Seeing is Believing: Conducting Observational Studies to Evaluate Space and Service Design

This talk discusses how Duke Libraries staff have integrated observational data assessment into space and service design over the past year using the open-source, mobile, assessment tool Suma to collect and analyze a variety of data sources

Community Efforts to Develop Best Practices in Digital Library Assessment: One Year of Progress

In 2014 the Digital Library Federation (DLF) Assessment Interest Group developed a Digital Library Assessment Framework and began engaging the community in the development of best practices and guidelines around digital library assessment. This presentation will address the progress of the interest group in its first year. We will provide background information on the DLF Assessment Interest Group, outline the collaborative methods used to document common practices and to develop best practices, and solicit audience feedback on the group’s methodology and results to date

The SUMA Project: Integrating Observational Data Assessment into Space and Service Design

This presentation was offered as part of the CUNY Library Assessment Conference, Reinventing Libraries: Reinventing Assessment, held at the City University of New York in June 2014

Developing Best Practices in Digital Library Assessment: Year One Update

In the face of limited resources and increasing demand for online access to digital library content, we need to strategically focus our efforts and better understand users, impact, and associated costs. However, methods for assessment of digital libraries are not standardized. In an effort to address this crucial gap, the Digital Library Federation Assessment Interest Group has engaged the community over the past year in the development of best practices and guidelines. With this article, the authors provide an update on progress to date and solicit participation in an evolving effort to develop viable solutions.Librarie

What Would Users Do? An Empirical Analysis of User Interaction With Online Finding Aids

This paper presents the findings from a usability study on the redesign of the finding aid Web display at the Southern Historical Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill. The study focused on how users interact with help and navigational features, stumbling blocks presented by finding aid structure and archival terminology, how users seek information, and what users want for the future of finding aids. Findings show that Internet proficiency is slightly more important than archival expertise when navigating online finding aids; novice users are able to attain a fairly high level of archival intelligence without the help of mediators; archival terminology proves a significant barrier only when presented without context; and users rely heavily on the browser function ctrl + F and series titles when searching. Interest in Web 2.0 was low for features involving modification of the finding aid or requiring trust in other users, but relatively high for features helping users to organize information

Evaluating the User Experience: What to Ask, How to Measure, and What to Learn from Assessment

Presentation at the MARAC conference in Philadelphia, PA on November 7-9, 2013. S2 - Evaluating the User Experience: What to Ask, How to Measure, and What to Learn from Assessmen

Report: 2022 ALA-CORE National Binding Survey

The American Library Association (ALA) Core Preservation Administration Interest Group (PAIG) held a Symposium on the Future of Library Binding in 2022. Following the symposium, the ALA Core Library Binding Practices Survey Team (hereafter, “Team”) was convened to explore issues that arose during the symposium. The Team members volunteered to create a survey on current library binding practices to gain a better understanding of who is using library binding as a preservation and access method, how they are using such services, and the challenges that face the community

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy in Psychosis; Relevance to Mental Health Nurses

The background to this research report is my personal and professional belief that more can be done in caring for people who experience psychosis. Psychosis can be a life-threatening illness; about one in ten young men with psychosis will take their own lives. It ravages individuals and robs families and societies of what may have been. Over the last 25 years there has been great progress in the treatment and nursing approach to psychosis, however much of this progress has been predicated on a biological explanation of psychosis. The late 1990s have seen increasing interest in psychological approaches in the treatment of psychosis; not withstanding that this treatment does not work for all people. This has caused me to examine critically what else might work and why. My intuition is, that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) may offer a way forward. It seems that as I have come to a greater understanding of CBT, its theory and its process, it has become increasingly clear that much of what mental health nurses do is, in fact, CBT. The first aim of this research report is to understand a little about CBT, through exploration of the origins of CBT and examining the theoretical basis and reviewing the evidence that may support its use The second aim is to explore the evidence around mental health nurses' training and use of CBT, by critically examining some of the major UK and Australian reports. I believe that for New Zealand mental health nurses, CBT will be the next major mental health movement in which they are involved. I consider CBT is theoretically and pragmatically compatible with contemporary nursing practice. It seems on the evidence I have found, that potentially, this approach offers the way forward for nurses and a way back for clients

A diagrammatic formulation of the kinetic theory of fluctuations in equilibrium classical fluids. VI. Binary collision approximations for the memory function for self correlation functions

We use computer simulation results for a dense Lennard-Jones fluid for a range of temperatures to test the accuracy of various binary collision approximations for the memory function for density fluctuations in liquids. The approximations tested include the moderate density approximation of the generalized Boltzmann-Enskog memory function (MGBE) of Mazenko and Yip, the binary collision approximation (BCA) and the short time approximation (STA) of Ranganathan and Andersen, and various other approximations derived by us using diagrammatic methods. The tests are of twotypes. The first is a comparison of the correlation functions predicted by each approximate memory function with the simulation results, especially for the self longitudinal current correlation function (SLCC). The second is a direct comparison of each approximate memory function with a memory function numerically extracted from the correlation function data. The MGBE memory function is accurate at short times but decays to zero too slowly and gives a poor description of the correlation function at intermediate times. The BCA is exact at zero time, but it predicts a correlation function that diverges at long times. The STA gives a reasonable description of the SLCC but does not predict the correct temperature dependence of the negative dip in the function that is associated with caging at low temperatures. None of the other binary collision approximations is a systematic improvement upon the STA. The extracted memory functions have a rapidly decaying short time part, much like the STA, and a much smaller, more slowly decaying part of the type predicted by mode coupling theory. Theories that use mode coupling commonly include a binary collision term in the memory function but do not discuss in detail the nature of that term. ...Comment: 18 pages, 10 figure

Observations of storm-induced mixing and Gulf Stream Ring incursion over the southern flank of Georges Bank : winter and summer 1997

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 115 (2010): C08008, doi:10.1029/2009JC005706.High-resolution hydrographic measurements collected along the southern edge of Georges Bank during March and June–July 1997 focused on characterizing processes that drive fluxes of material between the slope and bank. Wintertime sampling characterized changes driven by a strong storm. A Scotian Shelf crossover event produced a ribbon of anomalously fresh water along the bank's southern flank that was diluted during the storm. Comparison of prestorm and poststorm sections shows that over the bank changes in heat and salt inventories are consistent with those expected solely from local surface fluxes. In deeper waters, advective effects, likely associated with frontal motion and eddies, are clearly important. Summertime surveys resolve the development of a massive intrusion of Gulf Stream-like waters onto the bank. East of the intrusion, a thin extrusion of bank water is drawn outward by the developing ring, exporting fresher water at a rate of about 7 × 104 m3/s. A large-amplitude Gulf Stream meander appears to initiate the extrusion, but it quickly evolves, near the bank edge, into a warm core ring. Ring water intrudes to approximately the 80 m isobath, 40 km inshore from the bank edge. The intrusion process seems analogous to the development of Gulf Stream shingles (a hydrodynamic instability) in the South Atlantic Bight. It appears that, once the intruded water is established on the bank, it remains there and dissipates in place. Although the intrusion is an extremely dramatic event, it is probably not actually a major contributor to shelf edge exchanges over a seasonal time scale.This work was supported by the National Science Foundation as part of the U.S. Global Ocean Ecosystems Dynamics (GLOBEC) program through grant OCE-9632349. Lee received additional support from OCE-0628379