Explore a compilation of reference service works by Charles A. Bunge, a leader in the field!This informative and delightful book highlights the contributions of Charles A. Bunge to the literature on reference service. From Past-Present to Future-Perfect: A Tribute to Charles A. Bunge and the Challenges of Contemporary Reference Service offers reference librarian professionals the reprints of selected articles by Charles Bunge, bibliographies of his published work, and original articles that draw on Bunge's values and ideas in assessing the present and shaping the future of reference service. Through this guide, you will explore four categories of Bunge's work, which include measuring the effectiveness of reference service, the reference environment, reference sources, and reflecting on the past and future of reference work. This important book will assist you in creating and maintaining an effective and ethical reference service that will help patrons find the materials they need. With From Past-Present to Future-Perfect, you will gain access to some of Bunge's most important articles on the reference environment. Some of the helpful reference service information you will examine includes: ways of putting joy back into reference work to counteract the situation of low morale among practicing reference librarians discussions on the challenge of continual learning for reference librarians and strategies for updating knowledge and skills understanding and organizational strategies for handling stress in the library workplace exploring the realm of an ethical reference practice and how a reference librarian should act or behave in providing reference services peer coaching programs for reference librarians to assist the learning and sharing of knowledge among colleagues organizing electronic reference sources assisting patrons with their reference questions using technology in the reference environmentThorough and comprehensive, this excellent resource explores the changes that have occurred in reference and information resources, and techniques for setting goals and objectives for your reference department. From Past-Present to Future-Perfect looks at the exciting and challenging world of reference librarianship and gives you valuable insights and ideas on how to improve and update your reference department.

This guide examines the use of technology for sharing information, both within an organisation, and between companies and their clients and customers. It looks in particular at the use of push/ pull technologies for delivering current awareness services. The guide also discusses the pros and cons of the technology, particularly information overload, and suggests a number of ways of minimising the problems. The guide contains a useful list of books, reports, journals and other information sources. Contents: Introduction; Intranets; Extranets; Groupware; Case studies; Push/pull technologies; Information overload; Key players; Useful information sources; References; Further reading.

A practical guide to the basic structure of STM information, describing in simple terms, with examples, how to locate what you need. Coverage includes: How information is communicated Beginning a search Using bibliographic databases Using the web for information Obtaining and organising information Keeping up to date Future developments in scientific, technological and medical informationEach chapter ends with a summary of the key points.

A practical approach to developing and operating an effective programme to manage hybrid records within an organization. This title positions records management as an integral business function linked to the organization's business aims and objectives. The authors also address the records requirements of new and significant pieces of legislation, such as data protection and freedom of information, as well as exploring strategies for managing electronic records. Bullet points, checklists and examples assist the reader throughout, making this a one-stop resource for information in this area.

There are many challenges to Web site management: collecting and collating information, developing a design style, managing updates, and ensuring a consistently interesting, topical and informative site are just some of them. Whether working as a team or individually, Web site managers must frequently develop skills, solutions and services in relative isolation. This book acts as an invisible support team, with acknowledged experts sharing their experiences in specific areas of site development. As well as the expert contributions, this book includes a wealth of advice from the information community, with timely tips submitted by Web and information professionals.Contents: Introduction; Content gathering; Design and style; Structure and navigation; Accessibility and interoperability; Databases and directories; Intranet; Security; Team management; Managing copyright; Maintenance and updating; Promotion and marketing; Appendix; Index.

Practical negotiating skills, including those needed for cross-cultural negotiations have long been taught in classrooms, along with some of the theory that underpins them. Most of this has been based on the notion that negotiation will be interpersonal and face-to-face. In recent years, though, globalization, the telecommunications boom and the ever increasing need for today's professionals to conduct cross-cultural business transactions has led to a new way of negotiating, bargaining, and resolving disputes. In e-Negotiations, Nicholas Harkiolakis and his co-authors highlight the challenge that awaits the young professionals who are today training in business schools. Future dispute resolutions and bargaining will take place between faceless disputants involved in a new kind of social process. Any adolescent with a mobile phone and Internet access knows that most of today's social transactions take place via a hand held or other electronic device. In a world of video conferences, chat rooms, Skype, Facebook, and MySpace, critical financial, business and political decisions are made through interaction between two-dimensional characters on screens. Here, the authors compare and contrast e-negotiation as it currently is with traditional face-to-face negotiation. Case studies illustrate how cross-cultural negotiations can be managed through modern channels of social influence and information-sharing and shed light on the critical social, cognitive and behavioral role of the negotiator in resolving on-line, cross-cultural, conflicts and disputes, and generally in bargaining and negotiation. This book, with its practical exercises, will be of immense help to students and professionals needing to 'practice' with the new negotiating media.

