Search results

In this article Peggy Newton, who came to this country from California six years ago and is now a lecturer in social psychology at Huddersfield Polytechnic, writes about her research into the experiences of girls entering engineering in this country and the obstacles they face.

Since the 1970s there has been a variety of initiatives encouraging women to become engineers, and the proportion of women entering degree level courses in engineering is rising rapidly. In 1985 nearly 11% of engineering students on degree courses at universities were women. This trend parallels similar, although more dramatic, increases in the proportion of women engineers in the United States and France. However, these statistics must be set against the fact that women remain far more unusual as practising engineers; they represent 2.9% of technicians, 3.9% of professional engineers and approximately 1% of chartered engineers.

American Sociological Review, October 1983 issue carries two relevant articles. In the first Shelley Coverman writes about “Gender, Domestic Labor Time, and Wage Inequality”. This study examined connections between family and employment activities by testing the often noted proposition that women's domestic activities affect their labour force achievements. The results supported the hypothesis that the time currently married women and men spend in housework and child care exerts a negative influence on their wages. These findings imply that there are important linkages between the familial and economic spheres, whereby sexual inequality in the familial division of labour helps perpetuate sexual inequality in the labour market.

Traditional methods of studying and evaluating the use of online public access catalogs (OPACs) are discussed and compared to the protocol method. Verbal protocols are spoken records of people describing their work; they uncover detailed data about what people are thinking as they attempt to solve problems. The results of the Carnegie‐Mellon University protocol study of OP AC users are discussed.

Over the past 30 years the United States has grappled with the regulation of children's advertising in various media. The same debate that occurred in the 1970's in the US over banning children's advertising is heating up in the EU today. As with other regulatory issues the regulation of children's advertising involves trade‐offs. In the US, the First Amendment rights of the advertisers must be balanced with the government interest in protecting children. The regulation of children's advertising also involves balancing the competing interests of advocacy groups, legislators, broadcasters and advertisers. Advocacy groups have been very effective in focusing public attention on the issues of children's advertising. One of the most vocal and impactful groups was Action for Children's Television (ACT), whose efforts culminated in the passage of the 1990 Children's Television Act. Once that was accomplished, ACT was disbanded. In more recent years, however, the Centre for Media Education (CME) has replaced ACT in calling for regulation of children's advertising. CME was instrumental in pushing the 1996 FTC investigation related to 900 telephone numbers directed at children, and is now behind the Child Online Protection Act (COPA). The same questions raised nearly 30 years ago by ACT are now being cast in the US in terms of the Internet, otherwise little has changed. Each new innovation in media and technology ushers similar questions to the table, and the same balancing act must again be employed to answer the basic question: how far do we go to protect our children? The US's answer to this question offers insights for other countries seeking answers to similar questions.

On April 2, 1987, IBM unveiled a series of long‐awaited new hardware and software products. The new computer line, dubbed the Personal Systems 30, 50, 60, and 80, seems destined to replace the XT and AT models that are the mainstay of the firm's current personal computer offerings. The numerous changes in hardware and software, while representing improvements on previous IBM technology, will require users purchasing additional computers to make difficult choices as to which of the two IBM architectures to adopt.

JUNE, from the enemy aerial view, has been a quiet month. Hitler, as was demonstrated on June 22nd, had turned his attention to Russia, and so more English libraries have not been added to his bag. The lull has given some of us a space in which to clear out debris and to get our damaged libraries more shipshape. In this, our new volume (Vol. xliv. No. 500), we glance rapidly back over a momentous year. It is difficult to realize that eleven months ago not a volume had been lost or a brick displaced in British libraries; that, in spite of the agony and triumph of Dunkirk, out attacks on Germany had been mainly of the paper kind; and that most, but by no means all, of our young librarians were still with us. The change has been great. True, the Battle of Britain, 1940, was won; but the night bomber introduced death and disaster unprecedented in this country, though well‐known in invaded lands. We went to bed at night hopeful and woke thankful, but not certain that there would be an awakening. Libraries suffered with other military objectives such as the small homes of suburban and country folk. We have been praised by our American brethren as heroic, and that is pleasant to hear, but we have not felt heroic; we have stood up to it because no other course is possible or thinkable. The problems of librarians in evacuation areas have been great; large numbers of their people migrated, and in some cases there were defence areas to which no visitor might go; falling revenues made existence almost impossible, and staffs were dismissed or transferred, the posts of librarians of years of service being endangered. Yet these sent out books for children in reception areas where, of their own kind, the problems were also great. Some libraries were overwhelmed by the demands made upon them, and although some towns (for example, Newton Abbot) have been prosperous beyond their experience as a result of the new settlers, the local authorities have had such “war economy” in their minds that they have been unwilling to do their obvious duty to libraries. This was, however, not universal. The year saw, unfortunately, the beginning of the new Roll of Honour for librarians, which in this case contains a few names of those killed in air raids over us; some, too, have been injured, although all, we believe, have now recovered. Active work has been done by many librarians for the Forces—some with a rather heavy loss of books. The Camps and Services Libraries movement, good as has been its limited activity, has not achieved much in the way of “libraries”. We have hopes, however. Everything is still, in most matters of the present and the future, in an undecided state—except the will to win through: that is universal and certain. The encouragement we receive from our American friends has been a heartening feature of a year of immense, and we believe hopeful, importance to men.

Most computer users need graphics once in a while, even text‐oriented people like the author. While there have always been many different tools for manipulating and creating graphics on DOS computers (and better ones for Macs), Windows has made such tools more common, less expensive, easier to use, and much more powerful. After defining some basic terms for computer‐based graphics and discussing sources of raw material for those who aren't artists, the author summarizes varieties of graphic software for Windows (and other operating systems). He then describes examples based on personal experience and evaluates two sophisticated graphics packages that libraries can obtain for modest prices. Either package will serve users well, and both packages come with substantial collections of graphic source material (clip art). Finally, the author adds notes on the PC literature for July‐September 1993.