an article by Derek Law (University of Strathclyde) published in IFLA Journal Volume 37 Number 4 (December 2011)
Abstract
Libraries run the risk of obsolescence unless they can develop a digitally relevant new philosophy of what they are for. We need to identify the niche which differentiates what we offer, the unique selling point that means we are not competing with Google or Microsoft. Such a philosophy will then determine the approach to users, services, content and our own skill set.
The world is increasingly populated by those with different literacies, for whom reading and writing in the way past generations have understood these are becoming optional lifestyle choices and not the normal requirement of the intelligent individual. We must provide services and collections relevant to their needs rather than expect them to change to fit our preconceptions.
Monday, 19 March 2012
Sunday, 18 March 2012
10 stories and links I think are educative, informative, entertaining, or weird
How Positive Thinking Keeps You Healthy via Big Think by Orion Jones
It is no coincidence that you feel more energetic and relaxed when you are thinking positively, or that you feel lazy and tired if you are thinking negatively. Hormones secreted by the body, which are then carried into the blood stream, greatly affect how we feel.
Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Leo Stein was a man of many ambitions – historian, philosopher, artist – but little follow-through. His was “a life of perennial self-analysis in the pursuit of self-esteem”... more
Europe invents the Gypsies via Eurozine articles by Klaus-Michael Bogdal
Social segregation, cultural appropriation: the six-hundred-year history of the European Roma, as recorded in literature and art, represents the underside of the European subject’s self-invention as agent of civilising progress in the world, writes Klaus-Michael Bogdal.
Full article (HTML)
The true fathers of computing via Guardian Technology by John Naughton
George Dyson’s new book challenges computing’s creation myth by highlighting the key role played by John von Neumann
Once upon a time, a “computer” was a human being, usually female, who did calculations set for her by men in suits. Then, in the 1940s, something happened: computers became machines based on electronics. The switch had awesome implications; in the end, it spawned a technology that became inextricably woven into the fabric of late-20th- and early 21st-century life and is now indispensable. If the billions of (mostly unseen) computers that now run our industrialised support systems were suddenly to stop working, then our societies would very rapidly grind to a halt.
Read the rest of the article here
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Present at the creation. In 1604 scholars began to rethink the Bible. Their work wasn’t a miracle, but it’s a masterpiece, if a flawed one... more
Mathematicians: You must have at least 17 clues to solve Sudoku via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
A recent mathematics study showed that you have to have at least 17 clues on a Sudoku grid in order for the puzzle to be solvable. You could make the game easier, by adding more clues. But if there are fewer than 17 clues, then the game becomes impossible to solve. In this video, mathematician James Grime explains how the researchers figured this out.
Video Link
Via Grrlscientist and The Guardian
Another Day, Another Dragon via Big Think by Adam Lee
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What explains high-energy cosmic rays? A trailer-park owner has an answer, but no Ph.D. Yes, he's a crank, but he knows something about physics... more
Untangle via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you get to test your puzzle solving skills by untangling complex patterns so that none of the threads are crossing each other. Are you up to the challenge?
As always I give the loink to Asian Angel’s walk-through here and direct to the game here.
This one seems to require a bit more thought than some of the other freebies!
Air France's 1947 sleeper service via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
There's loads to love about this 1947 ad for Air France's sleeper service – just look at that cutaway diagram! – but the chart-topping eye-grabber is that awesome sleeper-service bed. Man, if Air France was still flying planes with that interior, I'd never fly anything else.
Loads more mouth-watering vintage aviation luxury ads here.
It is no coincidence that you feel more energetic and relaxed when you are thinking positively, or that you feel lazy and tired if you are thinking negatively. Hormones secreted by the body, which are then carried into the blood stream, greatly affect how we feel.
Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Leo Stein was a man of many ambitions – historian, philosopher, artist – but little follow-through. His was “a life of perennial self-analysis in the pursuit of self-esteem”... more
Europe invents the Gypsies via Eurozine articles by Klaus-Michael Bogdal
Social segregation, cultural appropriation: the six-hundred-year history of the European Roma, as recorded in literature and art, represents the underside of the European subject’s self-invention as agent of civilising progress in the world, writes Klaus-Michael Bogdal.
