The priorities of public libraries at the onset of the third millennium

Purpose – This paper aims to show the main action areas to which public libraries are devoting their efforts and resources at the onset of the twenty-first century, despite their own particularities and needs. Design/methodology/approach – The methodology is based on a comparative analysis on a sample of so-called “strategic” and “long-term” plans from US public libraries covering from 1998 through 2010. Of all identified priorities, those appearing in at least 40 per cent of the plans were used for the analysis. Thus, the paper narrowed the list of priorities down to the five most repeated ones in the sample of plans, and their peculiarities are set forth here. Findings – The paper finds that, although the method used is a simple one and the results are limited to the set of libraries whose plans have been analysed, there are coincidences with some predictions in some papers on the role public libraries should play in the twenty-first century. Originality/value – In the long term, this type of research permits comparison of trends among libraries from different countries and the monitoring of how they evolve with time. It can also be useful to library managers as a benchmark.Publicad

Management-related information on Spanish university library web pages

A typological analysis of the management-related documents that Spanish university libraries show on their Web sites is provided. The paper discusses about the structure and contents of the Web pages; provides some analysis on the location of the documents in the pages; and presents a view of document changes after 1 year, taking into account their presence and currency.Publicad

Strategic plans and long-range plans: is there a difference?

An analysis of both form and content differences between the plans named “strategic” and those named “long-range”. Planning theory is checked against the planning reports available on the Web pages of 65 public and university libraries. The goal is to see whether the differences that some theorists observe between strategic and long-range planning actually exist on plans published with those names.Publicad

A customer orientation checklist: a model

A brief review of the concept connotations in the area of information services is carried out, trying to stress the implications of being "customer oriented" as the most important component of marketing. A model to measure the level of the library's orientation toward its market - as perceived by its managers - is presented. It was designed taking into account the models that major specialists prepared in order to evaluate marketing activity in companies. It should allow librarians to establish to what extent the library is properly user oriented and, at the same time, what specific marketing-related aspects it is failing in or should improve at.Publicad

Mujeres, conservación ambiental y turismo rural en el ejido Adolfo López Mateos, Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz

Se realizó un estudio en un ejido del área natural de los Tuxtlas en Veracruz, para analizar la participación de las mujeres campesinas en la conservación y aprovechamiento de sus recursos naturales y de su participación en el turismo rural.Becaria CONACY

Assessment of heritage rammed-earth buildings. The Alcázar of King Don Pedro I (Spain).

The conservation and maintenance of earthen buildings is crucial, especially when dealing with heritage sites. This normally involves considerable effort in preliminary studies, which must be well planned in order to efficiently manage any restoration. This case study proposes a methodology to briefly assess the current state of a historical rammed-earth wall, to bring to light specific information regarding approaches for subsequent studies or decisions. This methodology is based on the study of damage and risk as a tool to swiftly discern critical areas or issues needing immediate attention. The procedure is illustrated on an outstanding heritage building: the Alcázar of King Don Pedro I in Carmona (Seville, Spain). Our conclusions confirm that this methodology constitutes an efficient and straightforward means to obtain not only a preliminary assessment of rammed-earth walls, but also objective and useful criteria for decision-makers

The impact of consortia purchasing of periodical publications on the document supply service

Purpose – This paper aims to show the impact of consortia purchased periodical publications on document supply services. These services have undergone considerable changes over the last five years, first decreasing but now recovering. Design/methodology/approach – First, this paper reviews the most recent specialised literature, focusing mainly on the impact of electronic journals in libraries, their effects, and proposed actions. Second, as an example of this new behaviour, presents the document supply service data, as collected in one hospital’s health-science library in the last four years. Findings – As evidenced by the literature, the users’ acceptance of electronic journals has undoubtedly been excellent. Consortia purchasing projects have become a basic tool that expand collections, support cooperative technological development, and require negotiating skills from librarians. But these mass purchases do not seem to be the ideal solution for libraries, they entail losing freedom when choosing the collection and often make library collections homogeneous by publisher. Originality/value – Reflects on what possible causes have led to the current situation and the current way to manage the collection.Publicad

Are black friday deals worth it? Mining twitter users' sentiment and behavior response

The Black Friday event has become a global opportunity for marketing and companies’ strategies aimed at increasing sales. The present study aims to understand consumer behavior through the analysis of user-generated content (UGC) on social media with respect to the Black Friday 2018 offers published by the 23 largest technology companies in Spain. To this end, we analyzed Twitter-based UGC about companies’ offers using a three-step data text mining process. First, a Latent Dirichlet Allocation Model (LDA) was used to divide the sample into topics related to Black Friday. In the next step, sentiment analysis (SA) using Python was carried out to determine the feelings towards the identified topics and offers published by the companies on Twitter. Thirdly and finally, a data-text mining process called textual analysis (TA) was performed to identify insights that could help companies to improve their promotion and marketing strategies as well as to better understand the customer behavior on social media. The results show that consumers had positive perceptions of such topics as exclusive promotions (EP) and smartphones (SM); by contrast, topics such as fraud (FA), insults and noise (IN), and customer support (CS) were negatively perceived by customers. Based on these results, we offer guidelines to practitioners to improve their social media communication. Our results also have theoretical implications that can promote further research in this area

Motivating Students with Learning Disabilities to Succeed in Education

Many students with learning disabilities may feel incapable of achieving in their academic goals and are in need of greater motivation. They may believe that abilities are innate and fixed and that their ability to learn and achieve is unchangeable. However, they may not be aware of growth mindset strategies that can support their academic success. To address the need for motivation, I created three lessons to teach seventh grade students in a resource classroom at Aptos Jr. High strategies for a growth mindset and to stay motivated throughout their academic challenges

Incorporated Vision: Artistic Critiques of the Development Discourse in Latin America

This essay analyzes three key works of Latin American art in the 1960s and 1970s: La Destrucción (1963) by Argentine artist Marta Minujín, La Muerte del Justo y la Muerte del Pecador (1973) by the Colombian artist Beatriz González, and Mandala (1969) by Brazilian artist Lygia Clark. These works blur the lines between body of the artist, the spectator or participant and the work of art, making intelligible the somatic, historical, social, and ideological constitution of vision. In doing so, these works puncture the myth of the disinterested or objective gaze of scientific rationalism that buttressed development discourse and thus Cold War power relationsEste ensayo analiza tres trabajos claves del arte latinoamericano en los años sesentas y setentas : La Destrucción (1963) de la artista argentina Marta Minujín, La Muerte del Justo y La Muerte del Pecador (1973) de la artista colombiana Beatriz González y Mandala (1969) de la artista brasilera Lygia Clark. Estas obras desdibujan las líneas entre el cuerpo del artista, el espectador o participante y la obra de arte, haciendo perceptible la constitución somática, histórica, social e ideológica de la visión. De tal modo, estas obras perforan el mito de la contemplación desinteresada u objetiva del racionalismo científico que sostuvo el discurso desarrollista y por lo tanto las relaciones de poder durante la Guerra Fría