Electronic Resources and Academic Libraries, 1980-2000: A Historical Perspective

published or submitted for publicatio

Helping to keep history relevant : mulitmedia and authentic learning

The subject based curriculum attracts lively debate in many countries being accused of fragmenting teaching and learning, erecting artificial barriers and failing to teach the skills required in the twenty first century (Hazlewood 2005). Cross-curricular rich tasks are increasingly seen as the means to develop relevant knowledge, understanding and skills. Over the past fourteen years we have developed and evaluated a series of interactive multi-media resources for primary and secondary schools on themes within Scottish History. The generally positive evaluation given to these resources by pupils and teachers points to some ways in which subjects such as history can remain challenging and relevant. The relevance has largely stemmed, in the case of the multi-media resources, from combining the historian's traditional role of problemising the past, with a wide range of primary and secondary sources, new technologies and learning tasks encompassing critical skills/authentic learning. Consequently, we argue that subjects must in future embrace new technologies and authentic learning to maintain their place in the school curriculum

The value of research data to the nation

Executive Director’s report Ross Wilkinson, ANDS How can Australia address the challenge of living in bushfire prone city fringes? How can Australia most effectively farm and preserve our precious soil? How can Australia understand the Great Barrier Reef? No single discipline can answer these questions, but to address these challenges data is needed from a range of sources and disciplines. Research data that is well organised and available allows research to make substantial contributions vital to Australia’s future. For example, by drawing upon data that is able to be used by soil scientists, geneticists, plant scientists, climate analysts, and others, it is possible to conduct the multidisciplinary investigations necessary to tackle truly difficult and important challenges. The data might be provided by a Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Network OzFluz tower, insect observations recorded by a citizen through the Atlas of Living Australia, genetic sequencing of insects through a Bioplatforms Australia facility, weather observations by the Bureau of Meteorology, or historical data generated by CSIRO over many decades. Each will provide a part of the jigsaw, but the pieces must be able to be put together. This requires careful collection and organisation, which together deliver enormous value to the country. However, nationally significant problems are often tackled by international cooperation, so Australia’s data assets enable Australian researchers to work with the best in the world, solving problems of both national and international significance. Australia’s data assets and research data infrastructure provide Australian researchers with an excellent platform for international collaboration. Australia has world-leading research data infrastructure: our ability to store, compute, discover, explore, analyse and publish is the best in the world. The ability to capture data through a wide range of capabilities, from the Australian Synchrotron to Integrated Marine Observation System [IMOS: imos.org.au] ocean gliders, the combination of national storage and computation through RDSI, NCI and Pawsey initiatives, the ability to publish and discover data through ANDS, the ability to analyse and explore data through Nectar, and state and local eResearch capabilities, highlights just some of the capabilities that Australian researchers are able to access. Importantly, their international partners are able to work with them using many of these resources. As well, Australian research organisations are assembling many resources to support their research. These include policies, procedures, practical infrastructure, and very importantly – people! The eResearch team and the data librarians are always keen to help. This issue of Share highlights how the data resources of Australia are providing a very substantial national benefit, and how that benefit is being realised

Law School Libraries 2007

The primary mission of the law school library is to meet the information needs of the faculty and students of the institution it supports. In addition to their role in educating future lawyers, law schools are the major producers of scholarly literature in law and rely on academic law libraries to provide the resources and support needed for research and publication. Beyond support for the core functions of legal education and research, the specific missions of law school libraries vary depending on the size and missions of law schools of different types. Differences among law schools result in differences among their libraries in collection size and composition, staffing and services offered, and additional clienteles served

The European Landscape of Qualitative Social Research Archives: Methodological and Practical Issues

In this article I set about describing current practices in archiving and reusing qualitative data. I discuss where can you find archived sources of qualitative data, and discuss some of the debates surrounding methodological, ethical and theoretical considerations relating to re-using data. I then address more pragmatic issues involved acquiring, preserving, providing access to and supporting the use of the data. Where best do qualitative data collections sit?in traditional libraries or archives alongside historical documents or as part of more holistic digital collections of contemporary social science research resources? This question relates to accessibility, resource discovery and cataloging methods, data preparation and documentation and promotional and outreach efforts to encourage data use. The ESDS Qualidata unit at the UK Data Archive is used as case study for showcasing archival practices, and is situated within the broader European landscape of social science-oriented data archives. Infrastructure requirements for running an archive are discussed and a look forward future developments

Data sources for rescuing the rich heritage of Mediterranean historical surface climate data

10.1002/gdj3.4Availability of long-term and high-quality instrumental climate records is still insufficient and the rich heritage of meteorological surface observations is largely underexploited in many parts of the world. This is particularly striking over the Greater Mediterranean region (GMR), where meteorological observations have been taken since the 18th century at some locations. The lack of high quality and long series here is despite this region being regarded as a climate change hot spot. This article mainly assesses relevant sources containing Mediterranean historical climate data and metadata either from online repositories worldwide or physical archives, with the emphasis here on the rich holdings kept at French archives. A particular case study is the data rescue (DARE) program undertaken by the Algerian National Meteorological Service, as well as some of the past and ongoing projects and initiatives aimed at enhancing climate data availability and accessibility over the GMR. Our findings point to the high potential for undertaking DARE activities over the GMR and the need for bringing longer and higher quality climate time series to support a diverse number of scientific and technical assessments and policies

Law School Libraries

Ascorbic acid (AA), in popular speech vitamin C, is a commonly known nutrient. It is involved in several biological processes and deficiency can lead to scurvy. Recent publications have shown the impact of AA on epigenetic regulation in mice. Addition of AA, via enzymatic activity, enhances the generation of 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), which is an intermediate in active demethylation of DNA. The role of AA on epigenetic changes in humans has to our knowledge never been studied. In this study, naïve CD4+ T cells from blood donors were used as a model system to investigate AAs possible role in methylation changes in the immune system. By using dot-blot assay, hydroxymethylated DNA immunoprecipitation (hmeDIP) and qPCR, changes in methylation executed by AA could be detected. A confirmation of AAs impact on epigenetic changes in mice was observed. AA enhanced the levels of 5hmC compared to untreated cells. The Jurkat cell line, a human T lymphocyte cell line, showed an opposite result. Treatment with AA decreased the levels of 5hmC compared to untreated cells. When comparing this result with the results obtained in human naïve T cells, the same observation was made. The difference between mouse and human in the ability of producing and metabolize AA could be a reason for this opposite result. Since AA had the ability to modify epigenetic changes in primary human CD4+ T cells, the results suggest that AA may have a function in the human immune system

Bridging the biodiversity data gaps: Recommendations to meet users’ data needs

A strong case has been made for freely available, high quality data on species occurrence, in order to track changes in biodiversity. However, one of the main issues surrounding the provision of such data is that sources vary in quality, scope, and accuracy. Therefore publishers of such data must face the challenge of maximizing quality, utility and breadth of data coverage, in order to make such data useful to users. Here, we report a number of recommendations that stem from a content need assessment survey conducted by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). Through this survey, we aimed to distil the main user needs regarding biodiversity data. We find a broad range of recommendations from the survey respondents, principally concerning issues such as data quality, bias, and coverage, and extending ease of access. We recommend a candidate set of actions for the GBIF that fall into three classes: 1) addressing data gaps, data volume, and data quality, 2) aggregating new kinds of data for new applications, and 3) promoting ease-of-use and providing incentives for wider use. Addressing the challenge of providing high quality primary biodiversity data can potentially serve the needs of many international biodiversity initiatives, including the new 2020 biodiversity targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the emerging global biodiversity observation network (GEO BON), and the new Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)