Full article (HTML)
The true fathers of computing via Guardian Technology by John Naughton
George Dyson’s new book challenges computing’s creation myth by highlighting the key role played by John von Neumann
Once upon a time, a “computer” was a human being, usually female, who did calculations set for her by men in suits. Then, in the 1940s, something happened: computers became machines based on electronics. The switch had awesome implications; in the end, it spawned a technology that became inextricably woven into the fabric of late-20th- and early 21st-century life and is now indispensable. If the billions of (mostly unseen) computers that now run our industrialised support systems were suddenly to stop working, then our societies would very rapidly grind to a halt.
Read the rest of the article here
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Present at the creation. In 1604 scholars began to rethink the Bible. Their work wasn’t a miracle, but it’s a masterpiece, if a flawed one... more
Mathematicians: You must have at least 17 clues to solve Sudoku via Boing Boing by Maggie Koerth-Baker
A recent mathematics study showed that you have to have at least 17 clues on a Sudoku grid in order for the puzzle to be solvable. You could make the game easier, by adding more clues. But if there are fewer than 17 clues, then the game becomes impossible to solve. In this video, mathematician James Grime explains how the researchers figured this out.
Video Link
Via Grrlscientist and The Guardian
Another Day, Another Dragon via Big Think by Adam Lee
Some days, I hate writing about atheism. I want to tell you why. Two weeks ago, I was watching a PBS show called Inside Nature's Giants, about a team of biologists dissecting a sperm whale that died after beaching itself on a British coast (this involved heavy machinery and a chain saw, if you were curious).Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
What explains high-energy cosmic rays? A trailer-park owner has an answer, but no Ph.D. Yes, he's a crank, but he knows something about physics... more
Untangle via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game you get to test your puzzle solving skills by untangling complex patterns so that none of the threads are crossing each other. Are you up to the challenge?
As always I give the loink to Asian Angel’s walk-through here and direct to the game here.
This one seems to require a bit more thought than some of the other freebies!
Air France's 1947 sleeper service via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
There's loads to love about this 1947 ad for Air France's sleeper service – just look at that cutaway diagram! – but the chart-topping eye-grabber is that awesome sleeper-service bed. Man, if Air France was still flying planes with that interior, I'd never fly anything else.
Loads more mouth-watering vintage aviation luxury ads here.
Saturday, 17 March 2012
10
The Abraham Test via Big Think by Adam Lee
The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah is one of the formative myths of Western monotheism. And most theists of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions look up to Abraham as a model of faith, believing that his willingness to kill his own child in obedience to God’s command is a praiseworthy character trait.
Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From Wittenberg to Facebook. Martin Luther was the original social-media revolutionary. Via pamphlet and song, the Reformation went viral... more
Our Dangerous Inability to Agree on What is TRUE via Big Think by David Ropeik
Philip Larkin, Sentimentalist? via Big Think by Austin Allen
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Authors’ ability to endlessly edit their digital work will overturn publishing. Maybe books will improve, but movable type is easily abused... more
MI5 file opens new chapter in Chaplin mystery via The National Archives Blog by Tommy Norton
Dinosaurs and Meteors via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game it is literally a fight for survival as you marshal your dinosaur defenders in a last ditch effort to survive the deadly meteors falling to Earth? Do you have what it takes to succeed or will you become extinct?
Follow Asian Angel’s walk-through here or take a chance and go straight to the game here.
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
How to rebuild a blighted city? Lure the "creative class" with cosmopolitan amenities. Makes sense. Too bad it doesn't work... more
Surprising Science via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza
An elephant running in the Masai Mara, Kenya (courtesy of flickr user brittanyhock)
From Smithsonian: 14 Fun Facts About Elephants here.
Physics, Miracles, and Witchcraft: 50 Years of “A Wrinkle in Time” via Big Think by Austin Allen
It was a dark and stormy night.
