Search results

Librarians have an opportunity to contribute to the evolution of scholarly communication. By serving on advisory boards, especially those of publishers that are revamping their products for an online environment, librarians can both accelerate the development of good digital information resources and foster greater diversity in the marketplace. The New England Journal of Medicine's newly established library advisory board is a case in point. Aims to give an overview of the situation.

A total of nine librarians agreed to serve as members of the library advisory board – designed to build relationships with the academic and hospital library community.

As a profession, librarians value learning and the lifelong augmentation of knowledge and skills. Stretching oneself by serving on the advisory board of a publisher is entirely consistent with that value, affording a rewarding opportunity to understand better the complicated world of scholarly communication and the role of publishers in that cycle.

By stretching their current skill set, librarians serving on this board have gained a better understanding of the exigencies of the publishing world and have been able to influence the development of critical policies, pricing, and processes in ways that benefit both the publisher and the library community.

In this chapter, we review empirical research evidence on the relationship between stressors and catecholamines (i.e., adrenaline and noradrenaline) and cortisol. With respect to acute stressors, both laboratory and field research have shown that the exposure to stressors leads to an increase in catecholamine and cortisol levels. With respect to more chronic stressors, research evidence is less consistent. Chronic mental workload was found to be related to elevated adrenaline levels. With respect to cortisol responses the interaction between workload and other variables seems to play a role. Empirical studies suggest that chronic stressors affect the responsivity to acute stressors. Research showed that after the exposure to stressors catecholamine and cortisol recovery is delayed.

Current issues of Publishers' Weekly are reporting serious shortages of paper, binders board, cloth, and other essential book manufacturing materials. Let us assure you these shortages are very real and quite severe.

The following classified, annotated list of titles is intended to provide reference librarians with a current checklist of new reference books, and is designed to supplement the RSR review column, “Recent Reference Books,” by Frances Neel Cheney. “Reference Books in Print” includes all additional books received prior to the inclusion deadline established for this issue. Appearance in this column does not preclude a later review in RSR. Publishers are urged to send a copy of all new reference books directly to RSR as soon as published, for immediate listing in “Reference Books in Print.” Reference books with imprints older than two years will not be included (with the exception of current reprints or older books newly acquired for distribution by another publisher). The column shall also occasionally include library science or other library related publications of other than a reference character.

This paper revisits old questions of the proper subject and bounds of economics: does economics study “provisioning”? or markets? or a method of reasoning, self‐interested rational optimization?

A variety of scholars and others in many fields make use of a taxonomy of society consisting of three “spheres”: markets, governments, and communities. It is argued here that this tripartite taxonomy of society is fundamental and exhaustive. A variety of ways of understanding this taxonomy are explored, especially Fiske's (1991, 2004) “Relational models theory.” Then – after communities and their products, social goods, are defined more thoroughly – a visual model of interactions among the three spheres is presented.

The model is first used briefly to understand the historical development of markets. The model is then applied to understanding how economic thinking and market ideology, including the notion of social capital, can be destructive of communities and their production of social goods (and their production of social capital as well).

It is not possible to measure these effects monetarily, so calculating precisely “how this affects results” in a standard economic model is impossible.

Nevertheless we could better prepare students for real‐world analysis, and better serve our clients, including the public, if – whenever relevant, such as in textbook introductions and in benefit/cost analyses – we made them aware of the limitations of economic analysis with respect to communities and social goods.

The three‐spheres model offered here, based on Fiske's “Relational models theory,” facilitates this awareness.