The value handbook: getting the most from your buildings and spaces.

The Value Handbook is a practical guide, showing how public sector organisations can get the most from ther buildings and spaces in their area. It brings together essential evidence about the benefits of good design, and demonstrates how understanding the different types of value created by the built environment (exchange value, use value, image value,social value, environmental value, and cultural value)is the key to realising its full potential.

Blackburn College: DIY! College departments catalogue their own technologies on Library Management System for loan

Blackburn College is making use of its Heritage Library Management System (LMS) for a wide variety of loans beyond that of books; this has enabled them to better manage the growing numbers and types of technologies that are being used in teaching and learning. In an additional pilot development, they have taken the bold step of training college departments in cataloguing their own technologies to add to the LMS for loan. This has enabled the departments to keep track of their own equipment easily, and provided a more consistent approach to equipment loan within the College.

Fixed Points of Closed and Compact Composite Sequences of Operators and Projectors in a Class of Banach Spaces

Some results on fixed points related to the contractive compositions of bounded operators in a class of complete metric spaces which can be also considered as Banach's spaces are discussed through the paper. The class of composite operators under study can include, in particular, sequences of projection operators under, in general, oblique projective operators. In this paper we are concerned with composite operators which include sequences of pairs of contractive operators involving, in general, oblique projection operators. The results are generalized to sequences of, in general, nonconstant bounded closed operators which can have bounded, closed, and compact limit operators, such that the relevant composite sequences are also compact operators. It is proven that in both cases, Banach contraction principle guarantees the existence of unique fixed points under contractive conditions.

On Best Proximity Point Theorems and Fixed Point Theorems for p-Cyclic Hybrid Self-Mappings in Banach Spaces

This paper relies on the study of fixed points and best proximity points of a class of so-called generalized point-dependent (K-Lambda)hybrid p-cyclic self-mappings relative to a Bregman distance Df, associated with a Gâteaux differentiable proper strictly convex function f in a smooth Banach space, where the real functions Lambda and K quantify the point-to-point hybrid and nonexpansive (or contractive) characteristics of the Bregman distance for points associated with the iterations through the cyclic self-mapping.Weak convergence results to weak cluster points are obtained for certain average sequences constructed with the iterates of the cyclic hybrid self-mappings.

Good practice guidance for library and information professionals - moving towards accessible e-book platforms

Good practice guidance for publishers and procurers of e-book platforms based on the benefits and barriers identified by robust testing using real people with disabilities

Designing Spaces for Effective Learning: A guide to 21st century learning space design

Increasing investment in estate and learning technologies, combined with the need for more cost-effective space utilisation, is making it increasingly important for senior managers to keep abreast of new thinking about the design of technology-rich learning spaces. Designing Spaces for Effective Learning, one of a series of guides, was launched at the JISC Conference 2006 which helped to meet this need. A visually-rich publication, it was designed to promote better understanding of what makes an effective design for the 21 century and to summarise the key points to consider when approaching a refurbishment or new-build project. The publication takes the reader on a ’walk through’ an educational institution, exploring the relationship between learning technologies and innovative examples of physical space design at each stage of the journey. Discussion of the key points is illustrated by ten case studies from further and higher education, and floor plans from AMA Alexi Marmot Associates, architects and space planners, which provide up-to-date guidelines on the integration of technologies into teaching and learning accommodation.

Authority files: Breaking out of the library silo to become signposts for research information

Authority files serve to uniquely identify real world ‘things’ or entities like documents, persons, organisations, and their properties, like relations and features. Already important in the classical library world, authority files are indispensable for adequate information retrieval and analysis in the computer age. This is because, even more than humans, computers are poor at handling ambiguity. Through authority files, people tell computers which terms, names or numbers refer to the same thing or have the same meaning by giving equivalent notions the same identifier. Thus, authority files signpost the internet where these identifiers are interlinked on the basis of relevance. When executing a query, computers are able to navigate from identifier to identifier by following these links and collect the queried information on these so-called ‘crosswalks’. In this context, identifiers also go under the name controlled access points. Identifiers become even more crucial now massive data collections like library catalogues or research datasets are releasing their till-now contained data directly to the internet. This development is coined Open Linked Data. The concatenating name for the internet is Web of Data instead of the classical Web of Documents.

On a Class of Self-Adjoint Compact Operators in Hilbert Spaces and Their Relations with Their Finite-Range Truncations

This paper investigates a class of self-adjoint compact operators in Hilbert spaces related to their truncated versions with finite-dimensional ranges. The comparisons are established in terms of worst-case norm errors of the composite operators generated from iterated computations. Some boundedness properties of the worst-case norms of the errors in their respective fixed points in which they exist are also given. The iterated sequences are expanded in separable Hilbert spaces through the use of numerable orthonormal bases.

Metrics of monograph use in the Marston Science Library

As academic libraries are increasingly supported by a matrix of databases functions, the use of data mining and visualization techniques offer significant potential for future collection development and service initiatives based on quantifiable data. While data collection techniques are still not standardized and results may be skewed because of granularity problems, faulty algorithms, and a host of other factors, useful baseline data is extractable and broad trends can be identified. The purpose of the current study is to provide an initial assessment of data associated with science monograph collection at the Marston Science Library (MSL), University of Florida. These sciences fall within the major Library of Congress Classification schedules of Q, S, and T, excluding R, TN, TR, and TT. Overall strategy of this project is to look at the potential science audiences within the university community and analyze data related to purchasing and circulation patterns, e-book usage, and interlibrary loan statistics. While a longitudinal study from 2004 to the present would be ideal, this paper presents the results from the academic year July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009 which was chosen as the pilot period because all data reservoirs identified above were available.

Measuring Learning Outcomes in Library Instruction

The author uses clicker technology to incorporate polling and multiple choice question techniques into library instruction classes. Clickers can be used to give a keener understanding of how many students grasp the concepts presented in a specific class session. Typically, a student that aces a definition-type question will fail to answer an application-type question correctly. Immediate, electronic feedback helps to calibrate teaching approaches and gather data about learning outcomes. This presentation will analyze learning outcomes specific to scientific disciplines, and demonstrate the usefulness of clickers to engage and sustain student learning.