Steering the Collection, Together: Growing Stronger Regional Collections with Resource Sharing Data

This presentation will begin with a refresh of the initial stages of a multi-year project which aims to strengthen individual libraries\u27 collections as well as regional collections through the use of resource sharing data. With rich resource sharing data (such as the number of times a title was requested within IDS Project, regional holdings, and more) staff in acquisitions and resource sharing can collaborate to build strong, diverse collections without even having to learn ILLiad. Our presentation will also elaborate on the second phase of this project, in which we have focused our work on real-time coordinated collection development, taking resource sharing data and actively moving ILLiad requests based on libraries\u27 willingness to buy and send titles related to curricular strengths. We will share how we worked with developers to move ILLiad requests in real-time, planned physical and ILLiad workflows, and tested buying and shipping requested physical items to borrowing libraries using two common academic library vendors. We will also discuss our progress on including regional libraries outside of the IDS Project. Join us to find out how your library could participate. Let\u27s work together to identify where the program could go next as we improve this program to best serve all of our patrons

Using Interlibrary Loan to Strengthen Regional Library Collections

Academic libraries in New York State have benefited from Coordinated Collection Development Aid (CCDA), meant to support resource sharing, since 1981. In recent years, dwindling academic library budgets have increased the need to utilize funds effectively and reduce unnecessary duplication across physical library collections. Patrons already benefit from the connection between resource sharing and collection development, where ILL is important and shared collections are valued. A need existed to connect the dots between library collection development and resource sharing cooperatives, where the strength of resource sharing groups is the strength of the combined, diversified collections of its members. The presentation will describe phases of a pilot project to develop and use technology to assist in true coordinated collection development through the use of ILLiad. The presentation will describe the need for true coordinated collection development, illustrate the proposed solution of a tool using ILLiad, outline the implementation of the project, and discuss the hopes for the future. Lastly, we will invite further participants (beginning with IDS Project libraries) to come along. The first phase of the project was to create a tool within ILLiad to develop collections reactively, by matching patron loan requests with a corresponding library\u27s collection goals, as measured against the IDS Conspectus. This tool connects different systems together through a hosted web interface, which provides the data required for multiple library departments to use in order to begin to achieve coordinated collection development. This data includes titles matching the following criteria: the number of times an item has been requested by IDS libraries, if less than 3 IDS libraries have the request, and it matches the IDS Conspectus for the lending library. In addition to the web interface, library staff are notified weekly via email of titles that meet this criteria, therefore making it easier to strengthen their own library collection as well as the regional collection. The current and second phase of the pilot is testing the tool with SUNY Brockport and Nazareth College as partner libraries. Overall, the success of the project will be measured by the number of project participants as well as by the number of reports with purchase recommendations. We will describe what we have learned during the first phase of the project with the hope that it will encourage other participants to join as we embark on the next phase of this project! To date, this project has been partially supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds which are administered by the Rochester Regional Library Council

Report on the main activities undertaken and preliminary findings emerging from research on the CGIAR Targeting Agricultural Innovations and Ecosystem Services in the northern Volta basin (TAI) project

The CGIAR Water, Land and Ecosystems research project on Targeting Agricultural Innovations and Ecosystem Services in the northern Volta basin (TAI) is a two year project (2014-2016) led by Bioversity International in collaboration with 11 institutes: CIAT, CIRAD, International Water Management Institute (IWMI), King’s College London (KCL), SNV World Burkina Faso (SNV), Stanford University, Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC), University of Development Studies Ghana (UDS), University of Minnesota, University of Washington, and the World Agroforestry Institute. We are working with communities across Centre-Est Burkina Faso and Upper-East Ghana to gather empirical data, test research methodologies and co-develop knowledge on solutions to ecosystem service management challenges. Results from the project are still emerging and will continue to do so into 2017 as the team finish analysing the data and writing up their findings. This report presents the main activities accomplished and preliminary headline messages from the first 18 months of the project. Final results from the project will be made available in 2017 on the WLE website

