Reports of Conferences, Institutes, and Seminars

This quarter's column features reports from the 2011 Electronic Resources & Libraries Conference; the 2011 North Carolina Serials Conference; the 2011 Association of College and Research Libraries Conference; the 2011 Kansas Library Association Conference; the New England Technical Services Librarians Section of the New England Library Association Spring 2011 Conference; and the 2011 Texas Library Association Conference.     

给老外提建议的窍门

案例：主动提出建议 两年前的一次聚会中，笔者结识了来自新西兰的David。David为人很腼腆也很友善。闲聊中，我（何震）得知他是公安大学英语课的外籍教师，而我本人的本科四年就是在“公大”度过的。David谈到，像国内的其他学生一样，除非是课后一对一的私下交流，否则课堂上学生们一般不太愿意主动发言，也不愿意提问和主动参加各种讨论，他为此颇伤脑筋。这时我突然有个想法：“我要验证一下，如果我主动给David提出建议，他的反应将会是什么？是感到自己被冒犯而气愤？还是不以为然或者欣然接受？”     

Have we come a long way? Using the Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics to revisit the ‘pin money’ theory

Canada has experienced a lengthy period of economic recovery, since the recession of the early 1990s, and many families’ standard of living has improved. I evaluate the ‘pin money’ hypothesis of the feminist scholarship, which is closely linked to what economists often refer to as an ‘added worker effect’. An improved economy may generate incentives for some married women in various occupations to make significant alterations to their labour market connections. Panel data are used to examine the effects of changes to women's hours, for example, whether some respondents opt out or reduce their hours given the rising incomes of economic partners. The methodology involves the use of two panels of the Statistics Canada, Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics and a random effects probit model to estimate various participation equations of labour decisions over time within a household context. While the findings indicate that a small percentage of married female respondents have reduced their hours, there is stronger evidence that women's contributions to household income appear to be essential to family survival.     

Reading Skills in Children with Multichannel Cochlear-lmplant Experience

Forty children with prelingual, profound deafness who received the Nucleus multichannel cochlear implant between the ages of 2 and 13 years participated in this study. The children had an average of 63.3 months (SD=24 months) of experience with their cochlear implants. A majority of the children used simultaneous communication and attended public-school programs at the time of testing. Reading achievement was assessed using the Paragraph Comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test-Revised, Form G (1987). This study compared the reading-achievement levels of this group of cochlear-implant users with the results of previous studies of children with profound hearing losses who did not have the benefit of cochlear implants. Results indicated that nearly one half of the children in this study were reading at or within 8 months of their grade level. The reading-grade quotient of .74 was calculated based upon the slope of the regression line for the plot of years in school and reading grade-level achieved. This finding indicates that using a cochlear implant has a positive effect on reading achievement level.     

Caroline Bartlett Crane and the history of sociology: Salvation, sanitation, and the social gospel

This article investigates the relationship between Progressive era (1890–1920) social reform and the origins of American sociology with a view of the vital contributions of women in these endeavors. I observe the efforts of the first generation of sociologists to legitimate and delineate the field in the “social construction” of the discipline of sociology, as they attempted to combine Christianity, the social gospel, and socialism into a new and unique ideology. In this article I examine the archival material of Progressive era reformer, Caroline Bartlett Crane (1858–1935), a Unitarian minister and student in the sociology department of the University of Chicago in 1896, to address the relationship between theology, sociology, and social reform from a woman’s perspective.     

Project agreements and government procurement

I discuss the recent proliferation of mandatory project labor agreements in government procurement, some of the ensuing litigation, and the effects of such agreements on contractors, workers, and the public.