Tags in the Catalogue: Insights From a Usability Study of LibraryThing for Libraries

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the standard subject language used in library catalogues, are often criticized for their lack of currency, biased language, and atypical syndetic structure. Conversely, folksonomies (or tags), which rely on the natural language of their users, offer a flexibility often lacking in controlled vocabularies and may offer a means of augmenting more rigid controlled vocabularies such as LCSH. Content analysis studies have demonstrated the potential for folksonomies to be used as a means of enhancing subject access to materials, and libraries are beginning to integrate tagging systems into their catalogues. This study examines the utility of tags as a means of enhancing subject access to materials in library online public access catalogues (OPACs) through usability testing with the LibraryThing for Libraries catalogue enhancements. Findings indicate that while they cannot replace LCSH, tags do show promise for aiding information seeking in OPACs. In the context of information systems design, the study revealed that while folksonomies have the potential to enhance subject access to materials, that potential is severely limited by the current inability of catalogue interfaces to support tag-based searches alongside standard catalogue searches.

SEARCHING FOR HOPE IN SAMUEL BECKETT, EDWARD ALBEE, AND SAM SHEPARD

Reading absurdist plays as hopeful is rare because they are filled with portrayals of horror and despair. However, the tragedy of these plays can allow the audience to experience an atypical kind of hope, often during the final moments of the play. Though the conclusions of the plays are usually ambiguous, this ambiguity and lack of resolutiondoes not preclude hope. The characters persist through their suffering and react in ways that can allow a hopeful affect on the audience. The three absurdist playwrights, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and Sam Shepard, express differing views of the tragic nature of the human condition. However, persistent through all of their work is the ability to view tragedy as having a hopeful affect on the audience. Though the plays do not necessitate a reading of hopefulness, their plays do not preclude this. These absurdist plays do not force the audience into despair, but instead leave open the option of experiencing an expectation and determination for life.

Catastrophic Flooding In North-Central Pennsylvania: Geomorphic Findings From The September 2011 Event And Their Significance To

Tropical Storm Lee produced 25-36 cm of rainfall in north-central Pennsylvania on September 4th through 8th of 2011. Loyalsock Creek, Muncy Creek, and Fishing Creek experienced catastrophic flooding resulting in new channel formation, bank erosion, scour of chutes, deposition/reworking of point bars and chute bars, and reactivation of the floodplain. This study was created to investigate aspects of both geomorphology and sedimentology by studying the well-exposed gravel deposits left by the flood, before these features are removed by humans or covered by vegetation. By recording the composition of gravel bars in the study area and creating lithofacies models, it is possible to understand the 2011 flooding. Surficial clasts on gravel bars are imbricated, but the lack of imbrication and high matrix content of sediments at depth suggests that surface imbrication of the largest clasts took place during hyperconcentrated flow (40-70% sediment concentration). The imbricated clasts on the surface are the largest observed within the bars. The lithofacies recorded are atypical for mixed-load stream lithofacies and more similar to glacial outburst flood lithofacies. This paper suggests that the accepted lithofacies model for mixed-load streams with gravel bedload may not always be useful for interpreting depositional systems. A flume study, which attempted to duplicate the stratigraphy recorded in the field, was run in order to better understand hyperconcentrated flows in the study area. Results from the study in the Bucknell Geology Flume Laboratory indicate that surficial imbrication is possible in hyperconcentrated conditions. After flooding the flume to entrain large amounts of sand and gravel, deposition of surficially imbricated gravel with massive or upward coarsening sedimentology occurred. Imbrication was not observed at depth. These experimental flume deposits support our interpretation of the lithofacies discovered in the field. The sizes of surficial gravel bar clasts show clear differences between chute and point bars. On point bars, gravels fine with increasing distance from the channel. Fining also occurs at the downstream end of point bars. In chute deposits, dramatic fining occurs down the axis of the chute, and lateral grain sizes are nearly uniform. Measuring the largest grain size of sandstone clasts at 8-11 kilometer intervals on each river reveals anomalies in the downstream fining trends. Gravel inputs from bedrock outcrops, tributaries, and erosion of Pleistocene outwash terraces may explain observed variations in grain size along streams either incised into the Appalachian Plateau or located near the Wisconsinan glacial boundary. Atomic Mass Spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of sediment from recently scoured features on Muncy Creek and Loyalsock Creek returned respective ages of 500 BP and 2490 BP. These dates suggest that the recurrence interval of the 2011 flooding may be several hundred to several thousand years. This geomorphic interval of recurrence is much longer then the 120 year interval calculated by the USGS using historical stream gauge records.

Compulsive-Like Behaviors of Typical Development: A Question of Their Nature and Continuity with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

OBJECTIVE: To investigate compulsive-like behaviors (CLB) of typical development: how they relate to the obsessions and compulsions of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD); and the implication of their lingering past 6 years of age (i.e., past their normative, 2-to-5 year, drop). CONCLUSIONS: Findings suggest that normative CLB exist on a continuum (with regard to both symptomatology and functional difficulties) with clinical obsessions and compulsions. With normative repetitive behaviors predicting behavioral perseveration among typically developing individuals aged 6 to 17 years, the present study also suggests that, even in a non-clinical sample, some levels of CLB are maladaptive in middle childhood through adolescence. While studies to date have evaded investigation of high and low CLB in relation to OCD, this latter finding contributes to the growing emphasis upon continuity between typical and atypical development.