Global Dam Watch: curated data and tools for management and decision making

Dams, reservoirs, and other water management infrastructure provide benefits, but can also have negative impacts. Dam construction and removal affects progress toward the UN sustainable development goals at local to global scales. Yet, globally-consistent information on the location and characteristics of these structures are lacking, with information often highly localised, fragmented, or inaccessible. A freely available, curated, consistent, and regularly updated global database of existing dams and other instream infrastructure is needed along with open access tools to support research, decision-making and management needs. Here we introduce the Global Dam Watch (GDW) initiative (www.globaldamwatch.org ) whose objectives are: (a) advancing recent efforts to develop a single, globally consistent dam and instream barrier data product for global-scale analyses (the GDW database); (b) bringing together the increasingly numerous global, regional and local dam and instream barrier datasets in a directory of databases (the GDW directory); (c) building tools for the visualisation of dam and instream barrier data and for analyses in support of policy and decision making (the GDW knowledge-base) and (d) advancing earth observation and geographical information system techniques to map a wider range of instream structures and their properties. Our focus is on all types of anthropogenic instream barriers, though we have started by prioritizing major reservoir dams and run-of-river barriers, for which more information is available. Our goal is to facilitate national-scale, basin-scale and global-scale mapping, analyses and understanding of all instream barriers, their impacts and their role in sustainable development through the provision of publicly accessible information and tools. We invite input and partnerships across sectors to strengthen GDW’s utility and relevance for all, help define database content and knowledge-base tools, and generally expand the reach of GDW as a global hub of impartial academic expertise and policy information regarding dams and other instream barriers

PROTOCOL: In‐person interventions to reduce social isolation and loneliness: An evidence and gap map

Abstract This is the protocol for an evidence and gap map. The objectives are as follows: This EGM aims to map available evidence on the effects of in‐person interventions to reduce social isolation and/or loneliness across all age groups in all settings

Global Developments in Social Prescribing

Social prescribing is an approach that aims to improve health and well-being. It connects individuals to non-clinical services and supports that address social needs, such as those related to loneliness, housing instability and mental health. At the person level, social prescribing can give individuals the knowledge, skills, motivation and confidence to manage their own health and well-being. At the society level, it can facilitate greater collaboration across health, social, and community sectors to promote integrated care and move beyond the traditional biomedical model of health. While the term social prescribing was first popularised in the UK, this practice has become more prevalent and widely publicised internationally over the last decade. This paper aims to illuminate the ways social prescribing has been conceptualised and implemented across 17 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and North America. We draw from the ‘Beyond the Building Blocks’ framework to describe the essential inputs for adopting social prescribing into policy and practice, related to service delivery; social determinants and household production of health; workforce; leadership and governance; financing, community organisations and societal partnerships; health technology; and information, learning and accountability. Cross-cutting lessons can inform country and regional efforts to tailor social prescribing models to best support local needs

Distilling the role of ecosystem services in the Sustainable Development Goals

Achieving well-being for all, while protecting the environment, is one of the most pressing global challenges of our time, and a central idea in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We believe that integrating ecosystem services, the benefits nature provides to people, into strategies for meeting the SDGs can help achieve this. Many development goals are likely underpinned by the delivery of one or more ecosystem services. Understanding how these services could support multiple development targets will be essential for planning synergistic and cost-effective interventions. Here we present the results of an expert survey on the contributions of 16 ecosystem services to achieving SDG targets linked to environment and human well-being, and review the capacity of modelling tools to evaluate SDG-relevant ecosystem services interactions. Survey respondents judged that individual ecosystem services could make important contributions to achieving 41 targets across 12 SDGs. The provision of food and water, habitat & biodiversity maintenance, and carbon storage & sequestration were perceived to each make contributions to >14 SDG targets, suggesting cross-target interactions are likely, and may present opportunities for synergistic outcomes across multiple SDGs. Existing modelling tools are well-aligned to support SDG-relevant ecosystem service planning. Together, this work identifies entry points and tools to further analyze the role of ecosystem services to support the SDGs

Why there and then, not here and now? Ecological offsetting in California and England, and the sharpening contradictions of neoliberal natures

Failure has become an increasingly important theme of debate in the literature on neoliberal natures. In this article we take up this topic with respect to ecological offsetting, often regarded as an exemplar of market-oriented conservation. Comparing the case of species banking which emerged in California in the 1990s with frustrated efforts to implement a biodiversity offsetting programme in England beginning in 2010, we develop a novel analytical framework for explaining why this kind of environmental market-making may or may not be successful in different contexts. Drawing on work in geography on the neoliberalisation of nature and insights from economic sociology, we characterise ecological offsetting as ‘command-and-commodify’ regulation: a peculiar form of hybrid ecological regulation which depends on an institutional mix of ‘authoritative’ and ‘economic’ power to function. In California, these kinds of environmental markets initially emerged at a moment of compromise, contingent on an embrace of ‘market’ solutions to environmental problems on the one hand, and a somewhat paradoxical expansion of authoritative power to ecologically regulate land development, on the other. In England, by contrast, deep fiscal austerity and deregulatory zeal, combined with resistance from nearly every quarter, initially undermined the possibility of balancing economic and authoritative power, which we argue is necessary for the construction of viable ecological offsetting. Reflecting on themes in the wider literature, we conclude by questioning whether the English experience is indicative of sharpening tensions between economy and ecology in the late neoliberal era