Sex in Cyberspace offers a bold and provocative, yet sensitively written, account of an under-investigated area of sociological enquiry. While there is a considerable amount of research documenting the experiences of sex workers, very little data exists on their male clientele. The first empirically-based volume on the experiences of men who pay for sex, this work presents a significant new source of data. The book is based upon an extensive study of on-line forums in which both the purchasers of sexual services and the workers themselves can exchange information and views - information which is otherwise extremely difficult to obtain. Sarah Earle and Keith Sharp argue that such sites represent a significant change in the social organization of sex work and those who seek and use the services of sex workers. Shedding new light on men's sexual identity, Sex in Cyberspace makes a major contribution to the study of sexuality.

This is a study of the forms and institutions of print - newspapers, books, scholarly editions, publishing, libraries - as they relate to and are changed by emergent digital forms and institutions. In the early 1990s hypertext was briefly hailed as a liberating writing tool for non-linear creation. Fast forward no more than a decade, and we are reading old books from screens. It is, however, the newspaper, for around two hundred years print's most powerful mass vehicle, whose economy persuasively shapes its electronic remediation through huge digitization initiatives, dominated by a handful of centralizing service providers, funded and wrapped round by online advertising. The error is to assume a culture of total replacement. The Internet is just another information space, sharing characteristics that have always defined such spaces - wonderfully effective and unstable, loaded with valuable resources and misinformation; that is, both good and bad. This is why it is important that writers, critics, publishers and librarians - in modern parlance, the knowledge providers - be critically engaged in shaping and regulating cyberspace, and not merely the passive instruments or unreflecting users of the digital tools in our hands.

This title is a clear and detailed account of the law and practice of copyright, explained in a user-friendly manner. Coverage includes changes in licensing developments and electronic copyright progress, and updates arising from EU harmonisation of copyright law. There is also information on design right and copyright-related rights such as recording and performing rights. A glossary of terms and an index help to make this a key reference guide to a notoriously complex area of information management.

This guide sets out the key considerations and provides some practical guidelines to assist in developing and operating an effective knowledge management function. Case studies demonstrate the ways in which different organisations have set about putting Knowledge Management into practice.Contents: Introduction - management fad or essential management technique? Perceived differences between knowledge & information; Key management considerations and influences; Shaping the policy; Role of knowledge management in the management of change; Getting started - importance of initial planning and early staff consultation and involvement; Use of consultants; Responsibility, access and control; Systems and procedures; Skills required for day-to-day operation and maintenance; Value - can you show it on the balance sheet? Case studies; How to find out more - useful contact details.

Previously titled Making a Charge for Library and Information Services, Fee Based Information Services provides an examination of charging for library and information services and the possible implications that this might bring to the profession. A number of extenisve case studies are given to illustrate precedents and points of best practice.

Considers teleworking among LIS staff, as well as teleworkers as users of LIS services.Information and ideas about the types of information work that are suitable for teleworking. Management issues, case studies, Further reading and list of Internet resources.

This important reference volume covers developments in aspects of British library and information work during the five year period 2001-2005. Over forty contributors, all of whom are experts in their subject, provide an overview of their field along with extensive further references which act as a starting point for further research. The book provides a comprehensive record of library and information management during the past five years and will be essential reading for all scholars, library professionals and students.

The advent of globally networked information is a historic change. Educational, commercial and industrial institutions depend on its effective exploitation for their success, but cultural and human factors are the biggest obstacles. This book looks at the roots of these problems and how they may be overcome, through understanding recent developments in technical services, the difference between service and technical orientation, organizational culture, the role of subject expertise and the cultural heritage of the information profession. The book provides guidance and outlines best practice in: managing converging technologies; supporting change with organizational models; using cultural audits; the role of focus groups in implementing change; characterizing a learning organization; succeeding as a change agent, and managing change through technical services. Several chapters discuss the Electronic Libraries programme and the TAPin (Training and Awareness Programme in networks) model as examples of how cultural change takes place, particularly in the academic environment; one chapter concentrates exclusively on the characteristics of special libraries. This illuminating insight into the evolution of information cultures and how they do or don't adapt to networked services will help information and library managers to achieve change with deeper understanding, and will provide useful advice for senior managers restructuring IT and information departments. The book is core reading for students of Information Studies.

This book explores the challenges and opportunities presented to Classical scholarship by digital practice and resources. Drawing on the expertise of a community of scholars who use innovative methods and technologies, it shows that traditionally rigorous scholarship is as central to digital research as it is to mainstream Classical Studies. The chapters in this edited collection cover many subjects, including text and data markup, data management, network analysis, pedagogical theory and the Social and Semantic Web, illustrating the range of methods that enrich the many facets of the study of the ancient world. This volume exemplifies the collaborative and interdisciplinary nature that is at the heart of Classical Studies.

Despite ubiquitous powerful technologies such as networked computers, global positioning systems, and cell phones; human failures in decision-making and performance continue to have disastrous consequences. Electronic Performance Support: Using Digital Technology to Enhance Human Ability, reminds everyone involved in education, training, human performance engineering, and related fields of the enormous importance of this area. Ironically, the more complex technology becomes, the more performance support may be needed, and that's why the extraordinary expertise shared in this book is especially valuable. The authors emphasize the psychological aspects of performance support, the fundamental limitations of human memory, perception, cognition, conation, and psychomotor skills and how they can be reduced through electronic performance support, as one of the most important pursuits of this century. Readers will find the material presented extremely useful because of its generic basis - which underlines much of the contemporary use of electronic technology for supporting people who are engaged in problem-solving activities. At the same time, the book gives examples of the application of electronic performance support in a number of specific domains. Possible future developments for electronic performance support are also discussed. The technological challenges we face today, both globally and locally, are more urgent than most people seem willing to acknowledge, and there is no time to waste putting the ideas expressed in this book into action.

