The Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology

Opened in 1946, the Linda Hall Library in Kansas City, Missouri, is world renowned for its collections in science, engineering, and technology. Just as well known is the strong user orientation of its dedicated staff. While the library certainly collects all types of materials, including books, patent specifications, engineering standards, maps, and more, a particularly strong emphasis is placed on the collection of current journals. The library, a privately funded public library, is situated on fourteen acres surrounded by the University of Missouri-Kansas City, although there is no affiliation with that institution. Serials Review made a visit on a lovely spring day in June, as the day lilies and other flowers were in full riot.     

Relocation or dislocation?—A planned approach to location

The commercial success, or indeed the survival, of an enterprise depends on forward thinking. Whether planners use sophisticated planning and modelling techniques or simply rely on hunches the objective of their planning is to project the economic environment, the market for goods and services, technological developments, etc. It is a fact, however, that relatively few enterprises, except those engaged in physical distribution, appreciate the often critical strategic importance of the location of their operations. The author deals with the factors involved in any decision to relocate.     

Telecommunications and the customer—Prospects for the 1980s

There will be major changes in the telecommunications system during the next decade and computing and broadcasting technologies will contribute to the advances in telecommunication. The author describes the prospects for the customer and the improved systems that will become available.     

‘You are a parasite on the productive classes’: online disablist hate speech in austere times

In response to a climate of austerity, disability has been keyed to a meta-narrative that has a political purpose, to justify extensive welfare cuts by positioning disability as a drain on so-called ‘hard-working taxpayers’. This paper explores how this meta-narrative is articulated on the online bulletin board, Reddit, to show how disablist hate speech may emerge as an attempt to secure one’s sense of self during austere times. A critical discourse analysis (CDA) is employed to reveal these instances and highlights the normalisation of disablist hate speech within the wider context of welfare dependency. Based on these findings, this paper makes recommendations for future research and makes a call for policy change.     

农村大龄未婚男性的婚姻困境:基于性别不平等视角的认识

大龄未婚男性的婚姻困境是在中国农村普婚制社会下长期存在的现象。文章利用全国性的专项调查、主流媒体报道和实地调查数据,从婚姻市场上的性别不平等视角来研究农村大龄男性的婚姻困境。宏观数据分析显示,用性别结构失衡来解释农村大龄男性的婚姻剥夺显得原发性因果关系不强和实证性不足,而简单地以贫困概括农村大龄男性婚姻困境的主因并没有充分考虑婚姻的本质和功能。基于性别不平等的理论视角和实证研究,认为婚姻市场上性别不平等对贫困男性婚姻困境的影响远比人口性别结构失衡的影响更为直接和重要,农村大龄男性的婚姻困境具有独立于个体内因的社会经济结构性的成因。     

The Shifting Sands of Open Access Publishing, a Publisher's View

This paper sets Open Access (OA) publishing in the context of today's scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publishing trends. Four areas are covered: (a) a brief overview of STM publishing and its value today; (b) OA's place in the industry; (c) the underlying economics of OA, particularly its author-pays model; and (d) directions in moving towards “universal access” to STM information, where both researchers and the public have access to the scientific information they need.     

Developing a data base for planning— A shipping industry case

The shipping industry comprises many discrete sectors, with such widely differing characteristics of markets and vessel design that they are in effect separate industries. Planning therefore requires a detailed knowledge of each industry's characteristics—a data base from which future projections and corporate strategy can be developed.

International bulk shipping is not yet rigorously confined by intergovernmental agreements, except for regulations covering safety and technical standards, and it is therefore a market open to the economic forces of supply and demand. The market for parcel tankers, which carry a wide range of liquid cargoes in small quantities, is the subject of this study of how the supply and demand balance in a typical shipping industry is assessed.