This article discusses the use of telecommunications scripts in automating online library functions. The pros and cons of developing scripts for replacing manual keyboard entry…
Abstract
This article discusses the use of telecommunications scripts in automating online library functions. The pros and cons of developing scripts for replacing manual keyboard entry are investigated. In addition, the concept of creating more complicated, decision‐making, ‘intelligent scripts’ is explored. Sample applications designed at Kent State University, in conjunction with the university's migration from NOTIS to Innovative Interfaces, are described. Implications concerning library processes and conventions for effective script design are also presented.
As more libraries automate for the First time or migrate to more sophisticated integrated systems in a time of fiscal restraint and, in many cases, down‐sized staffing, the…
Abstract
As more libraries automate for the First time or migrate to more sophisticated integrated systems in a time of fiscal restraint and, in many cases, down‐sized staffing, the ability to automate as many functions as possible (particularly tedious ones, such as database cleanup) would seem desirable. The project described in this article is a good example. If the microcomputer program for cleaning up Kent State University's NOTIS database was not written, the project, which probably should have begun years ago, would still not have been implemented. The solution presented here addresses these key issues realistically, within the confines of the programming resources available within many libraries.
Lynn Wiley, Tina E. Chrzastowski and Stephanie Baker
The purpose of this paper is to determine how the I‐Share collection serves its members, focusing on the state‐wide use of I‐Share domestic monographs (2003‐2008) by subject…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine how the I‐Share collection serves its members, focusing on the state‐wide use of I‐Share domestic monographs (2003‐2008) by subject, collection overlap (number of copies owned), publisher, and how frequently books by subject are being used and to make recommendations for future selection criteria.
Design/methodology/approach
Illinois is fortunate to have the College and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) consortium which manages “I‐Share,” a 76‐member shared online catalog equipped with patron‐initiated borrowing using the Voyager system. I‐Share successfully circulates hundreds of thousands of books annually among these libraries, dramatically broadening the scope of each member's collection. Data from CARLI's Voyager catalog databases were analyzed via Excel spreadsheets using 20 datafields.
Findings
Results found that numbers of copies purchased by I‐Share and use/circulation fell into three categories: high overlap with a corresponding high use, low overlap with a corresponding low use, and a middle area with a high number of copies with low to middle use. Additional analyses by publisher and Library of Congress subject classification were also conducted. The study also allowed for a comparison of what was purchased versus what was available for purchase as represented by the database of a large monograph vendor.
Practical implications
A number of recommendations are made that should improve the effectiveness of monograph selection in the CARLI libraries.
Originality/value
The paper documents an important and thorough study which may be of help to other library consortia in managing more effectively their monograph spend.
Details
Keywords
Stuart Scheingold's path-breaking The Politics of Rights ignited scholarly interest in the political mobilization of rights. The book was a challenge to the reigning popular and…
Abstract
Stuart Scheingold's path-breaking The Politics of Rights ignited scholarly interest in the political mobilization of rights. The book was a challenge to the reigning popular and scholarly common sense regarding the supposedly self-executing nature of rights (what Scheingold called the “myth of rights”). Rights, Scheingold argued, could be resources for the pursuit of social change; but their realization in court doctrine and legislative output was not itself tantamount to meaningful social change. Thus embedded in The Politics of Rights is skepticism (or at least ambivalence) about the utility of rights politics for social movements. Scheingold was not ambivalent about the moral or normative value of rights themselves, although he did argue that the realization of rights was not by itself enough to overcome the manifold inequalities that structure modern life. The Politics of Rights, accordingly, is clear-eyed, but not cynical about rights advocacy. It is thus surprising, and keenly revealing, that Scheingold's final work – The Political Novel, which is ostensibly not about rights at all – points to mass cynicism, alienation, and the collapse of faith in governing institutions and logics as the animating elements of modern liberal democracies, including especially the United States. That rights are a vital part of the civic mythology whose collapse defines modern times suggests that the civil rights context of aspiration and struggle in which Scheingold, and nearly all of his followers (this author included), have conceived rights may be unnecessarily narrow. Rights may also be embedded, that is, in the modern condition of alienation, despair, and felt powerlessness. Inspired by Scheingold's investigation of how literature points to this modern condition of political estrangement, I offer an alternative backdrop for The Politics of Rights that is rooted in the bleak renderings of the American character found in much 1970's American popular and intellectual culture. Such a contextualization, I will argue, suggests that we envision The Political Novel as a companion piece to The Politics of Rights; together they illuminate both the mobilizing and demobilizing potential of the myth of rights.