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This study aims to explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI) personas for training library staff in an online chat reference environment, enhancing trainees’ abilities to respond effectively to real-life patron requests.

The project used ChatGPT-4 to construct custom generative pretrained transformers (GPTs) that acted as library patrons and presented the types of questions and reference requests that library staff would likely receive. These AI personas were improved iteratively and collaboratively. Novice chat reference users were surveyed on their experiences with the final AI personas.

The use of AI personas for training library staff showed promising results. AI personas could simulate interactions with actual patrons, and trainees’ confidence levels increased due to their use. However, limitations still exist, as AI personas were prone to providing overly detailed answers or required prompting to stay on task.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to apply AI personas in the context of improving training for online chat reference. The experience contrasts with other efforts to use generative AI to provide answers directly to patrons without human intervention or involvement.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Term. 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.

This paper presents an integrated overview of the empirical literature on the impact of all forms of unconventional monetary policy on macroeconomic variables and on markets.

This survey covers the findings concerning portfolio rebalancing, signaling, liquidity, bank lending and confidence channels.

The positive effect of QE announcements on stock and bond prices seems to be unified across studies. A contagion effect from US QE to other emerging markets is identified, while currency devaluation is present in most cases for the country that its central bank adopted such policies. Moreover, impacts of non-conventional practices on GDP, inflation and unemployment are examined. The studies presenting weak instead of strong positive effects on inflation are more, and these studies, also, present weak positive effects on GDP growth.

Based on the large body of research on non-conventional action taking, this is the first survey including effects of each country that adopted quantitative easing (QE) measures and that provides results from every methodology employed in order to estimate unconventional practices' impacts.

The strong link between a market orientation and performance in small organizations rests on the organization’s ability to use its market‐oriented culture to create a sustainable competitive advantage. To do this requires the firm to build and maintain a strong market orientation. Using an internal customer‐internal supplier perspective, this paper identifies a framework for implementation that an organization can undertake to create a market‐oriented workforce. The foundation for the framework is the development of dyadic relationships between internal customers and suppliers. The implementation structure relies on a performance management system that rewards behaviors appropriate for the establishment of a market‐oriented culture.

What is it about academia anyway? We profess to hate it, spend endless amounts of time complaining about it, and yet we in academia will do practically anything to stay. The pay may be low, job security elusive, and in the end, it's not the glamorous work we envisioned it would be. Yet, it still holds fascination and interest for us. This is an article about American academic fiction. By academic fiction, I mean novels whosemain characters are professors, college students, and those individuals associated with academia. These works reveal many truths about the higher education experience not readily available elsewhere. We learn about ourselves and the university community in which we work.

This article examines the national and international connections made by women graduates of the School of Home Science in their efforts to develop the scholarly expertise and professional capacity that would enable them to pursue academic careers and to improve the position of women in universities. It argues that despite the obstacles, many women were able to pursue academic pathways and to establish their own authority. By undertaking a transnational analysis, this article examines webs of influence that linked women scholars in New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States as well as those in the so called “centre” (Europe and the United Kingdom). It explores the networks formed by a select number of middle class women ‐ scholars such as Ann Gilchrist Strong, Elizabeth Gregory and Neige Todhunter ‐ as they attempted to expand the range of their scholarly work beyond national borders. It considers the influence of appointments of women academics from the United States and the United Kingdom on; the significance of post graduate study opportunities for home science graduates; and the role of scholarships and awards that enabled two way travel between the southern and northern hemispheres. A number of tensions are evident in the way women scholars located their work in new and emerging fields of academic knowledge within the university. This article explores interrelationships between women academics and graduates from the School of Home Science at the University of Otago and academic women in the United Kingdom and the United States. The final section of the paper examines the academic and scholarly life of Catherine Landreth who exemplifies the experience of a select group of women who gained personally, culturally and professionally from their international opportunities, experiences and networks. It considers Landreth’s transnational travels in search of scholarly expertise, the influence of her personal and professional networks, the significance of her pioneering work in the emerging field of early childhood education and the constraints experienced in a highly gendered academic enclave. To begin however it gives a brief overview of the introduction of Home Science at the University of New Zealand and the influence of initial international appointments on the expansion of women’s academic work at the University of Otago.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

Through a survey of 200 employees working in five of the thirty establishments analysed in previous research about the microeconomic effects of reducing the working time (Cahier 25), the consequences on employees of such a reduction can be assessed; and relevant attitudes and aspirations better known.

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.