Promotions with student-athletes: Are you in compliance?

Even if you are not a basketball fan, you have probably heard of the NCAA. And if you are an academic librarian, odds are you work at one of the institutions where athletic teams compete under the guidance of the NCAA operating bylaws. But did you know these bylaws can have a direct impact on your library promotions

Gasoline fuels growth of convenience store industry

Some convenience store companies that survived the 1980s may reflect upon those years as the decade of problems. Yet now they can look forward to the 1990s as a decade of change and opportunity

Teachers’ Link to Electronic Resources in the Library Media Center

The focus of this study was to explore the influence teachers have on the use of electronic resources in the high school library media center. Specifically, the research team wanted to analyze the relationship between teachers\u27 own computer literacy and their knowledge about and use of the school library\u27s electronic resources, and student understanding and use of these resources

Connecting With the Campus Community: Promotional Success Through Collaboration and Outreach

With the Myriad of activities offered on a college campus, how does an academic library compete for attendance at its own special programs? As Butler University Libraries discovered during our celebration of National Library Week, sometimes it takes a mix of events to turn a little marketing idea into a memorable occasion

From Prep to Delivery: Peer Instruction for First-Year Business Students

First-year students face many challenges in adjusting to university life, including making the most of the university library. Librarians are constantly addressing student misconceptions about libraries and locating information, and have been working hard to reach first-year students and create high-impact practices in student retention. The First-Year Experience Cookbook provides librarians with a series of innovative approaches to teaching and assessing information literacy skills during a student’s first year. Featuring four chapters—Library Orientation, Library Instruction, Programs, and Assessment—and more than 60 practical, easy-to-implement recipes, this book compiles lessons and techniques for you to adapt, repurpose, and implement in your libraries. This Cookbook is essential for all academic and school librarians looking for ideas on how to infuse the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in their first-year courses and instruction; design and assess effective services and programs; and engage and retain students

Beyond Graduation: Teaching Students about Open Access Resources

Poster presentation at the 2015 American Library Association Annual Conference, June 27, San Francisco, CA

How training consultants perceive their networking practices in relation to generating business

This thesis explores how training consultants perceive their networking practices in relation to generating business. The literature recognises the importance of networking to gain business, yet contains little research. Existing material is either quantitative research or personal accounts not within a research context. My qualitative research is based on interviews, informal conversations, personal construct psychology techniques, observation and reflection with 7 main contributors and through 45 other situations including my experiences as a training consultant. It draws on planned and spontaneounsa turallyo ccurrings ituations. Some results contribute to knowledge by bringing together dispersed items in the literature and revealing ways in which they apply to training consultants. These include networking strategies (eg forming consortia, networking as a subject expert, targeting a sector and networking with everyone). Other results confirm the literature which, for example, stresses the importance of trust. My research reveals ways in which training consultants can develop or lose trust. Other findings, not in the literature, make original contributions to knowledge, such as a strategy that involves networking with other providers. It emerged clearly that networking with another primary reason in mind such as self-development can be more effective in terms of gaining business. I found how training consultants can gain visibility, use the Internet to raise visibility, and that there is considerable backlash in the training world against consultants attending events to get to know potential clients. Some factors that lead to discomfort when training consultants network are identified such as dislike of cold calling, uncertainty over networking etiquette, problems with initially meeting people, reputation issues and lack of skill. I reveal the impact of congruency of behaviour, the way in which we look for similarity or difference and the way in which we maintain contact on building and maintaining rapport when networking to gain busines

Delayed discharges from an adult intensive care unit (ICU)

Introduction - Maximising efficient and effective use of resources without compromising quality of care is essential in the current healthcare climate. Intensive care unit services are one of the most resource intensive and therefore expensive services within a hospital. Because intensive care unit services comprise a significant portion of hospital costs and resources, appropriate utilisation of intensive care units is imperative. The occurrence of delayed discharges and the reason for the delays is important as they impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of intensive care unit services. Patients who no longer need intensive care unit care block beds for impending admissions, unnecessarily utilise the costly and often scarce resources and by remaining in a stressful environment may experience negative psychological and social effects detrimental to their well being. Study objectives - To determine to what extent delayed discharge from the intensive care unit occurs and ascertain the reasons for these delays. Design - A prospective cross sectional design to determine the number of delayed discharges from the intensive care unit and reasons causing the delay. A discharge was considered to be delayed if the patient was not discharged from the intensive care unit within 8 hours of being deemed suitable for discharge by intensive care unit medical staff. Setting - A level III intensive care unit with 22 beds (12 general and 10 surgical beds in 2 adjacent areas) in a metropolitan tertiary teaching hospital of 955 beds located across two campuses. Sample - A prospective convenience sample of consecutive patients admitted over a 6-month period from September 2000 to March 2001. Exclusions were patients who died whilst in the intensive care unit and those patients who could be discharged prior to commencement of the study. Method. - Intensive care unit medical staff informed nursing shift coordinators when patients could be discharged. The nursing shift coordinators completed the data collection tool on all patients discharged from intensive care unit. Admission and discharge times and APACHE-11 data (a predictive scoring system for ICU patient outcome) were recorded from intensive care unit records. Results - There were 652 discharges, 468 patients were not delayed (71.8%), 176 were delayed (27.0%, 95% CI 23,9%-30.7%) and 8 (1.2%) patients had no delay information available. There were substantial delays in discharging patients from the intensive care unit; for every 5 discharges that were not delayed, 2 patients would be delayed. Unavailable ward beds (81 %) were cited as the main reason for delay in discharge. Delay time from the intensive care unit ranged from 0.2 hours (1 0 minutes) to 617.5 hours (3 weeks, 4 days, 17.5 hours). Mean delay time was 42 hours (I day, 18 hours) and median delay time 21.3 hours. There was a statistical significance difference between-non delayed and delayed patients for APACHE II score on admission (Ɩ = -3.824 {642), p \u3c0.0001) and worst APACHE 11 score in first 24 hours e (Ɩ = -5.123 (642), p \u3c0.0001 ). There was also a statistically significant difference between delay from the intensive care unit and non delayed discharge by admitting diagnosis (Chi sq (12) = 43.235, p \u3c 0.0001); primary organ system failure (chi sq (6) = 14.231, p = 0.027); ward destination (chi sq (7) = -51.486, p \u3c 0.0001 ); specialty (chi sq (23) = -43.371, p = 0.006) and day of eligible discharge (chi sq (6) = 34.008; p \u3c 0.0001 ). Conclusion - Discharge from the intensive care unit is delayed on average by 27% in the study hospital. These delays can be related to how sick the patient was, principle admitting diagnosis, discharge destination and weekend discharge. Reducing these delays would free up beds for other admissions, may result in a cost saving for the health care facility through more efficient resource utilisation and ultimately benefit patients by better managing the discharge process