Meeting new demands : The role of the library as a centre for education and research

The world is increasingly hungry for information. The demand for better access to information is even more marked in higher education than in society as a whole and, as research becomes more specialised and at the same time more interdisciplinary, the range of information sought by all engaged in higher educa­tion is expanding. Libraries are faced with the problem of the timely and adequate supply of information held not only in conventional printed and manuscript docu­ments but also in electronic data in vari­ous formats including on-line data. An ever greater number of users seeks these materials. The paperless society which was forecast by some to accompany the revolution in information technology has yet to arrive and new approaches are needed in respect to how the library copes with the continued growth of material and demand. Libraries are increasingly constrained by escalating costs. More significantly, they are still constrained by unrealistic aspirations towards some ideal of self-sufficiency, by out-dated practi­ces, and by lack of a clear strategic development plan which will promote new concepts of service and exploit new methods of access to information. This paper seeks to explore the impact of this demand for information upon the academic library, and to consider how the academic library can develop in these changing circumstances to meet with increasing effectiveness the infor­mation needs of scholars, researchers and students. It examines the need for new organisa­tional structures to enable the library to influence the strategic planning and allo­cation of resources in support of its role at the centre of a learning and research institution. It recognises that as teaching methods change to become more learn­ing centred, the library must have both the authority and the vision to meet its responsibility for providing easy access to all forms of information. It must organ­ise better access in the context of a real­istic awareness of cost, value for money, and an effective service to its users. The author considers how the library should modify its collection develop­ment and service policies in the light of information technology. It is critically im­portant that new policies should be set in place that are built on a better assess­ment of user needs, informed by greater collaboration between the user and the librarian. This implies a major change in conventional practice, and attitudes. It requires change in the perceived role and responsibilities of the librarian. These responsibilities include not only the man­agement of resources, but also the con­tribution the librarian needs to make to the development of the educational and research objectives of the university. The development of the library staff as experts in providing access to information and effectively managing the dissemination of information throughout the university is an essential part of any new policy. New priorities must be set to achieve new objectives. The paper explores what yet needs to be done if the library is to achieve the vision that it lies at the heart of all learning, that it renews and augments the knowledge of all teachers and researchers, and that it provides access to information that is indispensable to lifelong learning throughout a wider community

Meeting new demands : The role of the library as a centre for education and research

The world is increasingly hungry for information. The demand for better access to information is even more marked in higher education than in society as a whole and, as research becomes more specialised and at the same time more interdisciplinary, the range of information sought by all engaged in higher educa­tion is expanding. Libraries are faced with the problem of the timely and adequate supply of information held not only in conventional printed and manuscript docu­ments but also in electronic data in vari­ous formats including on-line data. An ever greater number of users seeks these materials. The paperless society which was forecast by some to accompany the revolution in information technology has yet to arrive and new approaches are needed in respect to how the library copes with the continued growth of material and demand. Libraries are increasingly constrained by escalating costs. More significantly, they are still constrained by unrealistic aspirations towards some ideal of self-sufficiency, by out-dated practi­ces, and by lack of a clear strategic development plan which will promote new concepts of service and exploit new methods of access to information. This paper seeks to explore the impact of this demand for information upon the academic library, and to consider how the academic library can develop in these changing circumstances to meet with increasing effectiveness the infor­mation needs of scholars, researchers and students. It examines the need for new organisa­tional structures to enable the library to influence the strategic planning and allo­cation of resources in support of its role at the centre of a learning and research institution. It recognises that as teaching methods change to become more learn­ing centred, the library must have both the authority and the vision to meet its responsibility for providing easy access to all forms of information. It must organ­ise better access in the context of a real­istic awareness of cost, value for money, and an effective service to its users. The author considers how the library should modify its collection develop­ment and service policies in the light of information technology. It is critically im­portant that new policies should be set in place that are built on a better assess­ment of user needs, informed by greater collaboration between the user and the librarian. This implies a major change in conventional practice, and attitudes. It requires change in the perceived role and responsibilities of the librarian. These responsibilities include not only the man­agement of resources, but also the con­tribution the librarian needs to make to the development of the educational and research objectives of the university. The development of the library staff as experts in providing access to information and effectively managing the dissemination of information throughout the university is an essential part of any new policy. New priorities must be set to achieve new objectives. The paper explores what yet needs to be done if the library is to achieve the vision that it lies at the heart of all learning, that it renews and augments the knowledge of all teachers and researchers, and that it provides access to information that is indispensable to lifelong learning throughout a wider community

