Ruth Rikowski's 23rd News Update

RUTH RIKOWSKI
News Update No.23

The silence from me (nearly two months already I see) is not because I have not had much to impart to you all of late. Far from it, in fact – I am snowed under on that front as well! Rather, it is because this teaching certificate (Certificate of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education - CLTHE) that I am currently studying for is proving to be very demanding and at times seems to be taking over my life! Just as well it is only for a short duration – that is all I can say. On a practical level, what this means unfortunately, is that it is very unlikely that I will be sending out any more of my Updates until after Easter, at least.

However, there are a number of important items that I really did want to share with you all. These are listed below (and other items will have to wait – apologies to all those concerned here).



1. ‘DIGITAL LIBRARIES’ SPECIAL ISSUE OF POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION, EDITED BY RUTH RIKOWSKI AND ISAAC HUNTER DUNLAP, IS NOW OUT.
The special issue of Policy Futures in Education (the refereed international ejournal) on ‘Digital Libraries’ which I have edited with Isaac Hunter Dunlap is now out. Further details are below:
Policy Futures in Education
Volume 6 Number 1 2008
Available at http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/6/issue6_1.asp

SPECIAL ISSUE ONDIGITAL LIBRARIES

Guest Editors: RUTH RIKOWSKI & ISAAC HUNTER DUNLAP

Isaac Hunter Dunlap & Ruth Rikowski: Introduction. A Library Revolution of Digital Proportions

Ruth Rikowski: Digital Libraries and Digitisation: an overview and critique

M. Paul Pandian: Digital Knowledge Resources

Heather Joseph: SPARC: creating innovative models and environments for scholarly research and communication

Tom Peters: Meeting and Serving Users in Their New Work (and Play) Spaces

Lori Bell, Mary-Carol Lindbloom, Tom Peters & Kitty Pope: Virtual Libraries and Education in Virtual Worlds: twenty-first century library services

Jia Liu: Digital Library and Digital Reference Service: integration and mutual complementarity

Mengxiong Liu & Peggy Cabrera: The New Generation of Citation Indexing in the Age of Digital Libraries

Susan Copeland: Electronic Theses and Dissertations: promoting 'hidden' research

Paul Catherall: Learning Systems in Post-Statutory Education

Tatiana Nikolova-Houston & Ron Houston: Building the Virtual Scriptorium

Yehuda E. Kalay: Impacts of New Media on Scholarly Publishing

Isaac Hunter Dunlap: Going Digital: the transformation of scholarly communication and academic libraries

BOOK REVIEWS

Building Knowledge Cultures: education and developments in the age of knowledge capitalism (Michael A. Peters, with A.C. (Tina) Besley), reviewed by Ruth Rikowski

Constraining Public Libraries: the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services (Samuel E. Trosow & Kirsti Nilsen), reviewed by Ruth Rikowski

Libr@ries: changing information space and practice (Cushla Kapitzke & Bertam C. Bruce, Eds), reviewed by Ruth Rikowski

Open Source Database Driven Web Development: a guide for information professionals (Isaac Hunter Dunlap), reviewed by Ruth Rikowski

Access to the full texts of current articles is restricted to those who have a Personal subscription (at a very reasonable rate), or those whose institution has a Library subscription. However, all articles become free-to-view 18 months after publication.

Free-to-view articles in Policy Futures in Education by Ruth and Glenn Rikowski:

Rikowski, R. (2003) Value - the Life Blood of Capitalism: knowledge is the current key, Policy Futures in Education, Vol.1 No.1, pp.160-178: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=1&issue=1&year=2003&article=9_Rikowski_PFIE_1_1&id=195.93.21.68

Rikowski, G. (2004) Marx and the Education of the Future, Policy Futures in Education, Vol.2 Nos. 3 & 4, pp.565-577, online at: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/viewpdf.asp?j=pfie&vol=2&issue=3&year=2004&article=10_Rikowski_PFEO_2_3-4_web&id=195.93.21.71%20

