Best Practices for Staff Sharing

Medium to larger academic libraries often hire and train staff members to perform a variety of duties within a single department. However, in the current difficult budgetary environment, such academic libraries may use sharing of staff members between departments and cross-training in order to maintain the provision of high quality library service. This poster session will present a set of best practices for staff sharing, including scheduling and prioritizing tasks, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of such sharing from the perspectives of the supervisors and staff members. Examples of staff sharing as implemented at Booth Library, Eastern Illinois University will also be provided

Interlibrary Loan Patron Use Patterns: An Examination of Borrowing Requests at a Mid-sized Academic Library

The results of a recently conducted study of interlibrary loan fee-based borrowing requests are presented in this article. The study examined 3,074 borrowing requests completed over a three-year period from January 2007 to December 2009. An analysis of the statistics was made to determine patron behavior in submitting requests and the types of materials being requested

Getting the Most Out of Your Student Worker Budget: A Survey of Tasks Performed by Student Assistants in Access Services Departments

University libraries invest considerable funds and staff time in the hiring, training, and employment of student assistants. Access Services departments within university libraries depend on student assistants to complete tasks and aid in the work flow in virtually all areas of the department. With the recent increases in minimum wage and uncertain library budgets, the need for the most efficient and effective use of student assistants has become an even greater concern. This poster session will present the results of a recently conducted survey of Access Services department supervisors on the hiring, training, and duties assigned to student assistants. Results of the survey will present new ideas and approaches that other libraries have employed on how to best make use of student assistants

Getting the Most Out of Your Student Worker Budget: A Survey of Tasks Performed by Student Assistants in Access Services Departments

University libraries invest considerable funds and staff time in the hiring, training, and employment of student assistants. Access Services departments within university libraries depend on student assistants to complete tasks and aid in the work flow in virtually all areas of the department. With the recent increases in minimum wage and uncertain library budgets, the need for the most efficient and effective use of student assistants has become an even greater concern. This poster session will present the results of a recently conducted survey of Access Services department supervisors on the hiring, training, and duties assigned to student assistants. Results of the survey will present new ideas and approaches that other libraries have employed on how to best make use of student assistants

Feedback to Support Learning in the Leadership Institute for Teachers

Feedback is a type of formative assessment used to inform instruction and advance learning. Feedback serves as a mechanism to connect teaching and learning at the student level. Learners receive feedback, formally or informally, as they engage in learning experiences. Within the Leadership Institute for Teachers, a National Science Foundation funded research project, we are exploring feedback as a research‐informed process to support learning and improvement for individuals, teams, and university courses. There is an explicit focus on creating a culture of critical thinking and reasoning, taking ownership for learning both individually and collectively, and understanding how to improve teaching and scholarship through an iterative feedback process

The Buffer Effect of Receiving Social Support on SNS Exhaustion and SNS Satisfaction: An Exploratory Study of the Lonely and Emotionally Unstable

Popular press reports that using social networking sites (SNSs) can cause increased stress levels in individuals. Although academic literature has attempted to explain the technostress related to social media, much remains unclear how feelings of being drained from SNS activities can be alleviated. This exploratory study draws upon the buffer effect of social support theory and tests it in the context of SNS. We analyze users who experience loneliness and emotional instability to better understand their psychological responses to social overload and receiving social support in terms of effects on SNS satisfaction, exhaustion, and discontinuous usage intention. Data from more than 1,000 users support our hypotheses that receiving social support is significantly related to SNS exhaustion and satisfaction. Interestingly, contrary to prior studies, the relationship between social overload and SNS satisfaction is found to be significantly positive for emotionally unstable users. Implications for research and practice are provided

Prazosin Reduces Alcohol Intake in an Animal Model of Alcohol Relapse

BACKGROUND: Many alcoholics and heavy drinkers undergo repeated cycles of alcohol abstinence followed by relapse to alcohol drinking; a pattern that contributes to escalated alcohol intake over time. In rodents, alcohol drinking that is interspersed with periods of alcohol deprivation (imposed abstinence) increases alcohol intake during reaccess to alcohol. This is termed the "alcohol deprivation effect" or "ADE" and is a model of alcohol relapse in humans. We have previously reported that prazosin reduces alcohol drinking during both brief and prolonged treatment in rats selectively bred for alcohol preference ("P" rats). This study explores whether prazosin prevents alcohol "relapse" in P rats, as reflected by a reduced or abolished ADE. METHODS: Adult male P rats were given 24-hour access to food and water and scheduled access to alcohol (15 and 30% v/v solutions presented concurrently) for 2 h/d. After 5 weeks, rats underwent imposed alcohol deprivation for 2 weeks, followed by alcohol reaccess for 2 weeks, and this pattern was repeated for a total of 3 cycles. Rats were injected with prazosin (0, 0.5, 1.0, or 2.0 mg/kg body weight, intraperitoneally) once a day for the first 5 days of each alcohol reaccess cycle. RESULTS: Alcohol intake increased on the first day of each alcohol reaccess cycle, demonstrating the formation of an ADE. The ADE was short-lived, lasting only 1 day, during each of the 3 cycles. Prazosin, in all doses tested, prevented the expression of an ADE in all 3 alcohol reaccess cycles. CONCLUSIONS: Prazosin decreases alcohol intake in P rats even in a situation that would be expected to increase alcohol drinking, namely following periods of alcohol deprivation. This suggests that prazosin may be effective in reducing alcohol relapse that often occurs during attempts to achieve permanent alcohol abstinence in treatment-seeking alcoholics and heavy drinkers

Phase I Study Assessing the Pharmacokinetic Profile, Safety, and Tolerability of a Single Dose of Ceftazidime-Avibactam in Hospitalized Pediatric Patients.

This study aimed to investigate the pharmacokinetics (PK), safety, and tolerability of a single dose of ceftazidime-avibactam in pediatric patients. A phase I, multicenter, open-label PK study was conducted in pediatric patients hospitalized with an infection and receiving systemic antibiotic therapy. Patients were enrolled into four age cohorts (cohort 1, ≥12 to <18 years; cohort 2, ≥6 to <12 years; cohort 3, ≥2 to <6 years; cohort 4, ≥3 months to <2 years). Patients received a single 2-h intravenous infusion of ceftazidime-avibactam (cohort 1, 2,000 to 500 mg; cohort 2, 2,000 to 500 mg [≥40 kg] or 50 to 12.5 mg/kg [<40 kg]; cohorts 3 and 4, 50 to 12.5 mg/kg). Blood samples were collected to describe individual PK characteristics for ceftazidime and avibactam. Population PK modeling was used to describe characteristics of ceftazidime and avibactam PK across all age groups. Safety and tolerability were assessed. Thirty-two patients received study drug. Mean plasma concentration-time curves, geometric mean maximum concentration (Cmax), and area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to infinity (AUC0-∞) were similar across all cohorts for both drugs. Six patients (18.8%) reported an adverse event, all mild or moderate in intensity. No deaths or serious adverse events occurred. The single-dose PK of ceftazidime and avibactam were comparable between each of the 4 age cohorts investigated and were broadly similar to those previously observed in adults. No new safety concerns were identified. (This study has been registered at ClinicalTrials.gov under registration no. NCT01893346.)