GAELS Project Final Report: Information environment for engineering

The GAELS project was a collaboration commenced in 1999 between Glasgow University Library and Strathclyde University Library with two main aims:· to develop collaborative information services in support of engineering research at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde· to develop a CAL (computer-aided learning package) package in advanced information skills for engineering research students and staff The project was funded by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council (SHEFC) from their Strategic Change Initiative funding stream, and funding was awarded initially for one year, with an extension of the grant for a further year. The project ended in June 2001.The funding from SHEFC paid for two research assistants, one based at Glasgow University Library working on collaborative information services and one based at Strathclyde University Library developing courseware. Latterly, after these two research assistants left to take up other posts, there has been a single researcher based at Glasgow University Library.The project was funded to investigate the feasibility of new services to the Engineering Faculties at both Universities, with a view to making recommendations for service provision that can be developed for other subject areas

Academic digital library in Malaysia: A case study on the status of digital reference services

This paper highlights the current status of digital library services provided by selected public academic libraries in Malaysia. The drift from traditional library to digital library architecture has set drastic changes in favor of adopting knowledge-gain mechanisms via the use of networked and digital environments. With diversity of functions, academic digital library is seen the most awaiting proxy in changing the information culture among academic users. This paper in general attempts to highlight the phenomena of using digital library system in public universities in Malaysia. The focal of the discussion is on digital reference services of academic digital library

Affordances in activity theory and cognitive systems engineering

For the last decade, the Gibsonian concept of affordances has at- tracted much attention within Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) and related research communities. The application of Gibson's ideas in HMI has lead to the notion of direct manipulation of interface objects. Previously, the focus has been on design for low level interaction modalities. To incorporate the concept of affordances in the design of human computer interaction it is necessary to systematically unravel affordances that support human action possibilities. Furthermore, it is a necessity that Gibson's theory of affordances is supplemented by careful analyses of other human modalities and activities than visual perception. Within HMI two well established perspectives on HMI, Activity Theory (AT) and Cognitive Systems Engineering (CSE), have discussed such analyses and design of action possibilities focusing on providing computer support for work situations. Within these perspectives, the primary unit of analysis in HMI is human work activity and the socio-cultural context in which this activity is carried out. Thus, they emphasise the actors' purposeful activity as the most important design rationale. According to previous views in HMI, notably those that have been put forward by Norman and Gaver, affordances are in the foreground, whereas the system or work area is in the background. AT and CSE share the view that the actors' perception of foreground and background shifts dynamically according to the actors' situational context in purposeful activity. AT and CSE follow the original notion by Gibson on the actor's dynamic shifting between foreground and background of the environment. Furthermore, their work- and actor-centred approach to analysis and design of information sys..

Reports Of Conferences, Institutes, And Seminars

This quarter\u27s column offers coverage of multiple sessions from the 2016 Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference, held April 3–6, 2016, in Austin, Texas. Topics in serials acquisitions dominate the column, including reports on altmetrics, cost per use, demand-driven acquisitions, and scholarly communications and the use of subscriptions agents; ERMS, access, and knowledgebases are also featured

Access to Electronic Data by Third-Country Law Enforcement Authorities, Challenges to EU Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights. Center for European Policy Studies, 2015

This study examines the challenges posed to European law by third country access to data held by private companies for the purposes of law enforcement. It pays particular attention to the implications for rule of law and fundamental rights of foreign authorities’ direct access to electronic information falling outside pre-established channels of supranational cooperation. A special focus is given to EU-US relations and the practical issues emerging in transatlantic relations covering mutual legal assistance and evidence gathering for law enforcement purposes in criminal proceedings

The conception of human nature in modern political thought : with special reference to the work of Charles Taylor

[From the introduction:]This thesis will analyse and advocate a 'contextualist' reading of human nature. By reference to the work of Charles Taylor it will be argued that Modern conceptions of human nature are (to echo Nietzsche) 'dead'. This is to attack the suggestion that a conception of human nature may be understood in an ahistorical, universalist, abstract or 'unencumbered' sense. A conception of human nature must, of necessity, it will be argued, be understood in a more dynamic and 'local' sense. It is the suggestion of this thesis that human nature must be understood in a sense akin to the existential notion of 'facticity', or as possessing a degree of 'determinacy'. While human nature is 'encumbered' by its 'situation' in time and geographical location it is not however wholly determined. An individual's existence is co-determined by individual choice, the individual's history, and by Nature. Human nature must be recognised to have a facticity, to exist at a certain point in history, in a certain country, to be encumbered by countless other emotional ties, friendships, and loyalties. This 'embedded' conception of human nature is delineated and explored through Taylor's conception of human nature as an 'interspatial epiphany', and is to be preferred to the unencumbered sense of interspatial epiphany that might be seen to be offered by some forms of existentialism. Such existentialist thought is not as astutely located or embedded as Taylor's thought, and suffers from what Taylor terms 'existential heroism', a focus on choice making rather than on the background of encumberment.While the notion of a universal conception of human nature must be abandoned, as the individual is now seen as 'located' temporally, and spatially, it is still possible to draw some (very) modest generalisations about the nature of individuals. This exploration proceeds by generating a 'thick description' of the selfs particular, but ultimately contingent, connections and affiliations. (Such a located description is seen as superior by Taylor, to thin, mechanistic, scientific and neurological descriptions of human agency.