Succession Planning in Academic Libraries: A Reconsideration

It has been widely projected in the library literature that a substantial number of librarians will retire in the near future leaving significant gaps in the workforce, especially in library leadership. Many of those concerned with organizational development in libraries have promoted succession planning as an essential tool for addressing this much-anticipated wave of retirements. The purpose of this chapter is to argue that succession planning is the wrong approach for academic libraries. This chapter provides a review of the library literature on succession planning, as well as studies analyzing position announcements in librarianship which provide evidence as to the extent to which academic librarianship has changed in recent years. In a review of the library literature, the author found no sound explanation of why succession planning is an appropriate method for filling anticipated vacancies and no substantive evidence that succession planning programs in libraries are successful. Rather than filling anticipated vacancies with librarians prepared to fill specific positions by means of a succession planning program, the author recommends that academic library leaders should focus on the continual evaluation of current library needs and future library goals, and treat each vacancy as an opportunity to create a new position that will best satisfy the strategic goals of the library. In contrast to the nearly universal support for succession planning found in the library literature, this chapter offers a different point of view

Image intensification in the field-ion microscope

The ion current available in a field-ion image varies from 10<SUP>-12</SUP> to 10<SUP>-9</SUP> A, while the ion current per image point is of the order of 10<SUP>-14</SUP> A. The very low phosphor response for neon and argon ions as compared with electrons or helium ions makes image recording for the heavier gases extremely difficult. Post-acceleration of the ion image through a fine mesh grid gives an appreciable improvement in intensity but conversion of the ion image to an electron image, using a fine mesh, aluminium coated grid as an image converter, is far more promising and the secondary electron image obtained is of greater intensity than the normal helium image, even with neon or argon as the image gas. Commercial image intensifiers reduce the photographic exposure times to a few seconds or less, but with optical coupling to the field-ion microscope there may be a severe loss of information. This can be avoided by using an image converter inside the microscope and then intensifying the secondary electron image

A new technique for the measurement of implanted He profiles in nickel

A new technique of measuring the range of helium ions implanted at low concentrations into nickel is described. The residual amount of helium in a foil is measured by a combination of gas release and selective vibro-polishing. The method, illustrated by the results of some preliminary experiments, is sufficiently sensitive to enable the range, to be measured with peak implanted gas concentrations of the order of 10−7 atoms per nickel atom (i.e. a sensitivity limit of 10−8 atom/atom) where bubble formation is unlikely. The mean projected range of 100 keV helium ions in nickel was found to be 2800 Å, together with a second peak at 5250 Å which is thought to be due to channelling. A significant fraction of the helium diffused interstitially to depths greater than 1 μm