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Is social network analysis just measures and methods with no theory? We attempt to clarify some confusions, address some previous critiques and controversies surrounding the issues of structure, human agency, endogeneity, tie content, network change, and context, and add a few critiques of our own. We use these issues as an opportunity to discuss the fundamental characteristics of network theory and to provide our thoughts on opportunities for future research in social network analysis.

Selected current and recent work in the area of cognitive modelling is reviewed. Particular attention is paid to user models (that is, the model held by a system of a user). The relevance of this work to information retrieval is assessed and some attempts to include user models in IR systems are discussed. Implications are drawn for future work in IR.

Addresses the computational aspects involved in the numerical simulation of sheet stamping processes. Focuses on some numerical aspects of the intrinsic complexity of these problems, the first of which is the necessity to take into account properly membrane and bending effects. Presents a well‐adapted shell element. The second aspect concerns the description and the implementation of the initial orthotropic plastic behaviour for sheet metal parts, based on a formulation in a rotating frame using the initial microstructure rotation. The stress calculation algorithm is based on a particular implementation of the elastic predictor‐plastic corrector method. The last aspect concerns the solution procedures with a particular development concerning the treatment of the blankholder load as a constraint. A set of computational results validated with experiments prove the accuracy of the proposed approach in solving stamping problems.

This chapter outlines some theoretical, historical and analytical themes covering national, trans-national and international trends in open education. It starts by looking at the social, economic and political drivers for education systems in general, and how openness has been used to widen access through attacking the iron triangle of education: access, quality and cost (open as a door). It then looks at the more recent technological and ideological developments that have aided openness (open as a book); including the central role that open licensing of digital materials (open as a right) has played in changing the social and economic drivers of education and in particular open educational resources. Next, it looks at the importance of open innovation, social innovation and communities of practice for open education (open as a relationship) and includes a comparison between the development of open source software and the development of open educational resources. It goes on to consider the impacts of all these on national and international policy (open as a border) before reviewing the social and economic role of open education from the perspectives of lifelong learners, students, educational institutions and educational publishers (open for business in the future). The chapter concludes by forecasting possible trends in open education for the next 15 years.

Disciplinary school exclusion has negative consequences in terms of academic achievement, well-being, mental health, and future prospects. Permanent and temporary school exclusions rates in England are much higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom and disproportionately affect students with special needs, from care backgrounds, living in poverty, and from particular ethnic backgrounds. This chapter argues that looking at the issue of school exclusion is another way of looking at issues of inclusion and diversity in schools and that these are central concerns for initial teacher education programs. The chapter illustrates this argument by reporting some of the preliminary findings from the 4-year ESRC funded project The Political Economies of School Exclusion Across the UK (2019–2023) led by the Excluded Lives Research team at the University of Oxford. The main objective of this research has been to develop a home international multidisciplinary understanding of the landscapes of political economies and the experiences and consequences of school exclusion across the United Kingdom.

This study examines the role of personality and work experience in predicting two measures of job performance: Proficiency on the job tasks assigned to employees (task performance) and discretionary behaviors (e.g., helping) that may or may not be performed by employees (contextual performance). The two types of performance measures were shown to have different patterns of association with work experience and personality dimensions, such that personality was more predictive of contextual performance, while job experience was more predictive of task‐based performance. Noticeably, conscientiousness did not predict task‐based performance. Implications and limitations of the present study, as well as directions for future research, are discussed.

WE publish this issue on the eve of the Brighton Conference and our hope is that this number of The Library World will assist the objects of that meeting. Everything connected with the Conference appears to have been well thought out. It is an excellent thing that an attempt has been made to get readers of papers to write them early in order that they might be printed beforehand. Their authors will speak to the subject of these papers and not read them. Only a highly‐trained speaker can “get over” a written paper—witness some of the fiascos we hear from the microphone, for which all papers that are broadcast have to be written. But an indifferent reader, when he is really master of his subject, can make likeable and intelligible remarks extemporarily about it. As we write somewhat before the Conference papers are out we do not know if the plan to preprint the papers has succeeded. We are sure that it ought to have done so. It is the only way in which adequate time for discussion can be secured.

This study aims to apply the person-environment fit theory to examine the effect of workplace spirituality on real estate agents’ person-job (P-J) fit. Moreover, P-J was proposed as a mediator to explain the effect of workplace spirituality on customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (CO-OCB) and job performance that real estate agents demonstrate.

A sample of 398 agents was obtained from 60 brokerage firms in Bangkok, Thailand. The data were collected through an online questionnaire survey. Data analysis was performed using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The analysis supported the positive association between workplace spirituality and P-J fit. In addition, the mediating effect analysis showed that P-J fit mediated the association between workplace spirituality and CO-OCB in part, but mediated the association between workplace spirituality and job performance fully.

The findings overall clarify the theoretical mechanism by which workplace spirituality motivates real estate agents to demonstrate positive work behavior and enhanced performance.

There is a huge amount of information and data stored in publicly available online databases that consist of large text files accessed by Boolean search techniques. It is widely held that less use is made of these databases than could or should be the case, and that one reason for this is that potential users find it difficult to identify which databases to search, to use the various command languages of the hosts and to construct the Boolean search statements required. This reasoning has stimulated a considerable amount of exploration and development work on the construction of search interfaces, to aid the inexperienced user to gain effective access to these databases. The aim of our paper is to review aspects of the design of such interfaces: to indicate the requirements that must be met if maximum aid is to be offered to the inexperienced searcher; to spell out the knowledge that must be incorporated in an interface if such aid is to be given; to describe some of the solutions that have been implemented in experimental and operational interfaces; and to discuss some of the problems encountered. The paper closes with an extensive bibliography of references relevant to online search aids, going well beyond the items explicitly mentioned in the text. An index to software appears after the bibliography at the end of the paper.

Library buildings are routinely reimagined, remodeled, or built new to meet the changing needs of their community. The move from collection-centric to user-centric service models has generated numerous writings about the library as place and space. The one concept lacking in the scholarly discourse is the changing roles of librarians to meet the needs of these new spaces and places. How do librarians fit in the new equation? When addressing the professional identity of librarians, which aspect of their work will need to evolve and which will need to be let go? A critical facet of sustaining services in new spaces is the need to develop the sustainable librarian – to remove the stigma of the librarian as “jack of all trades, master of none.” In order to realize this new mindset of mastering our domain we need to begin reimagining our work. Some ways, this can be accomplished by writing increased flexibility into position descriptions and creating organizational structures to better support librarians within the new spaces. With these new developments to our professional identities, librarians may learn to employ entrepreneurial skills in order to continuously anticipate services and develop skill sets to aid the library’s ability to fulfill its purpose. The authors provide a literature review to discuss the changing role of the academic librarian to meet the evolution of the library building and services. We will provide an example through findings and practices of Grand Valley State University and how it reimagined roles in the early 2000s and continues to reimagine roles in a new building and a renovated branch library. The change of spaces and places in academic libraries to accommodate user needs and perceptions has impacted how academic librarians work in these spaces and places. Library administrators need to rethink workflows, and organizational charts by examining flexible workloads, cross-training initiatives, professional development around new skills, and the letting go of obsolete practices.

Originality/value – in this chapter, the authors will discuss how library leaders are charged with translating the new roles of their librarians to meet the needs of their community in these new spaces and how library leaders may look beyond the literature of the profession for ways to facilitate change.