Error in target-based georeferencing and registration in terrestrial laser scanning

Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) has been used widely for various applications, such as measurement of movement caused by natural hazards and Earth surface processes. In TLS surveying, registration and georeferencing are two essential steps, and their accuracy often determines the usefulness of TLS surveys. So far, evaluation of registration and georeferencing errors has been based on statistics obtained from the data processing software provided by scanner manufacturers. This paper demonstrates that these statistics are incompetent measures of the actual registration and georeferencing errors in TLS data and, thus, should no longer be used in practice. To seek a suitable replacement, an investigation of the spatial pattern and the magnitude of the actual registration and georeferencing errors in TLS data points was undertaken. This led to the development of a quantitative means of estimating the registration- or georeferencing-induced positional error in point clouds. The solutions proposed can aid in the planning of TLS surveys where a minimum accuracy requirement is known, and are of use for subsequent analysis of the uncertainty in TLS datasets

Using radioelement distributions to classify a composite granite batholith in the South West England Orefield

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this record

Rapid South Atlantic spreading changes and coeval vertical motion in surrounding continents: Evidence for temporal changes of pressure-driven upper mantle flow

International audienceThe South Atlantic region displays (1) a topographic gradient across the basin, with Africa elevated relative to South America, (2) a bimodal spreading history with fast spreading rates in Late Cretaceous and Eo-Oligocene, and (3) episodic regional uplift events in the adjacent continents concentrated in Late Cretaceous and Oligocene. Here we show that these observations can be linked by dynamic processes within Earth's mantle, through temporal changes in asthenosphere flow beneath the region. The topographic gradient implies westward, pressure-driven mantle flow beneath the basin, while the rapid spreading rate changes, on order 10 million years, require significant decoupling of regional plate motion from the large-scale mantle buoyancy distribution through a mechanically weak asthenosphere. Andean topographic growth in late Miocene can explain the most recent South Atlantic spreading velocity reduction, arising from increased plate boundary forcing associated with the newly elevated topography. But this mechanism is unlikely to explain the Late Cretaceous/Tertiary spreading variations, as changes in Andean paleoelevation at the time are small. We propose an unsteady pressure-driven flow component in the asthenosphere beneath the South Atlantic region to explain the Late Cretaceous/Tertiary spreading rate variations. Temporal changes in mantle flow due to temporal changes in regional mantle pressure gradients imply a correlation of horizontal and vertical motions: we find that this prediction from our models agrees with geologic and geophysical observations of the South Atlantic region, including episodes of passive margin uplift, regional basin reactivation, and magmatic activity

Galaxy Zoo: Are Bars Responsible for the Feeding of Active Galactic Nuclei at 0.2 < z < 1.0?

We present a new study investigating whether active galactic nuclei (AGN) beyond the local universe are preferentially fed via large-scale bars. Our investigation combines data from Chandra and Galaxy Zoo: Hubble (GZH) in the AEGIS, COSMOS, and GOODS-S surveys to create samples of face-on, disc galaxies at 0.2 < z < 1.0. We use a novel method to robustly compare a sample of 120 AGN host galaxies, defined to have 10^42 erg/s < L_X < 10^44 erg/s, with inactive control galaxies matched in stellar mass, rest-frame colour, size, Sersic index, and redshift. Using the GZH bar classifications of each sample, we demonstrate that AGN hosts show no statistically significant enhancement in bar fraction or average bar likelihood compared to closely-matched inactive galaxies. In detail, we find that the AGN bar fraction cannot be enhanced above the control bar fraction by more than a factor of two, at 99.7% confidence. We similarly find no significant difference in the AGN fraction among barred and non-barred galaxies. Thus we find no compelling evidence that large-scale bars directly fuel AGN at 0.2<z<1.0. This result, coupled with previous results at z=0, implies that moderate-luminosity AGN have not been preferentially fed by large-scale bars since z=1. Furthermore, given the low bar fractions at z>1, our findings suggest that large-scale bars have likely never directly been a dominant fueling mechanism for supermassive black hole growth.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted by MNRA