A companion volume to the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, the Thematic List of Descriptors will be a valuable tool for all those contributing to the development of information systems in the social sciences.

For almost every organization in the future, both public and private sector, identity management presents both significant opportunities and risks. Successfully managed, it will allow everyone to access products and services that are tailored to their needs and their behaviours. But successful management implies that organizations will have overcome the significant obstacles of security, individual human rights and social concern that could cause the whole process to become mired. Digital Identity Management, based on the work of the annual Digital Identity Forum in London, provides a wide perspective on the subject and explores the current technology available for identity management, its applications within business, and its significance in wider debates about identity, society and the law. This is an essential introduction for organizations seeking to use identity to get closer to customers; for those in government at all levels wrestling with online delivery of targeted services; as well as those concerned with the wider issues of identity, rights, the law, and the potential risks.

The song of organisational change goes: 'Ready or not, here I come. You can't hide...' But is change collapsonomics - everything - or have some things not changed? Managing Value in Organisations argues that traditional business thinking has produced low trust with high cost in increased disengagement: the 100 year old management model still accrues organisational debt, the business model privileges producers, and the learning model pretends individual learning produces collective learning. All are now barriers to development. Working with five organisations, Donal Carroll reinvents the management model to multiply trust, the business model for more complex customer value, and learning model for significant collective learning. He provides evidence that together, these get organisations to their next stage of development faster. In a climate of perceived increasing uncertainty and 'more for less' it invites organisations to move from default models and choose their models to 'live on purpose'. This applied business research has many new ideas: value creating research method, three new models, 'techniques' for organisations to self-assess and construct their next stage, as well as 'fecund argument, productive interference, organisational orphans' and 'facing down Facebook '. It invites readers on a risky narrative, testing one idea in five organisations, over one year through two journeys - the organisations' and writer's. A different business book, it seeks to capture the 'poetry and plumbing' excitement of management innovation. Managers at every level, coaches, consultants, business scholars, researchers, anyone seeking sustainable improvement, or who thinks the impossible can't be reached will find something here.

Written by leading experts, this volume provides a picture of the realities of current ICT use in musicology as well as prospects and proposals for how it could be fruitfully used in the future. Through its coverage of topics spanning content-based sound searching/retrieval, sound and content analysis, markup and text encoding, audio resource sharing, and music recognition, this book highlights the breadth and inter-disciplinary nature of the subject matter and provides a valuable resource to technologists, musicologists, musicians and music educators. It facilitates the identification of worthwhile goals to be achieved using technology and effective interdisciplinary collaboration.

This text is published as a companion to the "International Bibliography of the Social Sciences". First published in 1952, the IBSS is produced annually in four parts - Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, Sociology - and has been widely acclaimed as a tool for librarians, university departments, research institutions, public and private institutions, and indeed for all whose work requires reference to the current literature in any of the fields comprised within its scope. Companion Descriptor lists are now available for all four main subject areas. All volumes of the IBSS published to date have been indexed and from this a language representing every subject covered in this bibliography has been developed. This language can be used for indexing social science publications as well as for retrieving the references stored in the IBSS data bank. The Descriptor List falls into two parts: alphabetical and thematic. In the alphabetic section, terms appear both in English and French. Cross reference is made to all four volumes of the IBSS. The thematic section corresponds to the relevant volume of the four IBSS volumes.

A companion volume to the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences , the Thematic List of descriptors will be a valuable tool for all those contributing to the development of information systems in the social sciences.

A helpful and informative guide for librarians responsible for local studies collections covering the key issues in the twenty-first century. Each chapter is written by a different specialist, covering: resource providers; management of service provision; management of the collection and its materials (from books and pamphlets to microforms, CD-ROMs and websites); information access and retrieval; marketing; dealing with enquiries. Introductory and concluding chapters consider the local collection within its library context, the wider cultural, social, political and economic setting, the international local studies perspective and the future for this specialism in the UK. The guide is aimed principally at public librarians but will be of interest to academic, school and special librarians, library school students, archivists, those working with local history and related societies, and those in charge of private collections.

This volume brings together an interdisciplinary team of leading scholars to discuss frameworks of value in relation to the preservation of historic environments. Starting from the premise that heritage values are culturally and historically constructed, the book examines the effects of pluralist frameworks of value on how preservation is conceived. It questions the social and economic consequences of constructions of value and how to balance a responsive, democratic conception of heritage with the pressure to deliver on social and economic objectives. It also describes the practicalities of managing the uncertainty and fluidity of the widely varying conceptions of heritage.