Research Libraries and Research Data Management within the Humanities and Social Sciences

Research Data Management (RDM) is a process that is designed to deliver high quality datasets, which comply with scholarly, legal and ethical requirements. There are two outputs of the RDM process: 1. Long term preservation of datasets through archiving 2. Sharing and reuse of datasets for further research and other purposes in society at large. This proposal outlines the creation of a coherent Research Data Management organization at Lund University that utilizes existing resources both within and outside the university and establishes new organizational units and information systems, specific to this new task. We propose the establishment of a new unit for Research Data Management and Coordination at the University Library whose responsibility would be to coordinate the network of existing agents who support research activities such as faculty libraries and ethical, legal, archival and data management experts. We further propose the creation of a new information system, the Lund University Dataset Directory, which will facilitate management of datasets and information retrieval throughout the data lifecycle. We expect that research datasets could be deposited for sharing at national or disciplinary repositories and eventually archived when a solution is in place at the University Archive. Advanced RDM - like semantic web technologies - will require online data services not currently provided by national agents. We therefor propose a Data Laboratory within the RDM network at Lund University. Finally, it's important to recognize that Research Data Management is a new way of organizing information with its own set of tasks for the library organization. Our efforts in RDM will require us to invest significant effort in learning new systems, ways of working and collaboration

Progressive accommodation for seniors : interfacing shelter and services

The purpose of this book is to explore the reasons why clients, agencies and governments are considering options that blend shelter and care, the barriers impeding their development and how these have or may be overcome at both the policy and the practice level. New ways of measuring person-environment fit and the potential of maximizing it via enabling technologies are also examined. The target readership includes researchers, architects, policy makers, developers, care providers and operators of existing seniors housing, all of whom can benefit from a better understanding of the multiple issues involved in interfacing shelter and services.TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction / Gloria M. Gutman and Andrew V. Wister; Part I: Changing Clients, Economics and Expectations in Housing for Seniors: Chapter 1- Current Demographics and Living Arrangements of Canada\u27s Elderly / Gordon E. Priest; Chapter 2- Choice, Control, and the Right to Age in Place / Veronica Doyle. Part II: Problems in Providing Service within Existing Seniors Housing: Chapter 3- Current Realities and Challenges in Providing Services to Seniors: The Home Care Perspective / Lois Borden and Joan McGregor; Chapter 4 - Difficulties in Providing Support Services in Buildings Constructed Under Shelter-Only Housing Policies / Reg Appleyard. Part III: Transcending Barriers to Combining Shelter and Services: Chapter 5- Public, Private and Non-Profit Partnerships: The CCPPPH Link / C.W. Lusk; Chapter 6- Group Homes: The Swedish Model of Care for Persons with Dementia of the Alzheimer\u27s Type / Elaine Gallagher; Chapter 7- Supportive Housing for Elderly Persons in Ontario / Garry Baker; Chapter 8- Social Policy Models for Shelter and Services: An International Perspective / Satya Brink. Part IV: Measuring and Maximizing Person-Environment Fit: Chapter 9- Measuring Person-Environment Fit Among Frail Older Adults Using Video / Andrew V. Wister and James R. Watzke; Chapter 10- Assessing the Client\u27s Perception of Person-Environment Fit Using the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure / Anne Carswell. Part V: Enabling Technologies in Housing for Seniors: Chapter 11- Personal Response Systems: Canadian Data on Subscribers and Alarms / James R. Watzke; Chapter 12- Older Adults\u27 Response to Automated Environmental Control Devices / James R. Watzke and Gary Birch; Chapter 13- Use and Potential Use of Assistive Devices by Home-Based Seniors / William C. Mann; Chapter 14 - Necessary Elements of a Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Technical Aids for the Elderly / George Abrahamsohn, Gloria M. Gutman and Andrew V. Wister; Chapter 15- Bridging the Technology Gap - The Links Between Research, Development, Production and Policy for Products Supporting Independent Living / Satya Brin

Understanding Childcare Choices amongst Low-Income Employed Mothers in Urban and Rural KwaZulu-Natal

This study explains how low-income employed mothers navigate care strategies for their young children (0-4 years). The study considers the constraints within which they make ‘choices' about caring for their children using the market, kin and state. In addition, the study argues that these ‘choices' are immensely constrained and that the low-income employed mothers have no real choice. For many women, the ‘feminisation of the workforce' – the growing number of women in paid work – has entailed enormous stress and pressure, as they combine strenuous paid work with the demands of mothering. Low-income employed mothers must balance paid with unpaid work, in ways that are different to women who have more resources. This study analyses how women do this within households where gendered roles and a gender hierarchy continue to prevail. In some cases, low-income employed mothers must take on not only do the ‘work' of managing the household but also the additional ‘work' of soliciting the fathers for financial support and involvement in at least some aspects of their children's lives. This is a phenomenon that existing literature has not captured. The work performed by low-income employed mothers is shaped by changes in the family structure and kinship relations. The family structure in South Africa has been described as disintegrating and in crisis. I argue that the presence of paternal kin had traditionally been a pertinent one in the life of a child (specifically in KwaZulu-Natal, the study site) based on patrilineal belonging. This has significantly shifted and has implications for low-income employed mothers already stretched thin balancing work and childcare with limited support. The ‘choices' made by working women are also framed by their understanding of motherhood, which are in turn framed by cultural and societal expectations and perceptions. Having engaged with the balance between paid and unpaid work (and other forms of work – cognitive work and the work of chasing money and involvement) that the mothers must do (mothering practices), the thesis makes sense of Zulu ideals about motherhood, and how these have shaped and informed the experiences of the mothers, in the present context of the changing position of women. Mothers are nearly always the gatekeepers for the provision of care for children. This study uses the lived experiences of low-income employed mothers to show that they cannot exercise much choice in determining how to provide care for their preschool children. Most of the institutional options – both through the market and the supposed state – are constrained by their inability to afford to look for better options and by their lack of time to travel to better options. Familial or kin options are constrained by the ambivalence of kin and mothers' own expectations and understandings of their own roles. The result is that employed mothers are often on their own, piecing together a combination of childcare arrangements that is very far from the ideal childcare they would like to provide for their children. Low-income employed mothers need to be supported in their roles as employed mothers; this would be possible through subsidized public provision of quality early childhood services. However, policy implications of this would need to be considered. For instance, what would quality childcare provision cost the state? Is it feasible in a country still working on undoing the policy implications of the apartheid state? It could be that the state might not have the capacity to organize this. The South African state has a very poor track record in converting public expenditure into high quality public services. Lessons from this can be drawn from a few examples, for instance health care, education and housing (which are problematic). This thesis adds to the literature in using the lived experiences of employed mothers to show that neither the state nor the market nor kin provide an adequate safety net for the care of the children of low-income employed mothers