Subscriptions
PERSONAL SUBSCRIPTION (single user access). Subscription to the 2008 issues (i.e. full access to the articles in Volume 6, Numbers 1-6) is available to individuals at a cost of US$44.00. Personal subscriptions automatically include free access to ALL PAST ISSUES. If you wish to subscribe you may do so immediately at: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/subscribePFIE.asp

LIBRARY SUBSCRIPTION (institution-wide access). If you are working within an institution that maintains a Library, please urge them to purchase a Library subscription so access is provided throughout your institution; full details for libraries can be found at: http://www.symposium-journals.co.uk/prices.html
For all editorial matters, including articles offered for publication, please contact Professor Michael A. Peters: mpet001@uiuc.edu

In the event of problems concerning a subscription, or difficulty in gaining access to the journal articles, please contact the publishers at: support@symposium-journals.co.uk

2. RUTH RIKOWSKI NOW ON EDITORIAL BOARD OF POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION
I am delighted to inform you that I am now (as from mid January 2008) on the Editorial Board of Policy Futures in Education. See:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/editorialboard.asp

3. 'ELECTRONIC THESES AND DISSERTATIONS: PRAGMATIC ISSUES AND PRACTICAL SOLUTIONS’ by SUSAN COPELAND, GAIL McMILLAN AND SIDDHARTHA SHAKYA, CHANDOS PUBLISHING: OXFORD, 2008, £57.00 ISBN 1 84334 342 8(hdbk); £39.95, ISBN 1 84334 341 X (pbk)
Susan Copeland, one of the contributors to the ‘Digital Libraries’ issue has a book coming out about e-theses, which she has co-authored with Gail McMillan and Siddhartha Shakya. This is to be published with Chandos Publishing. Susan has led various projects to promote the development of theses and dissertations in electronic format. This book provides a practical guide, as well as an overview of recent developments in the field. It covers many topics, including information about why it is useful to make this research output available on the Web, practical advice on how to include e-theses in institutional repositories and related training issues. I wish Susan, Gail and Siddhartha all the very best with their book.


4. E-THESES CONFERENCE AT THE ROBERT GORDON UNIVERSITY, ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND, 4th-7th JUNE 2008
Susan Copeland also informed me about an E-Theses Conference, which is taking place this summer where she works, that she is involved with. This is the:
11th International Symposium on ‘Electronic Theses and Dissertations’, to be held at The Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland, 4th-7th June 2008.
For further details see: http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/library_edocs/etd08/home.htm .
As it says on the website,
“The purpose of "ETD 2008: Spreading the Light" will not only be to present research outcomes and demonstrate new developments and initiatives in the field of electronic theses and dissertations, but also to encourage even more universities around the world to become a part of the NDLTD [The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations]and to promote free, open and long-term access to online scholarship.”

If anyone would like to submit a proposal to speak or would like to attend, I am sure that the organisers would be more than pleased to hear from you.



5. LONDON SOUTH BANK UNIVERSITY (LSBU) STRATEGY: A CRITIQUE by RUTH RIKOWSKI
As part of the portfolio for my teaching certificate (CLTHE) I had to read and consider some of the London South Bank University (LSBU) strategies and write a critique of them. I examined the following strategies: the Faculty of Business, Computing and Information Management Learning and Teaching Plan (2005/6 – 08/09); the LSBU Learning and Teaching Strategy (2005/06 – 2007/08); the LSBU Centre for Learning Support and Development – Development Plan (2006/07 – 2008/9) and the LSBU People Development Strategy and Corporate Learning and Development Plan (2006/07 – 2008/09).

This was not something that immediately appealed to me, but the deeper I got into the subject, the more fascinating it became! Alison Britton, the leader of the CLTHE course, thought it was an important and neglected topic, I think, which is one of the reasons why she asked us to look at it all. The result of which was that I wrote a detailed piece, which I think could prove to be useful to others! So, for this reason, I decided to make it available on our website, and it is now at:
http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=LSBU%20Strategy.
If any of you have any thoughts and comments in regard to it, then I would be very interested to hear from you!