By starting A Wrinkle in Time with the most famous “bad” opening in literary history – the same Edward Bulwer-Lytton line later adopted by Snoopy – Madeleine L’Engle was practically daring critics to doubt her.
Read More
The story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of his son on Mount Moriah is one of the formative myths of Western monotheism. And most theists of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions look up to Abraham as a model of faith, believing that his willingness to kill his own child in obedience to God’s command is a praiseworthy character trait.
Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
From Wittenberg to Facebook. Martin Luther was the original social-media revolutionary. Via pamphlet and song, the Reformation went viral... more
Our Dangerous Inability to Agree on What is TRUE via Big Think by David Ropeik
There were a lot of thoughtful comments on my observations last week about the ethics of denying that climate change is real. Many felt that I was arrogant, since my case was predicated on my belief that climate change is real. They felt it was arrogant for me to assume that I am rational and right, and that the deniers are wrong because their underlying biases blind them to the truth I am smart enough to know.Read More
Philip Larkin, Sentimentalist? via Big Think by Austin Allen
Once in a great while, I write something that’s too long to fit comfortably in a blog post. This week one of those pieces, an essay on the notorious and beloved British poet Philip Larkin, is up over at Open Letters Monthly. Larkin is a writer I find continually fascinating: a major poet who produced a slim body of published work, and within that body, I think, only a handful of truly major poems.Read More
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Authors’ ability to endlessly edit their digital work will overturn publishing. Maybe books will improve, but movable type is easily abused... more
MI5 file opens new chapter in Chaplin mystery via The National Archives Blog by Tommy Norton
Files released by the Security Service (better known to you and me as MI5) are among the most popular records in our collection, especially with journalists. The arrival of new material at Kew gives the press office and our colleagues …Continue reading →
Dinosaurs and Meteors via How-To Geek by Asian Angel
In this game it is literally a fight for survival as you marshal your dinosaur defenders in a last ditch effort to survive the deadly meteors falling to Earth? Do you have what it takes to succeed or will you become extinct?
Follow Asian Angel’s walk-through here or take a chance and go straight to the game here.
Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
How to rebuild a blighted city? Lure the "creative class" with cosmopolitan amenities. Makes sense. Too bad it doesn't work... more
Surprising Science via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza
An elephant running in the Masai Mara, Kenya (courtesy of flickr user brittanyhock)
From Smithsonian: 14 Fun Facts About Elephants here.
Physics, Miracles, and Witchcraft: 50 Years of “A Wrinkle in Time” via Big Think by Austin Allen
It was a dark and stormy night.
By starting A Wrinkle in Time with the most famous “bad” opening in literary history – the same Edward Bulwer-Lytton line later adopted by Snoopy – Madeleine L’Engle was practically daring critics to doubt her.
Read More
Friday, 16 March 2012
The UK Qualifications and Credit Framework: a critique
a paper by Stan Lester (Stan Lester Developments, Taunton)
Final version published in Journal of Vocational Education and Training Volume 63 Number 2 (June 2011)
Abstract
National and transnational qualifications frameworks are an increasingly present feature of the education and training landscape. The United Kingdom can be regarded as one of the pioneers of qualifications frameworks, with partial frameworks appearing from the mid-1980s onwards.
However, approaches in England if not in the whole of the UK have remained fragmented compared with the best examples from other countries. The recently-introduced Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) introduces partial innovations particularly in enabling credit for smaller achievements and allowing employers and practitioner communities to contribute content into the framework.
However, the framework is largely limited to vocational qualifications outside of universities; it is not particularly well integrated with the higher education, professional, and at present school sectors; and it lacks responsiveness to innovations in qualification design.
The QCF has been described as a ‘strong’ or regulated framework, although a more apposite term might be ‘brittle’.
Copyright reserved
Full text (PDF 12pp) but please note copyright notice.
