Tools of the Serials Trade

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Trina Nolen reviews Rethinking Information Literacy; Elizabeth Parang, Fundamentals of Managing Reference Collections; Ann Roll reviews Building and Managing E-Book Collections; and Sarah Tusa reviews HR: A Human Resources Handbook for Academic Library Staff.     

The Read Feed - Reviews

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Elizabeth Parang reviews Guide to Streaming Video Acquisitions; Jill M. Church reviews Electronic Resources Librarianship: A Practical Guide for Librarians; Robert T. Wilson reviews Using Digital Analytics for Smart Assessment.     

Reviews

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Michelle DeMars reviews The Indispensable Academic Librarian: Teaching and Collaborating for Change; Norma Durian reviews The Library Outreach Casebook; Trina Boykin Nolen reviews Licensing Digital Content: A Practical Guide for Librarians, Third Edition.     

Reviews

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Heather Baker reviews The no-nonsense guide to leadership, management, and teamwork; Elizabeth Parang reviews Systematic searching: Practical ideas for improving results; Anne Washington reviews Digital preservation in libraries: Preparing for a sustainable future.     

The Read Feed: Reviews

ABSTRACT

Heylicken Moreno reviews Linked Data for Libraries, Archives and Museums: How to Clean, Link and Publish Your Metadata; Trina Boykin Nolen reviews Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners; Stephanie Rosenblatt reviews Records and Information Management.     

Reviews

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Beth Ashmore reviews The Purpose-Based Library: Finding Your Path to Survival, Success and Growth; Scott Johnson reviews Metaliteracy in Practice; Catherine Johnson reviews Teaching Information Literacy Reframed: 50+ Framework-Based Exercises for Creating Information-Literate Learners; Adolfo G. Prieto reviews Dynamic Research Support for Academic Libraries.     

Editorial Peer Review: Its Strengths and Weaknesses

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Michelle DeMars reviews Emerging Strategies for Supporting Student Learning: A Practical Guide for Librarians and Educators; Elizabeth Parang reviews Shared Collections: Collaborative Stewardship.     

Reviews

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Jill M. Church reviews Exploring Discovery: The Front Door to Your Library's Licensed and Digitized Content; Scott Johnson reviews Now You're a Manager: Quick and Practical Strategies for New Mid-level Managers in Academic Libraries.     

Optimal designs,supplementary difference sets and multipliers

We investigate multipliers of 2 - {v; q², q²; λ} supplementary difference sets where cyclotomy has been used to construct D-optimal designs.     

Serials from the Other Side: An Editorial Perspective on Current Trends in Scholarly Communication

The panel session for the 22nd North Carolina Serials Conference brought together perspectives from current and former journal editors about their careers and changes in the publishing industry. Moderated by Patricia Hudson, David Goldfield discussed his experience with the Journal of Urban History; Elaine Hubal talked about her experience with the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology; and Priscilla Wald discussed her experience as editor of American Literature. A question and answer session followed the presentation.     

Packing designs with equal-sized holes

The packing number, denoted by P(k,λ;g^u), is the maximum number of blocks in a λ-packing of pairs with k-tuples of a g^u-set V having u holes of size g which are disjoint and spanning. The values of P(3,λ;g^u) are determined here for all positive integers g,λ and u⩾3.     

A characterization of some {3v1 + v3, 3v0 + v2; 3, 3}-minihypers and its applications to error-correcting codes

Recently, Hamada et al. (Des. Codes Cryptogr. 2(1992), 225–229) showed that there exists an [87,5,57;3]-code meeting the Grismer bound. But it is unknown whether or not an [87,5,57;3]-code is unique up to equivalence. In order to characterize all [87,5,57;3]-codes, it is sufficient to characterize all {2v₂ + 2v₃,2v₁ + 2v₂; 4, 3}-minihypers and in order to characterize all {2v₂ + 2v₃,2v₁ + 2v₂;4,3}-minihypers, it is necessary to characterize all {3v₁ + v₃,3v₀ + v₂;3,3}-minihypers, where v₀ = 0, v₁ = 1, v₂ = 4 and v₃ = 13 (cf. Hamada and Helleseth, J. Statist. Plann. Inference, 56 (1996)). The purpose of this paper is to characterize all {3v₁ + v₃,3v₀ + v₂;3,3}-minihypers.     