6. ‘COMPUTERS/INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, THE INFORMATION PROFESSION AND THE GENDER DIVIDE: WHERE ARE WE GOING?’ by RUTH RIKOWSKI, TO BE PUBLISHED IN POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION, MID 2008
This article of mine, which considers the topic of females and computing, with a particular focus on the information profession, is to be published in Policy Futures in Education, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2008, in a special issue on the theme of ‘Commercialisation, Internationalisation and the Internet’, edited by Chris Armbruster.

Females suffer much discrimination in this I.T. age, and this is a very important topic, which urgently needs to be considered further and addressed, in my view. I became acutely aware of this when I worked in the I.T. field (working closely with computer programmers, I.T. technicians etc and implementing and upgrading systems) and felt very impassioned about it and driven to write this long piece. Issues covered include topics such as the isolation which females can suffer from when working alongside male computer experts; the undermining of female confidence in computing; gender socialisation processes; women in computing academia; computer software, screen designs and layouts (which is largely designed by men) and the type of I.T. work (which tends to be more passive) that often falls to females. As we all largely have no option other than to move into this fast-changing, all-be-it exciting I.T. age, I would suggest that females need to be taking a much more pro-active role in it.
This issue of PFIE is currently in production. See:
http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/content/pdfs/6/issue6_4.asp




7. FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT MY I.T. WORK EXPERIENCE
In my News Update No. 21, I included a section about my I.T./library work. However, I omitted to refer to the period when I worked for a library software supplier (Dynix) in 1995-6. I worked on the support desk there, and had to deal with many complicated problems from Dynix clients (mainly by telephone). I learnt a lot from it, and it was a very interesting and useful experience – working alongside computer programmers, technicians, librarians and information professionals.




8. 2008 CHANDOS PUBLISHING CATALOGUE – HARD AND ELECTRONIC COPIES NOW AVAILABLE
I now have copies of the 2008 Chandos Catalogue – both in hard copy and electronic copy. If any of you would like copies, then do let me know. The catalogue now contains a wealth of titles on a wide-range of different topics, including the Internet, libraries and information management; knowledge management; information literacy; publishing; intellectual property and management and business.



9. ‘EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT’ BY PAUL PANDIAN AND C.R. KARISIDDAPPA, CHANDOS PUBLISHING: OXFORD, 2008
Dr Paul Pandian and Dr. C.R. Karisiddappa’s book, which I commissioned and referred to in a previous Update, is now out.
The book “examines various factors that contribute to an enabled environment foroptimum utilisation of information resources”. The contents of the book are very varied, including areas such as: digital knowledge resources; emerging technologies for sharing electronic resources in a distributed environment; emerging technologies in authentication and unified portal models for sharing electronic information resources. I wish Dr Pandian and Dr Karisdappa all the very best with their book.

Full bibliographic details are:‘Emerging Technologies for Knowledge Resource Management’by Dr.M. Paul Pandian and Dr. C.R. Karisiddappa. Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2007Pages: 212p ISBN 1 84334 370 3, £39.95 (pbk); 1 84334 371 1, £57.00 (hdbk) http://www.chandospublishing.com/catalogue/record_detail.php?recordID=187
10. CHANDOS AUTHOR WINNING AN AWARD FROM THE INDIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
Dr M P Satija, Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Science at the Guru Nanak Development University, Amritsar and a Chandos author of ‘Theory and practice of the Dewey decimal classification scheme’, 2007 - see http://www.chandospublishing.com/chandos_publishing_catalogue_search_booklist_results.php?ID=121), recently received the prestigious Indian Library Association (ILA) Life Time Achievement Award 2007. Dr Satija has authored 20 books published in India, UK, USA, and 150 papers published in National and International journals. He is associated with many national and international library organizations and has served visiting professor in India, Holland and Sri Lanka.