Final version published in Journal of Vocational Education and Training Volume 63 Number 2 (June 2011)
Abstract
National and transnational qualifications frameworks are an increasingly present feature of the education and training landscape. The United Kingdom can be regarded as one of the pioneers of qualifications frameworks, with partial frameworks appearing from the mid-1980s onwards.
However, approaches in England if not in the whole of the UK have remained fragmented compared with the best examples from other countries. The recently-introduced Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) introduces partial innovations particularly in enabling credit for smaller achievements and allowing employers and practitioner communities to contribute content into the framework.
However, the framework is largely limited to vocational qualifications outside of universities; it is not particularly well integrated with the higher education, professional, and at present school sectors; and it lacks responsiveness to innovations in qualification design.
The QCF has been described as a ‘strong’ or regulated framework, although a more apposite term might be ‘brittle’.
Copyright reserved
Full text (PDF 12pp) but please note copyright notice.
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
Does it pay to be an artisanal fisher on the Kenyan coast?
an article by A. Allan Degen, Jan Hoorweg and Barasa C.C. Wangila published in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Volume 15 Number 3 (2012)
Abstract
Marine fisheries, mainly artisanal, are one of the few economic activities everywhere along the Kenyan coast. Artisanal fishers often live in poverty and, consequently, we predicted that fishers would not fare as well as non-fishers.
We compared earnings of fishers and non-fishers along the coast and examined the importance of income diversification for their livelihoods. Fisher households earned KSH 1,952 per week, about 48% more than non-fisher households. Income from fishing was higher for boat captains than crew, KSH 1,559 and KSH 1,357 per week, respectively, but total income for boat captains and crew was similar, KSH 1,714 and KSH 1,727 per week, respectively.
With livelihood diversification, boat captains did not increase earnings but crew members did. Contrary to our prediction, fisher households fared better than their surrounding neighbours; about 59% of fisher households fell below the poverty line compared to 64% for the population of coast province.
Hazel’s comment:
Whilst this study may not be directly relevant (it isn’t) to labour market information in the UK it reminded me that all may not be as it seems on the surface.
Abstract
Marine fisheries, mainly artisanal, are one of the few economic activities everywhere along the Kenyan coast. Artisanal fishers often live in poverty and, consequently, we predicted that fishers would not fare as well as non-fishers.
We compared earnings of fishers and non-fishers along the coast and examined the importance of income diversification for their livelihoods. Fisher households earned KSH 1,952 per week, about 48% more than non-fisher households. Income from fishing was higher for boat captains than crew, KSH 1,559 and KSH 1,357 per week, respectively, but total income for boat captains and crew was similar, KSH 1,714 and KSH 1,727 per week, respectively.
With livelihood diversification, boat captains did not increase earnings but crew members did. Contrary to our prediction, fisher households fared better than their surrounding neighbours; about 59% of fisher households fell below the poverty line compared to 64% for the population of coast province.
Hazel’s comment:
Whilst this study may not be directly relevant (it isn’t) to labour market information in the UK it reminded me that all may not be as it seems on the surface.
Developing a collaborative faculty-librarian information literacy assessment project
an article by Jackie Belanger and Rebecca Bliquez, (Campus Library, University of Washington Bothell and Cascadia Community College, USA) and Sharleen Mondal, (Department of English, Ashland University, Ohio) published in Library Review Volume 61 Issue 2 (2012)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of developing an information literacy assessment project, and to discuss key findings from the project.
Design/methodology/approach
A variety of assessment tools were used to gather information about student learning and information literacy instruction: pre- and post-surveys, student feedback surveys, faculty feedback to librarians, librarian self-reflection, library worksheets, student research journals, and citation analysis of students’ final research paper bibliographies.
Findings
It was found that the authors’ initial suite of assessment tools did not provide the information wanted about students’ research processes, so the authors’ “assessment toolkit” was modified. It was found that more meaningful information could be gathered about students’ research processes when the authors worked closely with faculty to embed information literacy assessments into course assignments. From the authors’ analysis of student work, it was discovered that, for many students, library instruction was most valuable in helping them refine and explore research topics.
