Advocating for librarianship: The discourses of advocacy and service in the professional identities of librarians

A dedication to service is often cited as a hallmark of a profession. Service is included as one of eleven Core Values in the American Library Association’s “Core Values of Librarianship” (2004). For librarians, service includes helping people find information resources to meet their educational, recreational, and work needs. Reporting findings from a larger study into the professional identity of librarians, this paper explores the centrality of service, with specific attention to how librarians advocate for their services and, ultimately, for librarianship. Using a discourse analysis approach, this study examines the roles that Service as a Core Value and advocacy play in the construction of professional identity. Three different data sources were used: professional journals, e-mail discussion lists, and research interviews. The data were analyzed for the discourses librarians use when describing librarians, librarianship, and professionalism and their connection to advocacy. When librarians advocate for the services they offer, they are in fact advocating for the value of the profession. Discursively, speaking or writing about advocacy positioned librarians as active participants in their own identity formation. By making advocacy a central activity of the profession, librarians not only challenged others’ perception of librarianship, they challenged their own understanding as well.published or submitted for publicationOpe

Transforming LIS Education by Understanding the Complex Decisions of Public Library Leaders

Decisions made by librarians in formal leadership roles in public libraries can have a lasting impact on their organizations and communities. For instance, several public libraries across the nation have asked drag queens to host their story time programs. This practice has created controversy and placed library leaders into situations where they have to take the needs of many different stakeholders into account. Understanding how library leaders make decisions, with emphasis on their sensemaking strategies, will shed light on this important aspect of public library leaders’ roles and transform LIS management education. This poster will present the early stages of a research project exploring these questions: 1) When faced with a complex problem, how do public library leaders make decisions?; 2) What information and sensemaking strategies do public library leaders employ when making complex decisions?; 3) What kinds of problems do public library leaders consider to be complex dilemmas?; 4) What values do public library leaders espouse when making complex decisions? And, how do these values inform their decision-making? Three approaches to data collection will be used: (1) interviews with public library leaders; (2) direct observation of practice; and (3) reviews of organizational policies and professional standards. A goal of this project is to foster the inclusion of complex decision-making processes in LIS curricula through the development and dissemination of a decision-making framework. This project will LIS-specific, empirical findings that will help emerging leaders develop their own mental models for decision-making and improve LIS management and leadership education

Factors affecting choice and perceptions of quality of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville : a qualitative study

A qualitative interview study was undertaken to describe factors central to the decision of National Merit Scholars in attending the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. In addition, this study sought to discover how National Merit Scholars who had attended the university viewed the academic quality of the university after having attended for at least two semesters. The study sought to answer four questions: 1. What factors influenced National Merit Scholars to enroll at UTK? 2. What indicators of institutional quality do National Merit Scholars use to assess the academic reputation and quality of an institution? 3. What perceptions did enrolled National Merit Scholars have about the academic reputation and quality of UTK before they enrolled? Did that perception change in any significant way after they have been in attendance for at least two semesters. 4. What suggestions do National Merit Scholars offer for making the University of Tennessee more attractive to high ability students? The study utilized twenty-five face-to-face interviews with National Merit Scholars who had attended UTK for at least two semesters, in addition to relevant documents readily available at the university, past and present UTK administrators, Internet sources, UTK staff and observations made during the interviews. Findings from the study showed that National Merit Scholars do not perceive UTK to be a high quality academic institution before attendance. The major factor influencing their initial attendance is the perception that the university does offers an exceptional educational value, as evidenced by scholarship/financial aid package offered coupled with the perception that UTK offers superior programs of study in participants\u27 desired program of study. The participants who reported that their perception of UTK had changed positively cited the UTK faculty, Honors Program, and opportunities offered at UTK as influencing these changes. Those participants who reported that their perception had changed negatively toward the academic quality of the university cited lack of sufficient state funding and the UTK administration as influencing these changes

A methodology for assessing the professional development needs of nurses and midwives in Indonesia: paper 1 of 3