11. HELEN NICOLL’S TALK, ‘THE BUSINESS OF KNOWING’ (WITH A FOCUS ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND THE NHS) AT A CILIP LONDON MEETING, ON 9th JANUARY 2008
Helen Nicoll, from NHS ‘Connecting for Health’ (Capacity and Capability Programme Manager), gave a very interesting talk at a CILIP (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) London meeting on 9th January 2008, which I went along to. The talk was entitled ‘Web 2.0, Knowledge Management and the corporate librarian’.

Helen discussed many issues such as how do people learn; the importance of blogs and how to access good blogs (such as through Technorati); communities of practice; the transferability and interchangability of skills, information and knowledge (particularly between librarians and educators); the value of technology and related online environments for effective knowledge sharing; video conferencing, tele-conferencing and Web 2.0 as well as the value and importance of knowledge sharing in general.

Some of the key points raised and later discussed were the value of KM (and IM) in general, and Web 2.0 in particular; the need for educationalists and librarians to work closer together and the value of using technologies alongside face-to-face contact.

Helen also recently achieved a distinction for her M.Ed dissertation in Training & Development, which included interviewing Project Managers about blogs and related topics.

Helen, indeed, is very keen on blogs, in particular, (and they certainly can be an effective part of KM!) and following on from the meeting she inserted an item about this meeting on her blog. See:
http://thebusinessofknowing.blogspot.com/2008/01/cilip-event-web-20-knowledge-management.html

In this blog item, she also referred to the book that I have edited on knowledge management, so thanks Helen for that!

Helen said that she usually gives talks with all the I.T. itinerary at her disposal (PowerPoint etc), and was a bit shocked at first to discover that there was none at the CILIP London meeting, as the meetings are held in a room above a pub (the Seckforde Arms). She said that she was not quite sure how she was going to handle it, but that she was very pleasantly surprised. Here is what she actually said on her blog in regard to this:

“I felt incredibly comfortable with just sitting there, talking to people, without thinking about what my slides said, without worrying about whether I'd missed bits, whether the videos would work...all that distracting stuff you get with technology. I could listen to what I was saying, listen properly to questions, watch the group for non-verbal cues (like nodding off, head shaking, frowning) which I'd probably have missed had I been concentrating on the technology I was using to present with. I felt like, almost anyway, a storyteller. I'm going to try to avoid PowerPoint in future...

Wow – I thought that was really something, especially as I had the same feeling when I gave a talk at a London CILIP meeting about one year ago now, on my work on globalisation and libraries. In fact, I felt, and still do feel, that it was one of the best talks that I had ever given! Like Helen I found that I was able to establish a really good rapport with my audience and there was a very good discussion. I always aim to invite contributions, discussions and interjections from the audience, but sometimes that works, and at other times it does not work so well. After all, one of my aims is to try to change the world in some small way, so finding out what other people think on the matter is important! The audience themselves at my talk at the CILIP London meeting were very receptive, wanted to participate and had clear views of their own, which obviously helped! I think that Ralph Adam, who organises all these talks, should be congratulated for obtaining this very successful formula for talks and presentations and perhaps others might want to follow his lead!

I am also incidentally developing the idea of the ‘interactive lecture’ further in my teaching practice, particularly through my teaching observations at London South Bank University (as part of the CLTHE course). This can be seen, in one sense, to be an attempt to bring the lecture and seminar together. Obviously, there are limitations – space, numbers etc, but I think it is a useful direction for lecturers to be moving in. Students are given some information in the lecture, and whilst it is still fresh in their mind, they can then discuss it further in a structured way. This can also be followed up with further lectures, seminars, tutorials and interactive lectures (whatever seems most appropriate), as and when. This should help to overcome dry lectures and non-participatory seminars. Tariq Tahar (2008) speaks enthusiastically about the interactive lecture in this months’ Times Higher Education saying that:

“The interactive lecture is now seen as the future, the students no longer merely the passive recipients of information.” (Tahar, 2008, p 39, in ‘Are You Reaching Those at the Back?: some academics routinely lecture to hundreds of students, but is this still the best way to teach?’, Times Higher Education, 10th January, pg37-39)

It is an interesting idea anyway, I think, and is something that I intend to develop further.

