Building a Sustainable Collection Review Process: Managing Qualitative and Quantitative E-Resource Data over Time

Abstract

Comprehensive e-resource reviews often happen in response to financial crises. Data are collected, and faculty are consulted about reductions. After the review, the data are forgotten or lost until the next crisis. Librarians at one public institution were initially motivated by a financial crisis to review their e-resources. But, they also wanted to use this crisis as a means to develop persistent review criteria and a longitudinal review process. This article will summarize how they identified the principal stakeholders, review criteria, essential data, workflows, and management application to support a process that would transcend a single crisis.     

The informal health sector and health care-seeking behaviour of mothers in urban Dhaka slums

Infant and child mortality in Bangladesh has declined in recent years but early death rates remain high among Bangladesh’s urban poor, even in comparison to rates in rural Bangladesh. Although they live close to the country’s leading public hospitals and private health clinics, the urban poor continue to rely heavily on services and advice provided by the informal health sector. This paper examines the use of the informal health sector by urban poor children’s main caregivers, their mothers, and the key role performed by pharmacists in treating these children. It explores the nature of the relationship between the mothers and the health providers and the implications for the broader health system. The study combines in-depth interviews with survey data.     

Money Matters in Marriage: Financial Concerns,Warmth, and Hostility Among Military Couples

The effects of military couples’ (N?=?219) financial management concerns on marital quality were investigated using an actor-partner interdependence model based on the family stress model. The influence of the mediating role of warm and hostile marital interactions was also investigated after accounting for multiple indicators of the military context, which are usually significant in the lives of military families. Individuals with higher levels of concern about financial management expressed less warmth and more hostility towards their partner. In turn, individuals exhibiting higher levels of warmth had spouses who reported greater marital quality.     

Careers Open to Talent: Educational Credentials,Cultural Talent,and Skilled Employment1

In the status attainment and social mobility literatures, “talent” is often conceptualized as educational attainment or mental ability. We adapt Bourdieu’s notion of embodied cultural capital and Goffman’s notion of “staging a character” into another dimension of talent, what we call “cultural talent,” and hypothesize that an ability to wield cultural talent in hiring or promotion scenarios facilitates attainment of skilled, complex jobs. Bivariate analyses and multiple regression modeling performed on data from an original survey show that educational credentials and cultural talent both predict occupational skill and complexity.     

Female MSW Students' Satisfaction with Practicum Supervision: The Effect of Supervisor Gender

This report of a spring 1995 study involving 78 female MSW students at the University of Georgia compares the degrees of satisfaction with field practicum supervision of those with female and male field instructors respectively, using previously published measures of supervision satisfaction. One statistically significant but practically unimportant difference was revealed favoring male supervisors. The results are discussed in terms of past literature on gender in clinical supervision; areas for future research are also suggested. The little existing empirical research appears to support a gender-neutral policy for matching MSW students with practicum supervisors.     

Evaluating Distance Learning in Social Work Education

Fifty-seven MSW students enrolled in two different practice courses were exposed to approximately equal amounts (five 4-hour sessions) of live, in-class instruction and two-way interactive televised instruction. Separate post-course evaluations of both teaching methods, using a previously published measure of instructional quality, significantly favored live instruction over televised distance learning. More empirical research demonstrating the potential benefits of distance learning technology is urgently needed prior to the widespread adoption of these methods.     

Vehicle Emission Unit Risk Factors for Transportation Risk Assessments

When the transportation risk posed by shipments of hazardous chemical and radioactive materials is being assessed, it is necessary to evaluate the risks associated with both vehicle emissions and cargo-related risks. Diesel exhaust and fugitive dust emissions from vehicles transporting hazardous shipments lead to increased air pollution, which increases the risk of latent fatalities in the affected population along the transport route. The estimated risk from these vehicle-related sources can often be as large or larger than the estimated risk associated with the material being transported. In this paper, data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Motor Vehicle-Related Air Toxics Study are first used to develop latent cancer fatality estimates per kilometer of travel in rural and urban areas for all diesel truck classes. These unit risk factors are based on studies investigating the carcinogenic nature of diesel exhaust. With the same methodology, the current per-kilometer latent fatality risk factor used in transportation risk assessments for heavy diesel trucks in urban areas is revised and the analysis expanded to provide risk factors for rural areas and all diesel truck classes. These latter fatality estimates may include, but are not limited to, cancer fatalities and are based primarily on the most recent epidemiological data available on mortality rates associated with ambient air PM-10 concentrations.     

Evaluating Methods for Estimating Existential Risks

Researchers and commissions contend that the risk of human extinction is high, but none of these estimates have been based upon a rigorous methodology suitable for estimating existential risks. This article evaluates several methods that could be used to estimate the probability of human extinction. Traditional methods evaluated include: simple elicitation; whole evidence Bayesian; evidential reasoning using imprecise probabilities; and Bayesian networks. Three innovative methods are also considered: influence modeling based on environmental scans; simple elicitation using extinction scenarios as anchors; and computationally intensive possible‐worlds modeling. Evaluation criteria include: level of effort required by the probability assessors; level of effort needed to implement the method; ability of each method to model the human extinction event; ability to incorporate scientific estimates of contributory events; transparency of the inputs and outputs; acceptability to the academic community (e.g., with respect to intellectual soundness, familiarity, verisimilitude); credibility and utility of the outputs of the method to the policy community; difficulty of communicating the method's processes and outputs to nonexperts; and accuracy in other contexts. The article concludes by recommending that researchers assess the risks of human extinction by combining these methods.     

Exploring the squeezed middle: Aucklanders talk about being ‘squeezed’

ABSTRACT

This research explores how middle-class Aucklanders, participants in ‘the middle’, see themselves in terms of being squeezed. It is intended to augment existing statistical based work on class stratification and life chances and facilitate aspects of qualitative research around giving voice. The research confirms the notion of a squeezed middle for the participants based in Auckland, and a striking feature of that confirmation is the centrality of age in demarcating both resourcing (in particular, homeownership versus renting) and narratives. Insofar as the research captures the zeitgeist of the middle, this confirms a neoliberal governmentality wherein a class analysis is interpolated with personal responsibility – and the latter remains paramount. Further, the research demonstrates that empathy is associated with social proximity. The semi-structured interviews also illuminated a widespread sense of resentment. This had two dimensions: directed against neoliberalism as an historic transformation that is seen as the cause of an increasingly squeezed middle, and; against baby boomers. Participants in their 40s demonstrated the highest levels of resentment, and this confirms other research which identifies them as a problematic age cohort because of changing socio-economic conditions.