Search results

It does not seem too much to argue that high quality reference works, always crucial to the effective pursuit of research, have become increasingly important with the continuing proliferation of information as well as the increasingly complex need to capture ways of organizing it. Nor is it too much to say, unfortunately, that, even while this is so, reference works are well on their way to becoming the orphans of academic publishing. Today, more than ever, the publication of reference tools is largely in the hands of a few publishers, who depend on marketing techniques (particularly the packaging of books into series) rather than on the inherent quality of, or demonstrated need for, particular reference tools. Moreover (a point to which I will return), reference works are increasingly appearing in print as the inchoate and offhand products of desktop publishing.

In the fall of 1989, SilverPlatter and Human Relations Area Files, Inc. began releasing their new series Cross‐Cultural CD, based on a subset of the Human Relations Area Files. The first disk in the anticipated five‐disk series covers the subjects Human Sexuality and Marriage, and represents two of ten proposed topical databases that are scheduled to be released over the next five years. The other eight databases in the series, to be produced on a total of four additional disks, are to be on the following topics: Family, Crime and Social Problems, Old Age, Death and Dying, Childhood and Adolescence, Socialization and Education, Religious Beliefs, and Religious Practices. An annual “volume” of two databases is currently $1,495, and each volume may be purchased separately. The databases will be issued one time only, one every six months, and are not updated. The second disk in each volume replaces the first disk of that volume, and becomes the property of the purchaser.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect 40 years of queuing theory in application to library modelling and management. It suggests that these models have not had the impact that the early queuing models promised and suggests some reasons as to why.

The paper gives a brief exposition of queuing theory as a branch of operations research (OR) and describes three snapshots of library queuing models published in the literature. Each snapshot describes a different approach to library modelling using queues and illustrates some of the problems associated with applying queuing theory. Suggestions from the literature regarding the nature of the modeller/practitioner interaction are described and linked to queuing models.

The mathematical nature of queuing models highlights the difficulties in linking modelling theory to library practice. The paper suggests that there is an urgent need to find ways to bridge the practitioner/researcher gap, broaden the application base of OR methodology within libraries, engage in constructive debate around library OR to build a consensus view as to the value of OR interventions, and identify directions for future collaborative work in libraries. Otherwise, we seem destined to continue applying OR models as a matter of faith rather than as a proven paradigm for rational analysis in libraries.

There have been some notable successes in the application of queuing theory and other OR techniques to modelling library systems over the last 40 years. However, the nature of the intersection of OR modelling and library operations has evolved over the years and modelling projects that add real value to library operations now seem to be more rarely reported. The emerging modeller/practitioner nexus requires further consideration if library OR is to develop.

Oral history collections can offer a wealth of detailed information for entrepreneurship researchers. The stories that entrepreneurs tell provide researchers with insight into both perspective and into substantive issues of entrepreneurial behavior. The life stories of entrepreneurs offer students of entrepreneurship insight into both the explicit and the tacit knowledge of working entrepreneurs.

It has been two years since our “current” survey last appeared (RSR, Summer 1987). In that survey, we covered 1985 publications. For the sake of continuity, this new survey looks at 28 titles from 1986 and 14 from 1987. All of them are still listed in Books in Print.

For many years, academic librarians worked in a fiscal environment of rapidly increasing budgets. Management of growth was the major problem. Today, though, most academic librarians face “steady‐state”—or stagnant—budgets. This situation, more pronounced in recent years, has been with us for more than a decade, a fact most librarians and university administrators have been slow to recognize. These budgets require new fiscal management techniques whose key words are cost containment, substitution, choice, and priorities.

There is no argument among serious researchers that a mongoloid stock first colonized the New World from Asia. Nor is there controversy about the fact that these continental pioneers used the Bering Land Bridge that then connected the Asian Far East with Alaska.– Gerald F. Shields, et al.American Journal of Genetics (1992)

The purpose of this paper is to see if there is a need for and an interest in a modernized and simplified citation style (SCS).

Students in two sections of English 1010 were given a brief training in SCS and asked to use SCS and MLA citation styles, respectively, in their next two assignments. Students were surveyed afterwards about their preferences.

Students preferred using the presented SCS over MLA by a large margin. This was not a surprise. Citation styles are difficult to master.

This is a small qualitative study, and the result are not generalizable to a larger population, but the implications suggest that a larger study is warranted.

This paper shows that there is a need for a more modern citation style, one that embraces technology and moves forward from the print bibliographic tradition.

There are many articles in the literature about citations, but few address modernizing and simplifying citation styles, and none make a proposal for such a style.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and shed light on the following questions: What is an author? Is it a person who writes? Or, is it, in information, an iconic taxonomic designation (some might say a “classification”) for a group of writings that are recognized by the public in some particular way? What does it mean when a search engine, or catalog, asks a user to enter the name of an author? And how does that accord with the manner in which the data have been entered in association with the names of the entities identified with the concept of authorship?

The authors use several cases as bases of phenomenological discourse analysis, combining as best the authors can components of eidetic bracketing (a Husserlian technique for isolating noetic reduction) with Foucauldian discourse analysis. The two approaches are not sympathetic or together cogent, so the authors present them instead as alternative explanations alongside empirical evidence. In this way the authors are able to isolate components of iconic “authorship” and then subsequently engage them in discourse.

An “author” is an iconic name associated with a class of works. An “author” is a role in public discourse between a set of works and the culture that consumes them. An “author” is a role in cultural sublimation, or a power broker in deabstemiation. An “author” is last, if ever, a person responsible for the intellectual content of a published work. The library catalog’s attribution of “author” is at odds with the Foucauldian discursive comprehension of the role of an “author.”

One of the main assets of this paper is the combination of Foucauldian discourse analysis with phenomenological analysis for the study of the “author.” The authors turned to Foucauldian discourse analysis to discover the loci of power in the interactions of the public with the named authorial entities. The authors also looked to phenomenological analysis to consider the lived experience of users who encounter the same named authorial entities. The study of the “author” in this combined way facilitated the revelation of new aspects of the role of authorship in search engines and library catalogs.