Originality/value
This paper will be useful to librarians and faculty seeking to implement an information literacy assessment project. The authors provide ideas for ways for faculty and librarians to collaborate on information literacy assessment, as well as on assignment and course design.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of developing an information literacy assessment project, and to discuss key findings from the project.
Design/methodology/approach
A variety of assessment tools were used to gather information about student learning and information literacy instruction: pre- and post-surveys, student feedback surveys, faculty feedback to librarians, librarian self-reflection, library worksheets, student research journals, and citation analysis of students’ final research paper bibliographies.
Findings
It was found that the authors’ initial suite of assessment tools did not provide the information wanted about students’ research processes, so the authors’ “assessment toolkit” was modified. It was found that more meaningful information could be gathered about students’ research processes when the authors worked closely with faculty to embed information literacy assessments into course assignments. From the authors’ analysis of student work, it was discovered that, for many students, library instruction was most valuable in helping them refine and explore research topics.
Originality/value
This paper will be useful to librarians and faculty seeking to implement an information literacy assessment project. The authors provide ideas for ways for faculty and librarians to collaborate on information literacy assessment, as well as on assignment and course design.
Over-optimism in forecasts by official budget agencies and its implications
an article by Jeffrey Frankel (Harvard Kennedy School) published in Oxford Review of Economic Policy
Abstract
The paper studies forecasts of real growth rates and budget balances made by official government agencies among 33 countries.
In general, the forecasts are found:
(i) to have a positive average bias,
(ii) to be more biased in booms, and
(iii) to be even more biased at the 3-year horizon than at shorter horizons.
This over-optimism in official forecasts can help explain excessive budget deficits, especially the failure to run surpluses during periods of high output: if a boom is forecasted to last indefinitely, retrenchment is treated as unnecessary. Many believe that better fiscal policy can be obtained by means of rules such as ceilings for the deficit or, better yet, the structural deficit.
But we also find:
(iv) countries subject to a budget rule, in the form of euroland’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), make official forecasts of growth and budget deficits that are even more biased and more correlated with booms than do other countries.
This effect may help explain frequent violations of the SGP. The question becomes how to overcome governments’ tendency to satisfy fiscal targets by wishful thinking rather than by action. Chile in 2000 created structural budget institutions that may have solved the problem. Independent expert panels, insulated from political pressures, are responsible for estimating the long-run trends that determine whether a given deficit is deemed structural or cyclical. The result is that Chile’s official forecasts of growth and the budget have not been overly optimistic, even in booms. Unlike many countries in the North, Chile took advantage of the 2002–7 expansion to run budget surpluses, and so was able to ease in the 2008–9 recession.
Abstract
The paper studies forecasts of real growth rates and budget balances made by official government agencies among 33 countries.
In general, the forecasts are found:
(i) to have a positive average bias,
(ii) to be more biased in booms, and
(iii) to be even more biased at the 3-year horizon than at shorter horizons.
This over-optimism in official forecasts can help explain excessive budget deficits, especially the failure to run surpluses during periods of high output: if a boom is forecasted to last indefinitely, retrenchment is treated as unnecessary. Many believe that better fiscal policy can be obtained by means of rules such as ceilings for the deficit or, better yet, the structural deficit.
But we also find:
(iv) countries subject to a budget rule, in the form of euroland’s Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), make official forecasts of growth and budget deficits that are even more biased and more correlated with booms than do other countries.
This effect may help explain frequent violations of the SGP. The question becomes how to overcome governments’ tendency to satisfy fiscal targets by wishful thinking rather than by action. Chile in 2000 created structural budget institutions that may have solved the problem. Independent expert panels, insulated from political pressures, are responsible for estimating the long-run trends that determine whether a given deficit is deemed structural or cyclical. The result is that Chile’s official forecasts of growth and the budget have not been overly optimistic, even in booms. Unlike many countries in the North, Chile took advantage of the 2002–7 expansion to run budget surpluses, and so was able to ease in the 2008–9 recession.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
