Integrating Circulated Technology into the Library Collection Development Plan

Academic libraries are increasingly focused on the acquisition and expansion of circulating technology collections. These collections are often governed by auxiliary library services such as Access Services or IT departments and not considered as part of the general collection. Technology purchases are typically made with one-time-use funds and replacement is an ad-hoc process depending on budget availability. Users are rarely consulted regarding new purchases and systematic analysis of usage is lacking. As laptops, tablets and other technologies become integral to a library’s circulated resources, they need to be integrated as part of the regular collection and included in the library’s collection management planning. This inclusion would enable the library to apply current and emerging collection development strategies, such as Demand Driven Acquisition, to these collections and center users as the decision makers in technology collection growth by continually assessing users’ needs and evaluating collections based on those needs. This poster chronicles the efforts of San Jose State University Library’s Student Computing Services department to unify technology purchasing with other collection management strategies and policies, which includes demand driven acquisitions, ongoing evaluation and in-depth assessment. It highlights how these methods bring users in from the margins of technology collection development, putting them at the center of technology purchasing decision

Research interventions to strengthen irrigators' associations

Irrigation management, Water distribution, Financing, Data collection, Operations, Maintenance, Performance indexes, Privatization, Farmer-agency interactions, Institution building, Farmers associations, Training, Participatory management, Leadership, Farm Management, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Teaching/Communication/Extension/Profession,

Volunteer Management Practices and Retention of Volunteers

This report is the second in a series of briefs on a 2003 survey of volunteer management capacity among public charities in the United States. It focuses on charities' adoption of nine volunteer management practices: supervision and communication, liability coverage, screening and matching, regular collection of volunteer numbers and hours written policies and job descriptions, recognition activities, measurement of volunteer impacts, training and professional development, and training for paid staff in working with volunteers. We report on the extent of adoption of these practices by charities with different characteristics, and the relationship between volunteer management practices and retention of volunteers

Shared Collection Development, Digitization, and Owned Digital Collections

While library models already exist for sharing physical materials and joint licensing, this paper envisions an aspect of future collections involving a national digital collection owned, not licensed, by libraries. Collaborative collection development, digitization, and digital object management of owned collections can benefit societies in multiple ways, from expanding access to users otherwise unable to reach these materials, to preserving content even when disaster strikes, to reducing duplication of effort and expense in collection or digitization. This article will explore both the benefits of and the challenges to this type of collaboration

Environment, Health and Wealth: Towards an Analysis of Municipal Solid Waste Management in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

The management of municipal solid waste is one of the challenges facing the developing countries because governments, institutions, and private sectors have given solid waste management low priority and ignoring the implication it has on the general public. This is characterized by inefficient collection methods, insufficient coverage of the collection system and improper disposal. This paper presents the current solid waste management method adopted in Ado-Odo Ota local government and its associated challenges. Four locations (Iganmode area, Joju area, Ota market and toll gate area) were selected. These sites are points where the waste bins are located. A field work that involves the characterization and types of the waste generated, and frequency of collection from each site was carried out. A representative sample of 280 kg was used for the waste characterization and the result shows that about 64% of the wastes are recyclable with lots of organic waste that comprises of food and agricultural waste which can be used as compost. The only dump site in Ota was visited in order to obtain useful information concerning the present state of solid waste management. The study revealed that there is presently no investment made to the existing development plan to introduce a modern waste management system. The study suggests new approach that could be used by institutions and government agencies for municipal solid waste management to achieve sustainable and effective sanitation

E-Learning Strategies in Developing Research Performance Efficiency: Higher Education Institutions

The study aimed to identify E- Learning strategies and their relation to the efficiency of research performance in foreign and Palestinian universities (University of Ottawa, Munster, Suez Canal, Al-Azhar, Islamic, Al-Aqsa). The analytical descriptive approach was used for this purpose, and relying on the questionnaire as a main tool for data collection. The study society is from the senior management, where the number of senior management in the universities in question is 206. The random stratified sample was selected and (SPSS) was used for statistical data analysis. The study found a significant relationship between E- Learning strategies and the efficiency of research performance in universities. It also reached the participation of senior management in the research that develops the university performance in the Palestinian universities. The senior management indicated that they do not care to follow the policies of implementing the development of scientific research. While the senior management in foreign universities indicated that they are interested in following up the policies of implementing the development of scientific research. The study also showed that senior management in Palestinian universities does not care about providing the appropriate budget for E- Learning. The study recommended that the senior management of Palestinian universities should provide an E- Learning budget and encourage employees to continue using E- Learning strategies. The administration in the Palestinian universities should adopt and support outstanding research, and the need to encourage interest in the implementation of policies for the development of scientific research

From Design to Production Control Through the Integration of Engineering Data Management and Workflow Management Systems

At a time when many companies are under pressure to reduce "times-to-market" the management of product information from the early stages of design through assembly to manufacture and production has become increasingly important. Similarly in the construction of high energy physics devices the collection of (often evolving) engineering data is central to the subsequent physics analysis. Traditionally in industry design engineers have employed Engineering Data Management Systems (also called Product Data Management Systems) to coordinate and control access to documented versions of product designs. However, these systems provide control only at the collaborative design level and are seldom used beyond design. Workflow management systems, on the other hand, are employed in industry to coordinate and support the more complex and repeatable work processes of the production environment. Commercial workflow products cannot support the highly dynamic activities found both in the design stages of product development and in rapidly evolving workflow definitions. The integration of Product Data Management with Workflow Management can provide support for product development from initial CAD/CAM collaborative design through to the support and optimisation of production workflow activities. This paper investigates this integration and proposes a philosophy for the support of product data throughout the full development and production lifecycle and demonstrates its usefulness in the construction of CMS detectors.Comment: 18 pages, 13 figure

A Study on the Assessment of Management Frameworks for Waste Electronic Home Appliances

Serious adverse impacts on the environment and human health from the recycling and disposal of electronic waste have occurred in the past and continue to occur in China today, due to the lack of a national management strategy. With aiming to support the management strategy development, a study was carried out to plan and quantitatively evaluate the optional management frameworks for the selected five main types of large electronic home appliances in Beijing, the capital city and a typically big municipality in China. This paper outlined the main findings yielded from the series of assessment studies which started from the generation amount prediction and material flow analysis of the used electronic appliances, planning and optimization of the collection & transportation frameworks and ended at the economic evaluation of the optional recycling processes for the waste appliances. Although the revenue could be expected from the result of isolated evaluation of the recycling processes, the entire system will be economically unavailable if the used appliances are still collected from the owners at current prices. The traditional understanding of householders on the values of their used appliances should be changed in Beijing and China as a whole. Establishment of a formal collection system that could take back the used appliances at lower prices (less than 40% of the current level) is the key for the construction of a formal management framework with sustainability

Development of a music organizer for children

Software development for children is challenging; children have their own needs, which often are not met by ‘grown up’ software. We focus on software for playing songs and managing a music collection—tasks that children take great interest in, but for which they have few or inappropriate tools. We address this situation with the design of a new music management system, created with children as design partners: the Kids Music Box

Finding the way: improving access to the collections of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society

This case study describes and discusses the ‘Images for All’ project at the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and lessons learned from it. The background to the project and collections held is described. The case study focuses on the development of the project website, the digitisation of 100 images from the collection and the nature of project management in a small scale project. The paper finds that there are many potential challenges faced by project managers working in small voluntary organisations, but these can be overcome