This paper seeks to position ready reference technologies as cultural artifacts that have meaning and value beyond pure functionality as a reference tool. The case study aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to position ready reference technologies as cultural artifacts that have meaning and value beyond pure functionality as a reference tool. The case study aims to assert that locally created reference tools and technologies have much to offer as artifacts that encode cultural knowledge about the community, institution and profession.
Design/methodology approach
This case study consists of semi‐structural interviews with six library reference staff members about their experiences and interpretations of a collaboratively created ready reference technology that is used in their reference practice at a public library.
Findings
The results demonstrate there is value is exploring technologies as cultural artifacts in that they reveal otherwise hidden or obscured institutional values, labor practices, tensions associated with changing times in the profession, and the community culture throughout time.
Practical implications
There is benefit in exploring locally created ready reference tools as cultural artifacts to uncover hidden cultural knowledge about institutions, communities, and professional practices.
Originality/value
While there are studies of ready reference tools, they largely focus on the transition of these materials from print‐to‐digital. There was a gap in the literature about the meaning of the ready reference tools to their librarian creators/users. This study is a contribution to ready reference literature and starts to address this gap.
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Miriam Adelman, who holds the M. Phil. in sociology from New York University and Doctorate in Human Sciences from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, has been Professor of…
Abstract
Miriam Adelman, who holds the M. Phil. in sociology from New York University and Doctorate in Human Sciences from Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, has been Professor of Sociology at the Universidade Federale do Paraná (UFPR), since 1992. She is responsible for initiating the first gender studies and research activities at that institution, as co-founder of its “Núcleo de Estudos de Gênero,” begun in 1994 and continuing today as the major institutional space for promoting women's and gender studies at the UFPR. In addition to current research and teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate Social Science and Sociology programs at the UFPR, she is also an active member of the Brazilian gender studies community and participates on the Editorial Board of the Revista de Estudos Feministas, one of Brazil's two major feminist academic journals. She has published numerous articles in scientific journals in Brazil and abroad, as well as book chapters on topics ranging from feminist theory, post-colonialism and contemporary sociology to women in sport and gender in film. She has one edited volume (Gênero Plural: um Debate Multi-disciplinar, 2002, Editora UFPR, with Celsi Bronstrup Silvestrin) and is currently organizing another, on gender representations in film.
Russell Williams and Miriam Dargel
Following Bitner's well‐known “servicescape” model, the propensity of physical surroundings to facilitate organisational as well as marketing goals is now well researched. Their…
Abstract
Following Bitner's well‐known “servicescape” model, the propensity of physical surroundings to facilitate organisational as well as marketing goals is now well researched. Their importance is, in general, more important in service settings because of the unique characteristics of services, particularly their intangibility and perishability, the inseparability of production and consumption, and heterogeneity in delivery quality. E‐businesses, whether offering products or services, ultimately share many service characteristics. For example, the benefits consumed are often not solely in the products purchased, which could have been purchased elsewhere, but rather in the intangible benefits of interaction with the website, i.e. saved time, convenience, and a reduced risk of dissatisfaction with an enhanced availability of information. This paper adapts Bitner's model to encounters in “cyberspace”, where the key characteristics of the service “product” are still present, with the result that, just as in the physical setting, stimuli may be planned and designed to engender approach behaviour. In so doing, it borrows from the motivational psychology construct of “flow”, a metaphor for optimal experiences.
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Marcia Texler Segal and Vasilikie Demos
The 13 chapters in this volume concern research and theories on 18th to 21st century gender-related issues by 19th and 21st century writers. Our volume looks backward and forward…
Abstract
The 13 chapters in this volume concern research and theories on 18th to 21st century gender-related issues by 19th and 21st century writers. Our volume looks backward and forward, advancing both research on gender and research on the history of sociology. Gender research is, like many of the subjects discussed in these chapters, post-discipline and post-modern. Our authors include students, mid-career, senior, and emeriti faculty members. While most identify their fields as sociology or sociology and anthropology, one is also a practicing attorney and another is a professor of English. In addition to the United States, authors come from Brazil, Finland, Israel, Italy, and Poland and their subject matter brings additional countries to the mix. They cover a broad spectrum of subjects and events from the Salem Witch Trials and the Crimean War to contemporary national and international politics and policies in such diverse settings as the European Union, Brazilian race tracks, and Israeli Rabbinical Courts. Yet they overlap and expand on each other in many, often surprising, ways.
This article aims to summarize recent outreach efforts at The Washington State University Libraries. Taking outreach beyond the traditional library liaison relationship produced…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to summarize recent outreach efforts at The Washington State University Libraries. Taking outreach beyond the traditional library liaison relationship produced unexpected partnerships across campus with such diverse groups as New Student Programs and Residence Life.
Design/methodology/approach
The Library Instruction Department at Washington State University was looking for areas where expanded efforts would be most beneficial to the majority of its students. Connection was resumed with liaison areas, which had been previously established, to bring a focus to student needs. Offices centered on student life, such as Residence Life and New Student Programs, were the focal point of these efforts.
Findings
WSU's Library Instruction Department was welcomed as a partner program most everywhere it went. Consequently new areas of outreach have been established where none had existed previously and the library's reputation has been boosted campus‐wide.
Practical implications
Results include a more visible library presence across campus as well as opportunities for future collaborative relationships that bring research, education and university life together. Discussion of various programs and activities provide details about the challenges of making these connections and the rewards in making new contacts that publicize library services in non‐traditional means.
Originality/value
Because so much is on the web, marketing the academic library in a personalized manner has become increasingly important on a large university campus. Establishing alternative marketing strategies geared towards the primary student audience will help build relationships across campus and consequently bring students through the doors.
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Johanna Katariina Gummerus, Deirdre Mary O’Loughlin, Carol Kelleher and Catharina von Koskull
Following an interpretivist approach, the authors draw on semi-structured interviews with parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Abstract
Purpose
Following an interpretivist approach, the authors draw on semi-structured interviews with parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Design/methodology/approach
Responding to limited academic advancement, particularly in the context of consumers experiencing vulnerability, the aim is to deepen marketing scholars’ understanding of value co-destruction (VCD) and its under-explored relationship with consumer ill-being.
Findings
Three forms of systemic VCD mechanisms emerged: obscuring, gaslighting and siloing. Ill-being comprised material, physical, psychological and social harms, which consumers experienced individually, relationally and collectively due to VCD. Family members’ experiences of ill-being and vulnerability were deepened by service systems’ inability to recognise the individuality of their needs and provide appropriate support.
Research limitations/implications
In line with the interpretivist paradigm, the focus on families of children with ASD, while illuminating, delimits the generalisability of the findings. The authors call for further research on consumer ill-being, VCD and vulnerability in other service and marketing contexts.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the need for service system adaptability to recognise and address unstandardised needs.
Social implications
Several systemic failures of (public) service systems which manifested as VCD mechanisms are identified.
Originality/value
The overall contribution is the development of a contextually driven characterisation of both VCD and ill-being and a deeper understanding of how these are interrelated. First, VCD revealed itself as a systemic failure to access, provide or integrate resources to meet actors’ needs as manifested by the three mechanisms. Second, the authors characterise ill-being as comprising material, physical, psychological and social harms due to VCD, which are experienced individually, relationally and collectively. Finally, the authors illuminate the nature of vulnerability and delineate the entanglements between vulnerability and ill-being in a collective (e.g. family) context.