transactions; the significance of social ties in shaping economic exchange, and the importance of economic activity in constituting relationships themselves. This paper builds on that framework by arguing that workers also use a relational ethic to interpret their activity within the workforce itself.

By examining types of literacies taught by public libraries and the modes through which these programs were offered, this study aims to explore how public libraries might integrate data literacy training for the general public into existing library educational programs.

This study examined programs offered in 30 US public libraries during 2019 and 2020 to better understand types of literacy education announced to the public through library website listings and Facebook Events pages.

While public libraries offered educational programs in literacy areas ranging from basic reading and writing to technology, vocational skills, health literacy and more, data literacy training was not widely offered. However, this study identified many already-existing programs highly compatible for integrating with data literacy training.

This study offered new insights into both the literacies taught in public library programs as well as ways for public libraries to integrate data literacy training into existing educational programming, in order to better provide data literacy education for the general public.

To report the highlights of the annual Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) Top Technology Trends program at 2007 American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington, DC.

Provides a brief review of the conference program on technology issues in libraries.

This summary of LITA section Top Technology Trends program with presentations and information. The presentations focus is on new technologies and their applications in a variety of library environments. The program offered a wide variety of timely presentations that were on new and emerging technologies and the application to the library environment.

Provides descriptions of opinions on technological trends in library and information services from industry professionals.

Tourism is sensitive to many factors related to security, such as terrorism and armed conflict. This scenario can be considered for Colombia and its National Natural Parks. The signing of the peace agreement with the revolutionary armed forces (FARC-EP) of Colombia that would end the armed conflict in 2016 offers economic possibilities for the country where tourism represents an important option, especially in natural areas where the government has regained control. This has had an impact on the sustained growth of tourism demand. The objective of this study is to determine the sensitivity of the tourism market in Colombia and natural parks and its relationship with the evolutionary dynamics of tourism, in a context of armed conflict. Variables related to visitors and the armed conflict were associated by autoregressive vectors, Pearson correlation test and Granger causality. A correlation of −0.5474 was found for the accumulated period from 1995 to 2018. It was also determined that the number of victims of the armed conflict is the Granger cause of the number of visitors to natural parks. The study concludes that the sensitivity of tourism in natural parks in Colombia is a consequence of State policy for the partial termination of the internal armed conflict.

This paper aims to analyse an initiative to provide learners on “career‐based” programmes with opportunities to reflect upon their values within the context of sustainability.

An international literature review relating values and behaviour to the sustainability agenda led to the development of “sustainability training” workshop activities for construction students at the University of Plymouth. The activities, drawing on good practice from a range of education for sustainability initiatives and the behavioral discipline Neuro Linguistic Programming, enable participants to elicit and reflect upon their core values and to relate these to key sustainability issues. Following multiple pilots the workshops were offered as voluntary field trials to students, their effectiveness being measured through structured feedback.

The feedback returns demonstrate the popularity of the enquiry‐based learning techniques utilized and the effectiveness of the individual activities in achieving their aims. Constructive criticism centred on the need to simplify some of the activity instructions.

This research shows that open‐ended enquiry‐based learning techniques are useful for promoting sustainability values within educational programmes. As the activities described here are not discipline‐specific, they have potential to be adapted for similar disciplines at other institutions and for use with other career‐based disciplines.

Much is written about the need to embed sustainability values in the curriculum. This paper describes a method of fulfilling this need and may be of significant value to those attempting to embed sustainability within educational programmes.

The purpose of this paper is to gain understanding about the effectiveness of a forensic peer support program’s impact on reducing criminal recidivism. People with histories of mental illness returning to the community following incarceration face tremendous challenges in jails and prisons and in successful reentry to community. Transitioning from jails and prisons is fraught with additional challenges such as reconnecting or connecting with mental health and substance abuse treatment, finding adequate housing, finding employment, reuniting with family and friends, etc. Unfortunately, recidivism remains high, principally because of these challenges. Many state and local authorities have supported the development of the forensic peer specialist.

Kaplan–Meier survival analyses were conducted to examine time to re-incarceration.

The population served was determined to be a particularly high risk of re-incarceration population, when released from prison. All had a mental illness diagnosis, with 80 percent diagnosed with at least one serious mental illness, and more than 50 percent had three or more anterior incarcerations. Utilizing Kaplan–Meyer survival analysis, the chance of re-incarceration for participants after one year was of 21.7 percent. Surprisingly, in the first year after release from prison, participants did much better than those in the general US prison population when in terms of re-incarceration rates (21.7 percent vs 43.4 percent).

While preliminary findings of this approach, this study reaffirms the idea that forensic peer support programs are beneficial in reducing recidivism rates for people diagnosed with a mental illness coming out of prison, offering individuals supports to maintain their lives in the community.

2020 has proved to be a challenging year. In addition to the challenges of COVID-19, yet again, the USA has witnessed police brutality leading to the death of a Black man, George Floyd. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, founded in the US but now an international organisation which challenges white supremacy and deliberates harm against Black people, mobilised hundreds of thousands of people to take to the streets across the globe. Increasingly, the protests focus not only on George Floyd's murder but also the continued failure to challenge the celebrity of those involved in the transatlantic slave trade and European imperialism. In this article, the author will contend that many organisations are now reexamining their association with these historical wrongs against Black Africa and its diaspora. Further, the author will contend but that the failure to highlight the role of Black chattel slavery and imperialism in the accumulation of economic, commercial and political benefits reaped by the global north is a source of shame not only for many firms and institutions but also for universities.

The author has reviewed the online media for the latest developments in response to Black Lives Matter's George Floyd campaign in 2020 and reviewed the literature on the link between European global ambition and its impact on the Americas and sub-Saharan Africa.

Internationally, there is a discernible change in outlook towards the importance of the evils of slavery and colonialism on the Black experience today. These small steps will require scholars to embark on a fresh reexamination of race, society and work.

For decades, the slave trade and colonialism were issues rarely raised in government, firms and business schools. This will inevitably change especially in those countries that are the main beneficiaries of Black chattel slavery and colonial exploitation. Much Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practice is fundamentally tokenism. A root and branch reappraisal will be needed to create more effective EDI policy and practice in support of race equality and anti-racism.

THE difficulty of obtaining information on the library laws of other countries and our own colonies has for long proved a stumbling‐block to students of librarianship in England; and it is for their benefit, and under pressure of a constant demand for this kind of information, that these imperfect notes are now printed. It is very difficult to keep this particular kind of matter up to date, and for any notifications of inaccuracies I shall be deeply grateful.