Embedded librarianship at Purdue University

Tucked in the northwest farmlands of Indiana in West Lafayette, Purdue University is recognized as one of the nation’s leading science and mathematics research universities. Spring rainstorms and a packed agenda greeted the 2008–2010 ARL Diversity Scholars when we visited the libraries April 20–21, 2009. Purdue University staff, librarians, and Library Dean James Mullins planned an exceptional program of guided discussions, presentations, and tours of the campus libraries. The team also offered an inside view of the institution’s libraries and a fresh vision for how librarians can place themselves in the daily workings of campus communities

Return on Instruction: Methods for Assessing the Impact of Information Literacy Instruction on the Use of Electronic Resources

Moving from simplistic, open web search strategies sufficient for high school level work to independently navigating the complex system of information sources available on college campuses is a developmental milestone for undergraduate students. One of the aims of library instruction is to play a critical role in this transition to college-level research, which necessitates the use of specialized databases and other information sources. Instruction librarians raise awareness of library e-resources and provide in-depth guidance in selecting and effectively using online sources. Santa Clara University librarians were interested in investigating the immediate impact of instruction on the use of the library’s e-resources. Do students regularly use library resources after instruction or do they revert to open web sources when searching independently? To study this question, Santa Clara University librarians examined LibGuides statistics, usage data, and instruction data to determine how frequently students access library databases post-instruction. The investigators examined LibGuides associated with course instruction from a selection of classes and explored the potential impact of instructional techniques, timing of instruction, and assignment integration on sustained use of electronic resources. The investigators also examined use of resources by level of course to explore whether independent use of library resources increased as students progress through their college years. This poster will share methodologies for assessing use of library e-resources after instruction using LibGuides statistics combined with usage and instruction data. The poster will also explore opportunities for implementing this method to assess instruction, access, and use of e-resources on college campuses. Speaker

Suburban breakout: Nomadic reverie in British pop

The protagonist in Michael Bracewell’s (2001) novel Perfect Tense is deeply embedded in the placeness of London through the relentless daily grind of his life. He is, unsurprisingly, not an optimist: ‘If the city is a machine for living,’ he observes, ‘then some people would think of our suburbs as a machine for dying’ (Bracewell 2001: 34). In Bracewell’s fictional account of a disaffected suburbanite, invested in popular music as an antidote to the anomie office work effects, the city’s energy offers the possibility of temporary transformation. We learn that the narrator’s proximity to place shapes his world view, spatially regularizing the inherited dispositional practices framing the psychic investments he makes. In order to think through this relationship between popular music and the suburbs, I complete four objectives: (i) establish the hegemonic representation of suburbia since the commercial coming of age of British popular music in the 1960s; (ii) consider the status of this suburban imaginary in response to global demographic shifts and socio- economic trends reshaping twenty-first century Britain; (iii) examine new forms of digital technology impacting where, when and how music is consumed in the context of emergent and connected ‘smart cities’; (iv) make the case that ‘suburban music’, because of its terms of reference, is in thrall to logocentrism and sketch the implications of this for judging its transformative power. I thematically connect these objectives by questioning how suburbia has been legitimated as a source of academic interest, particularly for scholars concerned with the vexed issue of how social relations are shaped by powerful inequities. In positing class as being central to our understanding of the place of suburbia in the social imagination, I endorse Carey’s (1992) definition of the suburbs as a signifier deployed by intellectuals to denigrate the people who live there, whom they read as devoid of radical thought, in thrall to conventional pursuits and tastes.1 Taking this position allows me to identify the key tropes deployed by musicians vis-à-vis suburbia and to examine the extent to which their creative output either reproduces, or conversely resists, this reading

Patterns of Failure in Texas Urban Improvement Required Schools: An Equity Audit Expansion

The achievement gap is a concept that has long been explored in education; students of color, low socioeconomic status, those who speak languages other than English, and students labeled as special education perform lower on student achievement tests and often receive less in terms of funding and resources (Harris & Hopson, 2008). Brown (2010) stated, As a result, these students, without realizing it, often fall into a predetermined mold designed for school failure and social inequity (p. 2)

