Mary Austin Wallace and children

Resident of Burlington, Michigan

My maiden effort; being the personal confessions of well-known American authors as to their literary beginnings,

"Mary Austin": p. 12-16.

Library and information science education 2.0 : guiding principles and models of best practice. Interview with Mary Anne Kennan.

In 2005, Stephen Abram, vice president of Innovation at SirsiDynix, challenged library and information science (LIS) professionals to start becoming “librarian 2.0.” In the last few years, discussion and debate about the “core competencies” needed by librarian 2.0 have appeared in the “biblioblogosphere” (blogs written by LIS professionals). However, beyond these informal blog discussions few systematic and empirically based studies have taken place. A project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council fills this gap. The project identifies the key skills, knowledge, and attributes required by “librarian 2.0.” Eighty-one members of the Australian LIS profession participated in a series of focus groups. Eight themes emerged as being critical to “librarian 2.0”: technology, communication, teamwork, user focus, business savvy, evidence based practice, learning and education, and personal traits. Guided by these findings interviews with 36 LIS educators explored the current approaches used within contemporary LIS education to prepare graduates to become “librarian 2.0”. This video presents an example of ‘great practice’ in current LIS education as it strives to foster web 2.0 professionals.

SSCRC Austin ICU Handover

Video presented as part of Melbourne Smart Services CRC Participants conferences. Video showing the results of our collaboration with the Smart Services CRC and Austin Health. We created an environment for nurses to learn ICU Handover processes. Handover processes in an ICU involve, briefing meetings with ward nurses, and then a bedside handover of patient care information to the nurse starting the next shift. This simulation will allow students to remotely practice their handover skills, thus freeing up expensive resources at teaching hospitals, and enabling them to be at a higher skill level when they commence live training. More information available at: www.bpmve.org.

Review: "Stir" -- Stephen Wallace

Synopsis and review of the Australian prison film Stir (Stephen Wallace, 1980). Includes cast and credits. Stir was written by a former prisoner, Bob Jewson, who had witnessed first hand a notorious riot at Bathurst Gaol in New South Wales in February 1974, the second serious disturbance at the prison in four years. In 1979, prisoners at Parramatta Gaol staged a peaceful sit-in to protest against the New South Wales’ government’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against prison officers for their actions during the 1974 Bathurst riot. The bashing of China Jackson and his cellmate in the first scene of Stir follows a sit-in, with the rest of the film drawing heavily on events around the 1974 Bathurst riot. The director later claimed that he wanted to call the film ‘The Riot at Bathurst Prison’, but was persuaded by nervous bureaucrats to apply the veneer of fiction. The film was retitled Stir, and set in the fictional Gatunga Gaol. Like other films in this genre, Stir draws heavily on the experiences of former prisoners and warders. The Prisoners’ Action Group played a leading role in the planning and preparation of the film, and many former inmates and guards were employed as extras. And in common with many films in this genre, Stir is concerned to humanise the plight of prisoners. Through the depiction of the routines of punishment, violence and retribution by which order in the institution is maintained, and through careful evocation of the atmosphere of fear and intimidation that prisoners (and warders) live with every day, Stir, again like other films in this genre blames the authorities and the system itself for events like those portrayed here. As producer Richard Brennan says in an interview on the 2005 DVD release of the film, “prisons create monsters”...

Disentangling the cognitive components supporting Austin Maze performance in left versus right temporal lobe epilepsy

Neuropsychological tests requiring patients to find a path through a maze can be used to assess visuospatial memory performance in temporal lobe pathology, particularly in the hippocampus. Alternatively, they have been used as a task sensitive to executive function in patients with frontal lobe damage. We measured performance on the Austin Maze in patients with unilateral left and right temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), with and without hippocampal sclerosis, compared to healthy controls. Performance was correlated with a number of other neuropsychological tests to identify the cognitive components that may be associated with poor Austin Maze performance. Patients with right TLE were significantly impaired on the Austin Maze task relative to patients with left TLE and controls, and error scores correlated with their performance on the Block Design task. The performance of patients with left TLE was also impaired relative to controls; however, errors correlated with performance on tests of executive function and delayed recall. The presence of hippocampal sclerosis did not have an impact on maze performance. A discriminant function analysis indicated that the Austin Maze alone correctly classified 73.5% of patients as having right TLE. In summary, impaired performance on the Austin Maze task is more suggestive of right than left TLE; however, impaired performance on this visuospatial task does not necessarily involve the hippocampus. The relationship of the Austin Maze task with other neuropsychological tests suggests that differential cognitive components may underlie performance decrements in right versus left TLE.