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I Am Helen Keller is a student-friendly reader; yet, it offers realistic insights into Helen’s life as a: student, writer, lecturer, vaudeville performer, and activist. The book relates to students’ real lives because Helen is portrayed as a genuine person rather than an object for herofication; an individual with economic challenges and personality flaws as well as successes. Young students are introduced to the concept of mentoring, as people who sponsored and helped Helen achieve her life goals are described. Helen Keller overcame personal adversity and is often presented to young people in character education. The heart of her story, however, is that she was one of the first civil rights leaders for people with disabilities. She was at the forefront of attitude changes around the world. In this lesson, students engage in analyzing key points of Helen Keller’s life through a read-aloud and Anticipation Guide, discussion, cooperative group work, research, and presentation skills using educational technology.

This paper comes from workshop activities and structured reflection by a group of artists and researchers who have been using artistic practice within research projects aimed at enabling researchers to collaborate with communities. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Three out of four in the group have a practicing creative background and their own studio/workshop space.

Artists are often employed – whether in schools or research projects – to run workshops; to bring a distinctive set of skills that enable learning or collaboration to take place. In this paper the authors reflect on the different meanings and connotations of “workshop” – as noun (as a place where certain types of activity happen, a bounded space) and a verb (to work something through; to make something together). From there the authors will then draw out the different principles of what artistic practice can offer towards creating a collaborative space for new knowledge to emerge.

Key ideas include different repertories of structuring to enable different forms of social interaction; the role of materal/ality and body in shifting what can be recognised as knowing; and the skills of “thinking on your feet”, being responsive and improvising.

The authors will conclude by reflecting on aspects to consider when developing workshops as part of collaborative research projects.

IF I sometimes seem to be obsessed with: library legislation issues, no doubt this is the result of my having become a public library trustee and having been forced to deal with municipal officials for funds and to lobby with state and federal legislators for increased public library funding. I was, therefore, interested to hear Joseph Dagnese, President of Special Libraries Association, say at a recent colloquium at Drexel University, that SLA, once the least political of professional associations, has in recent years become increasingly involved in lobbying for the legislation it supports. The problem is that, as dealing with legislators and bureaucrats for funds and the authorization for new programmes becomes even more necessary, the US library community is recognizing that it is not terribly effective at doing so. Libraries and librarians have simply not been winning many of their battles lately.

Defined functionally, having low vision can mean the inability to read newsprint even with best correction (when wearing conventional eyeglasses or contact lenses) (Maino, 1993). Other functional definitions of low vision refer to a loss of vision that may be severe enough to hinder an individual's ability to complete daily activities such as reading, cooking, or walking outside safely, while still retaining some degree of useable vision. Low vision is decreased visual performance that prevents performance to full capacity compared with a typically sighted person of the same age and gender. It may be a consequence of reduced acuity, abnormal visual field, reduced contrast sensitivity, or other ocular dysfunction (Faye, 1984). This definition includes people who are legally blind and those who have a more significant amount of remaining vision.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

Camden rejected a viewdata solution to user information needs as being too highly structured in its approach and instead opted for a customised version of Geac's new Community Information System (CIS) based on that company's existing Local Information System software. Data from the authority's DataEase Adult Education database were incorporated into CINDEX (Camden Community Information Network Directory and Exchange) by uploading files from the former to the latter. A variety of online and offline methods of access and reporting are described.

PERIODICAL LITERATURE is notoriously afflicted by a high infant mortality rate. Literary magazines in particular seem to exhibit all the survival instincts of a claustrophobic lemming. It is therefore a special pleasure to see an avowedly ‘bookish’ magazine—and a Scottish one at that—celebrate its fiftieth birthday. Fifty years of a Scottish literary periodical! It is rather like running up a cricket score at football. Even more extraordinary is the fact that these fifty years have been achieved under only two editors. R. D. Macleod, the founding editor, ran the magazine for 37 years, while his successor, W. R. Aitken, has been in charge for, as he puts it, ‘a mere 13’.