Opening The Preschoolers\u27 Door To Learning : An Ethnographic Study Of The Use Of Public Libraries By Preschool Girls

This ethnographic field study gathered evidence about the use of public libraries by preschool girls. Thirty girls within three months of their fourth birthdays were tape-recorded and observed during one of their usual visits to their local public libraries with their mothers. During the week following the visits, mothers maintained diaries where they reported incidents involving their daughters\u27 use of library materials and other library-related activities. Follow-up interviews were conducted with mothers to verify and find out more about the behaviour observed during the library visits and reported in the diaries. Visit, diary and interview transcripts and field notes were analyzed and coded for general themes. Vygotsky\u27s developmental theory provided a conceptual framework for the analysis of the context in which learning opportunities arose through the use of library services and materials.;During their library visits, the children participated in activities such as: return and check out of library materials; selection of library materials, including catalogue searches, reader\u27s advisory and reference activities; use of library materials, including shared reading and independent perusal; play; social interaction with others; and library programs. In the week following their library visits the children did the following: talked about libraries; made one or more additional library visits; played library; used the library materials they had borrowed for shared reading, independent perusal, and for sources of the content of their play and topics of conversation with others. Both at the library and at home, the library collections, especially stories, were the focus of most activities observed in the study.;The use of library services and collections provided many learning opportunities, particularly for learning how libraries work and for acquiring emergent literacy skills. Mothers acted as key players in their daughters\u27 use of public libraries, scaffolding their learning within Vygotsky\u27s zone of proximal development.;The results of this research indicate that public libraries can make an important contribution to the development of reading in young children through the provision of materials. Recommendations are made for improving services to support this learning, more effectively

Do Canadian Children have a Right to be Intellectually Free?

The purpose of this study is to examine some aspects of the issue of children\u27s access to information through public libraries in Canada. Voluntary professional codes of ethics and intellectual freedom manifestos of the American and Canadian Library Associations, as well as current commentary and reported practices of children\u27s librarianship, were examined. These sources contained evidence that both policies which support open access and policies restricting access to information for children exist. Some aspects of relevant international and Canadian law were then analyzed to determine whether the state has imposed any limitations on children\u27s access to information. A tension was discovered between Canada\u27s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which supports open access, and a Supreme Court of Canada decision which interpreted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to guarantee a parent\u27s right to parent as an individual liberty of Canadians. Therefore, it was discovered that the rights of Canadian children to intellectual freedom and legal limitations on those rights are not yet clearly defined in Canadian law

Writing and reading the results: the reporting of research rigour tactics in information behaviour research as evident in the published proceedings of the biennial ISIC conferences, 1996 – 2014

Introduction. This study examined if and how information behaviour researchers include research rigour tactics in reports of their research projects. Method. A content analysis was conducted of the 193 research reports published in the 1996 – 2014 ISIC proceedings. Analysis. Articles were coded for author affiliation, rigour tactics reported, and whether or not enough information was presented to allow readers to assess the quality of the research and replicate the study. Both quantitative (frequencies) and qualitative (excerpts from the articles) data are reported. Results. In total 698 research rigour tactics were reported for an average of 3.6 per paper, a median of 3 per paper and a range of 0 – 20 tactics across all papers. Twenty-six papers (13.5%) included no rigour tactics at all while 8 (4.1%) included ten or more. Only 76 (39.4%) provided enough information for readers to assess the quality of the study, with fewer (n=44; 22.8%) providing enough information to allow for replication of the study. Conclusions. Both quantitative and qualitative empirical work is not being reported in ISIC papers in ways that clearly demonstrate research rigour, nor assure replicability

Facilitating Pupil Thinking About Information Literacy

Whilst information literacy is frequently taught through the imposition on learners of an established framework, this paper suggests a different approach by taking a lead from James Herring’s ideas. Specifically, it provides guidance to school-based information professionals who would like to encourage their pupils to devise their own flexible, information literacy models which are unique to them. Drawing on existing material in information science and wider thought, it proposes areas for coverage and considers how information professionals may support the dynamic process of model construction. It is recommended that those who are intent on facilitating the creation of personal information literacy models help pupils to identify the roles they take on in their lives, to reflect on the information needs that result, to ascertain the information they require in particular situations, to explore their information-seeking activities, to consider means by which information can be captured and to give thought as to how the information they have accessed may be used. This framework is, however, by no means rigid and readers are, of course, free to make their own adjustments

An immune dysfunction score for stratification of patients with acute infection based on whole-blood gene expression

Dysregulated host responses to infection can lead to organ dysfunction and sepsis, causing millions of global deaths each year. To alleviate this burden, improved prognostication and biomarkers of response are urgently needed. We investigated the use of whole-blood transcriptomics for stratification of patients with severe infection by integrating data from 3149 samples from patients with sepsis due to community-acquired pneumonia or fecal peritonitis admitted to intensive care and healthy individuals into a gene expression reference map. We used this map to derive a quantitative sepsis response signature (SRSq) score reflective of immune dysfunction and predictive of clinical outcomes, which can be estimated using a 7- or 12-gene signature. Last, we built a machine learning framework, SepstratifieR, to deploy SRSq in adult and pediatric bacterial and viral sepsis, H1N1 influenza, and COVID-19, demonstrating clinically relevant stratification across diseases and revealing some of the physiological alterations linking immune dysregulation to mortality. Our method enables early identification of individuals with dysfunctional immune profiles, bringing us closer to precision medicine in infection.peer-reviewe

Observations of Babies and Toddlers in Library Settings

Participant observation, unlike the more traditional approach of querying adults about children???s experiences, is identified as an appropriate and effective method for studying babies and toddlers in public library settings in order to explore these experiences from the children???s own perspectives. In an observation study of eleven, thirty-minute baby storytimes conducted at two branches of a large public library system, the naturally occurring behavior of the children captured through observation field notes and audio-recording and transcription of the program successfully revealed numerous incidents of emergent literacy activities and social interaction. This article discusses the practicalities of implementing participant observation in storytime programs for very young children. Special requirements related to informed consent, the need to protect baby and toddler participants, and the challenge of gaining and maintaining access are addressed. Included is an appendix of recommended observation, child development, and research methods texts.published or submitted for publicatio

Surveying the Use of Theory in Library and Information Science Research: A Disciplinary Perspective

published or submitted for publicatio