The performance of juvenile book review media

An analysis of the performance of five major review periodicals showed that School Library Journal and Booklist were most likely to have reviewed both a large percentage of total juvenile publication and those books singled out by the 1972–1974 and 1978–1980 Notable Children's Books Committees; the New York Times Book Review was least likely to have done so. There was a decline in coverage of the selected titles by the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books. Even so, Bulletin and Horn Book, as well as Booklist and SLJ, continued to do a good job of calling attention to better books.Recent reviews appeared closer to the publication date of the book in question, with the time lag reduced in all but the New York Times, where it increased. Booklist's record of little more than a month was relatively impressive, with all other periodicals taking over two months or more, on the average. Each periodical showed tremendous internal inconsistency in promptness, however.The longest reviews, on the average, were published in NYTBR, the shortest in Bulletin. Recent reviews in SLJ and Booklist were longer than those found for the earlier sample.All but Horn Book reviews reflected increased critical attention in general. The practice of referring to other books and authors continued on a limited but definite scale for 1978–1980 titles. Attempts to predict readership were somewhat more likely to appear in the more recent issues of Booklist and Bulletin than earlier.The use of volunteer reviewers by School Library Journal resulted in a multiplicity of reviewers (25 people). Horn Book and NYTBR utilized eight people each. Booklist and Bulletin relied on reviews prepared by fulltime staffers.Opinions on general quality of the books examined continued to be basically consistent.     

On orthogonal arrays attaining Rao's bounds

Rao (1947) provided two inequalities on parameters of an orthogonal array OA(N,m,s,t). An orthogonal array attaining these Rao bounds is said to be complete. Noda (1979) characterized complete orthogonal arrays of t=4 (strength). We here investigate complete orthogonal arrays with s=2 (levels) and general t; and with t=2, 3 and general s.     

Some classes of four-weight spin models

We classify four-weight spin models (X;W₁,W₂,W₃,W₄) with sizes at most four. We also study the class of four-weight spin models with exactly two distinct values in W₄, reduce their existence to that of certain symmetric designs.     

Mixed covering arrays of strength three with few factors

Covering arrays with mixed alphabet sizes, or mixed covering arrays, are useful generalizations of covering arrays that are motivated by software and network testing. Suppose that there are k factors, and that the ith factor takes values or levels from a set G_i of size g_i. A run is an assignment of an admissible level to each factor. A mixed covering array, MCA(N;t,k,g₁g₂…g_k), is a collection of N runs such that for any t distinct factors, i₁,i₂,…,i_t, every t-tuple from G_i1×G_i2×?×G_it occurs in factors i₁,i₂,…,i_t in at least one of the N runs. When g=g₁=g₂=?=g_k, an MCA(N;t,k,g₁g₂…g_k) is a CA(N;t,k,g). The mixed covering array number, denoted by MCAN(t,k,g₁g₂…g_k), is the minimum N for which an MCA(N;t,k,g₁g₂…g_k) exists. In this paper, we focus on the constructions of mixed covering arrays of strength three. The numbers MCAN(3,k,g₁g₂…g_k) are determined for all cases with k∈{3,4} and for most cases with k∈{5,6}.     

Optimality in presence of damaged observations

In this paper we study a situation where, instead of observing $\text{y}\text{(N×1)}$, we observe $\text{y}\text{+}\text{d}$; where the random variables in the vector d are called damage components. It is shown that A- and E-optimum designs minimize the effect of d in the mean square error (m.s.e.) of estimable linear functions of parameters under the ordinary linear model.     

Classification of difference matrices over cyclic groups

The existence of difference matrices over small cyclic groups is investigated in this computer-aided work. The maximum values of the parameters for which difference matrices exist as well as the number of inequivalent difference matrices in each case is determined up to the computational limit. Several new difference matrices have been found in this manner. The maximum number of rows is 9 for an r ×15 difference matrix over Z₃, 8 for an r ×15 difference matrix over Z₅, and 6 for an r ×12 difference matrix over Z₆; the number of inequivalent matrices with these parameters is 5, 2, and 7, respectively.     

The q-Bernstein basis as a q-binomial distribution

The q-Bernstein basis, used in the definition of the q-Bernstein polynomials, is shown to be the probability mass function of a q-binomial distribution. This distribution is defined on a sequence of zero–one Bernoulli trials with probability of failure at any trial increasing geometrically with the number of previous failures. A modification of this model, with the probability of failure at any trial decreasing geometrically with the number of previous failures, leads to a second q-binomial distribution that is also connected to the q-Bernstein polynomials. The q-factorial moments as well as the usual factorial moments of these distributions are derived. Further, the q-Bernstein polynomial B_n(f(t),q;x) is expressed as the expected value of the function f([X_n]_q/[n]_q) of the random variable X_n obeying the q-binomial distribution. Also, using the expression of the q-moments of X_n, an explicit expression of the q-Bernstein polynomial B_n(f_r(t),q;x), for f_r(t) a polynomial, is obtained.