Big Changes with Little ¢hange: How to Renovate on a Tight Budget

Public Libraries are often faced with the challenge of updating facilities to keep pace with customer preferences with limited funding. Based upon experience with bond funded renovations to multiple Richland Library locations from 2014-2020, this article shares strategies and case studies on how to make high impact changes while being sensitive to minimizing construction. Strategies include a customer experience design focus, reallocation of staff office space, use of color, selection of flexible furnishings, and integration of public art

Digital apprehension and first year university students

The mere presence of global connections create the need for higher education to be internationally competitive—economically, culturally, and academically. The ‘latest’ digital tools can be heralded from the ‘best’ institutions enticing local and international students to come to their particular university. However, with the combination of global connection, the diversity of the contemporary university population, and technology, a new concern is appearing. While learning technologies are being increasingly utilised in the delivery of university programs, students may not use the technology to the full advantage. The aim of this study was to identify and characterise Digital Apprehension among first year university students (N = 30). This was achieved by thematic analyses of data gathered from focus group interviews, and development of a 12-item questionnaire. Findings revealed that one in three first year university students were frustrated with the learning technology

Have Academic Libraries Overcome the Gender Wage Gap? An Analysis of Gender Pay Inequality

This report draws upon two data sets to examine the gender wage gap among member institutions of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The first data set consists of 35 years of salary survey data collected by ARL and is used to provide trend data on the gender wage gap from 1980 to 2014 as well as present an in-depth look at the wage gap in 2014. After controlling for variables such as years of experience, position, and type of library in the 2014 ARL Salary Survey data, results revealed that women on average made approximately 2 percent less than their male counterparts in 2014. The second data set comes from a survey of ARL institutions conducted by the researchers in 2015 and is used to explore the influence of additional variables on the gender wage gap that were not found in the ARL Salary Survey data. Results from both data sets suggest a substantial difference between the gender wage gap in ARL institutions and the workforce as a whole

There from the Beginning: The Women of Los Alamos National Laboratory Supporting National and International Nuclear Security

From the beginning of the Manhattan Project in the early 1940s, the women of what would become Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) worked in technical positions alongside their male counterparts, played a key role as computers, and worked in administrative jobs as secretaries, phone operators, bookkeepers, and on behalf of the U.S. Army in the Women’s Army Corps. Throughout the history of the Laboratory, women experts at LANL helped establish and lead important national and international security programs, with careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Over time, the women of Los Alamos have come together under various Employee Resource Groups, such as the Atomic Women, to help the next generation succeed in their technical fields. The Laboratory’s commitment to diversity and inclusion continues to this day, with current Laboratory Director Thom Mason leading LANL as the first national laboratory to join the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy

`thanatosepoesen\u27 Changing Attitudes In Athenian Mourning: A Study Of Funerary Vase Painting, 900-404 Bc

Literature and archaeological findings have been valuable resources for understanding how the ancient Athenian buried the dead. Grave excavations tell historians a great deal about burial practices. However, so much more can be learned about these practices through the art found in graves. The painted image not only tells us what occurred on the day a person died and his subsequent burial, but it even illustrates the years of mourning which followed for the living. These vessels chronicle the importance people placed on the varying aspects of death and the funeral ritual. From the Geometric period of the tenth century through the fifth century Classical era, we know burial rituals remained the same, but what people memorialized on funeral goods changed from generation to generation. Athenian cemeteries have provided a substantive body of material that bears witness to how the ancient Athenian\u27s view of death changed over the centuries-and with this change, the pottery market thrived

High-Reliability Computing For The Smarter Planet

As computer automation continues to increase in our society, the need for greater radiation reliability is necessary. Already critical infrastructure is failing too frequently. In this paper, we will introduce the Cross-Layer Reliability concept for designing more reliable computer systems

University Treasure – Collections of Secrets: How Utah State University Libraries Modernized Their University Archives

Starting in 2018, Utah State University Libraries undertook a largescale cataloging project to modernize the University Archives. Before 2018 the University Archives was largely inaccessible to patrons with only 2% of collections having online finding aids and no existing electronic shelf list inventory. Using a workflow-driven approach, a team of catalogers, archivists, and student technicians embarked on a four-phase journey to inventory over 21,000 items, create EAD finding aids and MARC catalog records for over 2700 unique collections, and ingesting all collections into the Library’s newly implemented archival management system. Presenters will discuss the process developed, tools used, and outcomes of the project

Increase Employee Engagement by Using the Finding Joy at Work Framework to Identify and Remedy Items that Remove Joy from our Work Life

Improving engagement scores within MaineHealth Corporate has been a focus for a number of years. The most recent data has shown a marked improvement from 2014 to 2017, moving us to the 49th percentile, but the MaineHealth goal is to bring us to the 75th percentile so there is still work to be done. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement offers training in “Finding and Creating Joy at Work”, a framework for identifying “pebbles in your shoes” that detract from your joy at work, finding and addressing the underlying root causes. We would like to use that framework to find and alleviate things that remove joy in our daily work lives in our department, therefore improving engagement and happiness at work

Quantifying Intra- and Interlimb Use During Unimanual and Bimanual Tasks in Persons with Hemiparesis Post-Stroke

Background Individuals with hemiparesis post-stroke often have difficulty with tasks requiring upper extremity (UE) intra- and interlimb use, yet methods to quantify both are limited. Objective To develop a quantitative yet sensitive method to identify distinct features of UE intra- and interlimb use during task performance. Methods Twenty adults post-stroke and 20 controls wore five inertial sensors (wrists, upper arms, sternum) during 12 seated UE tasks. Three sensor modalities (acceleration, angular rate of change, orientation) were examined for three metrics (peak to peak amplitude, time, and frequency). To allow for comparison between sensor data, the resultant values were combined into one motion parameter, per sensor pair, using a novel algorithm. This motion parameter was compared in a group-by-task analysis of variance as a similarity score (0–1) between key sensor pairs: sternum to wrist, wrist to wrist, and wrist to upper arm. A use ratio (paretic/non-paretic arm) was calculated in persons post-stroke from wrist sensor data for each modality and compared to scores from the Adult Assisting Hand Assessment (Ad-AHA Stroke) and UE Fugl-Meyer (UEFM). Results A significant group × task interaction in the similarity score was found for all key sensor pairs. Post-hoc tests between task type revealed significant differences in similarity for sensor pairs in 8/9 comparisons for controls and 3/9 comparisons for persons post stroke. The use ratio was significantly predictive of the Ad-AHA Stroke and UEFM scores for each modality. Conclusions Our algorithm and sensor data analyses distinguished task type within and between groups and were predictive of clinical scores. Future work will assess reliability and validity of this novel metric to allow development of an easy-to-use app for clinicians