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The purpose of this paper is to better understand the perceptions international STEM students have of the library and higher education based on their responses to the Ithaka S+R Graduate Student Survey.

To better understand these groups, this study conducted the Mann–Whitney–Wilcoxon test on the Ithaka survey results to compare the groups and identify any statistically significant differences that the international STEM graduate students group (ISG) has to other groups.

This paper found that ISG valued Higher Education objective variables more than the non-ISG group, with the exception of one question. The ISG group also valued 7 of the 13 role of the library (ROL) variables statistically different.

Since the students self-reported as international or STEM, the authors are unable to assess whether the response pool is representative of the university as a whole.

By understanding how international/STEM students may differ from other populations, libraries can better design spaces and services for these groups.

Existing studies tend to focus on international students or STEM students and information literacy. This study intends to fill a gap in the understanding of how these groups perceive the ROL and their education.

This study aims to highlight practical considerations to be made when choosing an eBook package for an institution. Many academic libraries purchase eBooks bundled in packages, either as a time- or cost-saving measure or to build a new subject collection.

The authors searched the Web sites of six major publishers for information on eBook packages, including subject coverage, digital rights management restrictions and usage allowances. The analysis also includes a potential overlap between related subject collections and the ability to purchase titles individually.

Usage allowances, digital rights management restrictions and purchasing options vary considerably from publisher to publisher. There was title overlap between related subject packages found in some publishers. In response to user preferences and needs, many publishers are loosening restrictions on their eBook content, which make purchasing packages a more attractive option for libraries.

The landscape of eBook publishing is rapidly changing, which can complicate purchasing decisions. The detailed comparison provided by this study can be used to assist collections developers in making purchasing decisions best suited to their library and avoiding pitfalls such as duplicate purchases.

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.

Criticism directed at neoclassical economics has failed to replace it with a similar grand theory. The authors argue that one possible explanation may lie in the failure of economists to formulate an opinion as to the philosophical foundations of the author’s object of study. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The argument proceeds in two steps. First, the authors review the prevailing philosophical view of “the self-interest theory (S)”, which is one of the most powerful constituents of today’s economics, and social theorizing in general. Second, the authors present a reasoning framework in which rationality becomes intelligible within a schema of integrating the self’s external and internal conditionalities into a unified view of human reasoning.

Self-interest has been supposed to give the authors direction about what, concretely, to do, but, on the way, the authors have learned that defining rationality is necessarily a life-dependent process. The conflicts of reasons call for a revised S according to which rationality implies consistency among a person’s competing behavioural drivers rooted in three ontological realms, natural, social, and cultural.

First, understanding the purpose of one’s actions in rational terms demands redirecting attention from outcomes in terms of utility, profits, or welfare to a social profile of a rational person, with real life coordinates in space and time, as well as the personal histories of that individual. A change in explaining aspirations leads, and this is the second implication, to change in defining the meaning of economic (or social) behaviour. Decision making is not necessarily a process of virtuously selecting the best available options, but assessing and acting according to the opportunity of choice; it is not about freedom of choice, but about the degree of freedom a person is willing and is able to take advantage of.