BACKGROUND: Despite recent developments, health care provision in Indonesia remains suboptimal. Difficult terrain, economic crises, endemic diseases and high population numbers, coupled with limited availability of qualified health care professionals, all contribute to poor health status. In a country with a population of 220 million, there are currently an estimated 50 nurses and 26 midwives per 100 000 people. In line with government initiatives, this series of studies was undertaken to establish the training and development needs of nurses and midwives working within a variety of contexts in Indonesia, with the ultimate aim of enhancing care provision within these domains. METHODS: An established, psychometrically valid and reliable training needs instrument was modified for use within the Indonesian context. While this technique has had widespread international use in the developed world, its application for developing countries has not yet been established. The standard form consists of a biographical cover sheet and a core set of 30 items (all health-related tasks), which have to be rated along two seven-point scales. The first of these scales asks respondents to assess how important the task is to their job and the second scale is a self-assessment of respondents' current performance level of the task. By comparing the importance rating with the performance rating, an index of training need can be obtained (high importance and low performance indicating a significant training need). The modifications incorporated for use in this series of studies were a further 10 items, which were constructed following expert group and focus group discussions and a review of the relevant literature. Pilot trials with 109 respondents confirmed its feasibility and acceptability. The instrument was then administered to 524 nurses and 332 midwives across Indonesia. RESULTS: The data were subjected to a retrospective factor analysis, using a Varimax rotation and Cronbach's α to check the instrument's validity and reliability following modification. The results yielded six factors, which accounted for >53% of the variance, each of which had a Cronbach's α score of between 0.8644 and 0.7068. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that the modified instrument remained valid and reliable for use in the Indonesian nursing and midwifery context

Dormancy phase of Nitrosomonas europaea : The inducement and temporary suspension of dormancy phase and the effects on AMO and HAO

Nitrosomonas europaea is an autotrophic ammonia-oxidizer that has been found to cometabolize various halogenated hydrocarbons. This ability to cometabolize various compounds (many of which are considered contaminants) has caused N. europaea to be considered a potential bioremediational organism. However, ifN. europaea is to be used for bioremediation purposes, it will be necessary to understand N. europaea's normal state in its natural environment, (thought to be a dormancy stage), and to understand how N. europaea may be activated to cometabolize desired compounds. N. europaea was shown to enter a dormancy phase under stress and starvation conditions. This dormancy phase was exhibited by an extended lag time needed to achieve full growth when inocula taken from cultures 11 and 12 days old. The lag time was found to be related to the loss of the enzyme ammonia monooxygenase, but not to the enzyme hydroxylamine oxidoreductase. Cells could be temporarily prevented from entering dormancy stage and exhibiting long lag times by resuspending in medium containing no growth substrate. This temporary suspension of the aging process could be maintained for up to 5 days

Evaluation of an Extension-Delivered Resource for Accelerating Progress in Childhood Obesity Prevention: The BEPA-Toolkit

The Balanced Energy Physical Activity Toolkit, or the BEPA-Toolkit, supports physical activity (PA) programming via Extension in elementary schools. In a pilot study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the BEPA-Toolkit as used by teachers through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education partnerships. We surveyed teachers (n = 57) regarding their use of the kit and examined associations between teacher use of the kit and objectively measured PA of students (n = 1,103). Over 80% of responders reported that the BEPA-Toolkit provided additional opportunities for PA, and children regularly exposed to the kit were more active than those having less exposure to it. The BEPA-Toolkit may support PA opportunities in underresourced school settings

Star formation and UV colors of the brightest Cluster Galaxies in the representative XMM-Newton Cluster Structure Survey

We present UV broadband photometry and optical emission-line measurements for a sample of 32 Brightest Cluster Galaxies (BCGs) in clusters of the Representative XMM-Newton Cluster Structure Survey (REXCESS) with z = 0.06-0.18. The REXCESS clusters, chosen to study scaling relations in clusters of galaxies, have X-ray measurements of high quality. The trends of star formation and BCG colors with BCG and host properties can be investigated with this sample. The UV photometry comes from the XMM Optical Monitor, supplemented by existing archival GALEX photometry. We detected H\alpha and forbidden line emission in 7 (22%) of these BCGs, in optical spectra. All of the emission-line BCGs occupy clusters classified as cool cores, for an emission-line incidence rate of 70% for BCGs in cool core clusters. Significant correlations between the H\alpha equivalent widths, excess UV production in the BCG, and the presence of dense, X-ray bright intracluster gas with a short cooling time are seen, including the fact that all of the H\alpha emitters inhabit systems with short central cooling times and high central ICM densities. Estimates of the star formation rates based on H\alpha and UV excesses are consistent with each other in these 7 systems, ranging from 0.1-8 solar masses per year. The incidence of emission-line BCGs in the REXCESS sample is intermediate, somewhat lower than in other X-ray selected samples (-35%), and somewhat higher than but statistically consistent with optically selected, slightly lower redshift BCG samples (-10-15%). The UV-optical colors (UVW1-R-4.7\pm0.3) of REXCESS BCGs without strong optical emission lines are consistent with those predicted from templates and observations of ellipticals dominated by old stellar populations. We see no trend in UV-optical colors with optical luminosity, R-K color, X-ray temperature, redshift, or offset between X-ray centroid and X-ray peak ().Comment: 19 pages, 18 figures, 6 tables. Submitted, with minor revisions, to ApJ