Selector’s Guide for Resources in the Social Sciences: An Open Access Publication

Students in the Master of Library and Information Science at Valdosta State University who completed the elective course in Social Sciences Information Services in 2011 produced bibliographies on sub-disciplines of the social sciences. Each bibliography contains representative work in the areas of professional organizations, major serials, online indexes and databases, classic monographs, standard reference works, vetted websites, moving picture documentaries, special collections, and e-government resources. The compilers of this guide offer it as a teaching tool, not a textbook. They invite professors seeking a guide to the providers and formats of information in the social sciences to use the bibliographies therein as a starting point for creating assignments for students of library and information science

Sulfonation of Syndiotactic Polystyrene for Model Semicrystalline Ionomer Investigations

Syndiotactic polystyrene was lightly sulfonated in 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene using acyl sulfate complexes. The sulfonation efficiency of the acyl sulfate increased significantly when anhydrides containing long aliphatic groups were used to complex sulfuric acid. The high sulfonation efficiencies, relative to acetyl sulfate, were attributed to the increased solubility of the longer hydrocarbon complexes in trichlorobenzene. The incorporation of small quantities (less 3.4 mol %) of sulfonic acid groups onto the syndiotactic polystyrene backbone was found to have little effect on the glass transition temperatures of these new materials. However, a much more pronounced effect of sulfonation was observed in the ionomer crystallization. Increasing the level of sulfonation decreased the melting point, degree of crystallinity, and apparent rate of crystallization due to a rejection of sulfonated styrene units from the crystalline domains