Learning about Risk and Return: A Simple Model of Bubbles and Crashes

This paper demonstrates that an asset pricing model with least-squares learning can lead to bubbles and crashes as endogenous responses to the fundamentals driving asset prices. When agents are risk-averse they need to make forecasts of the conditional variance of a stock¡¯s return. Recursive updating of both the conditional variance and the expected return implies several mechanisms through which learning impacts stock prices. Extended periods of excess volatility, bubbles and crashes arise with a frequency that depends on the extent to which past data is discounted. A central role is played by changes over time in agents¡¯ estimates of risk.Risk, Asset Pricing, Bubbles, Adaptive Learning.

On the Spectrum and Nature of the Peculiar Type Ia Supernova 1991T

A parameterized supernova synthetic-spectrum code is used to study line identifications in the photospheric-phase spectra of the peculiar Type Ia SN 1991T, and to extract some constraints on the composition structure of the ejected matter. The inferred composition structure is not like that of any hydrodynamical model for Type Ia supernovae. Evidence that SN 1991T was overluminous for an SN Ia is presented, and it is suggested that this peculiar event probably was a substantially super-Chandrasekhar explosion that resulted from the merger of two white dwarfs.Comment: 1 text, 7 figures, submitted to MNRA

Standardised library instruction assessment: an institution-specific approach

Introduction We explore the use of a psychometric model for locally-relevant, information literacy assessment, using an online tool for standardised assessment of student learning during discipline-based library instruction sessions. Method A quantitative approach to data collection and analysis was used, employing standardised multiple-choice survey questions followed by individual, cognitive interviews with undergraduate students. The assessment tool was administered to five general education psychology classes during library instruction sessions. AnalysisDescriptive statistics were generated by the assessment tool. Results. The assessment tool proved a feasible means of measuring student learning. While student scores improved on every survey question, there was uneven improvement from pre-test to post-test for different questions. Conclusion Student scores showed more improvement for some learning outcomes over others, thus, spending time on fewer concepts during instruction sessions would enable more reliable evaluation of student learning. We recommend using digital learning objects that address basic research skills to enhance library instruction programmes. Future studies will explore different applications of the assessment tool, provide more detailed statistical analysis of the data and shed additional light on the significance of overall scores

SN 2005hj: Evidence for Two Classes of Normal-Bright SNe Ia and Implications for Cosmology

HET Optical spectra covering the evolution from about 6 days before to about 5 weeks after maximum light and the ROTSE-IIIb unfiltered light curve of the "Branch-normal" Type Ia Supernova SN 2005hj are presented. The host galaxy shows HII region lines at redshift of z=0.0574, which puts the peak unfiltered absolute magnitude at a somewhat over-luminous -19.6. The spectra show weak and narrow SiII lines, and for a period of at least 10 days beginning around maximum light these profiles do not change in width or depth and they indicate a constant expansion velocity of ~10,600 km/s. We analyzed the observations based on detailed radiation dynamical models in the literature. Whereas delayed detonation and deflagration models have been used to explain the majority of SNe Ia, they do not predict a long velocity plateau in the SiII minimum with an unvarying line profile. Pulsating delayed detonations and merger scenarios form shell-like density structures with properties mostly related to the mass of the shell, M_shell, and we discuss how these models may explain the observed SiII line evolution; however, these models are based on spherical calculations and other possibilities may exist. SN 2005hj is consistent with respect to the onset, duration, and velocity of the plateau, the peak luminosity and, within the uncertainties, with the intrinsic colors for models with M_shell=0.2 M_sun. Our analysis suggests a distinct class of events hidden within the Branch-normal SNe Ia. If the predicted relations between observables are confirmed, they may provide a way to separate these two groups. We discuss the implications of two distinct progenitor classes on cosmological studies employing SNe Ia, including possible differences in the peak luminosity to light curve width relation.Comment: ApJ accepted, 31 page