12. REVIEW OF MY ‘GLOBALISATION’ BOOK IN ‘LIBRARY HI TECH’ BY IAN FOURIE, VOL 25, ISS NO. 4, 2007, pp. 623-625
There was a good review of my book ‘Globalisation and Information’ by Ian Fourie, University of Pretoria, South Africa in Library Hi Tech, towards the end of last year. Fourie rightly says that I “…feel passionately about an Open Marxist theoretical analysis in considering…’global capitalism’…” (p. 623). Note though is made of the fact that there are rather a lot of introductions, conclusions and summaries. However, this was largely due to the fact that I was trying to make a very complex subject clear and easy to understand, as well as covering a very wide area (with the extensive international dimension that I explored) and doing all this in quite a short space of time. Never-the-less, the concluding comment is very heartening, with Fourie saying that it:

“… is an excellently researched publication written by an expert who is passionately against a TINA philosophy (There Is No Alternative – to capitalism). It should be read by all librarians and information professionals, and especially by decision makers in the field, as well as the leaders in professional associations.” (p. 625)

13. ‘KIZI TEBEŞIR’ – TRANSLATED BY EĢITHIM SŐYLEŞILERI RED CHALK : A TRANSLATION OF ‘RED CHALK’ BY PETER MCLAREN, GLENN RIKOWSKI, MIKE COLE AND DAVE HILL, IN TURKISH
Glenn was very pleased to receive a copy this month, of ‘Red Chalk’ in Turkish. The English version was published by the Institute for Education Policy Studies: Brighton, 2002 - see http://www.ieps.org.uk.cwc.net/redchalk.html - ‘Red Chalk: on schooling, capitalism and politics’ by Mike Cole, Dave Hill, Peter McLaren and Glenn Rikowski, ISBN 0 952204205, £7.00
It has now also been published in Turkish by Birinci Baski: Kasum, 2006,
ISBN 9944 5724 8 9. As well as 'Red Chalk' itself the book also includes a translation into Turkish of an e-dialogue between Glenn and Peter McLaren that first appeared in 'Cultural Logic' in 2001.

14. ‘RESISTANCE TO RESTRUCTURING?: POST-FORDISM IN BRITISH PRIMARY SCHOOLS’ BY GLENN RIKOWSKI AND SHAUN FIELDING

In 1996, Glenn Rikowski wrote a paper with Shaun Fielding on: "Resistance to Restructuring? Post-Fordism in British Primary Schools". This article is now online on our website (as from 26/01/08). Fielding, S. & Rikowski, G. (1996) Resistance to Restructuring? Post-Fordism in British Primary Schools, School of Education, University of Birmingham, June: See http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=articles&sub=Post-Fordism%20in%20Primary%20Schools

15 GLENN RIKOWSKI ALSO NOW ON EDITORIAL BOARD OF POLICY FUTURES IN EDUCATION
Glenn Rikowski is also now on the Editorial Board of Policy Futures in Education (late January) See: http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pfie/editorialboard.asp

16. ‘ROBERT OWEN: EDUCATION THE FUN WAY? BY NEIL SOUTHWELL

An article by Neil Southwell, from the School of Education, University of Northampton has recently been inserted on our website (on 9th January 2008), under the ‘Contributions’ section. See:

http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=contributions&sub=Robert%20Owen%20on%20Education
If anyone is interested in contributing to this section then do get in touch. It is an area that we would like to develop, but as always, there is the problem of time (or rather, the lack of it!)

17. POPULAR EDUCATION IN VENEZEULA: SHARED EXPERIENCES IN PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY: A ONE-DAY SEMINAR TO BE HELD AT KINGSTON UNIVERSITY, ON 9TH FEBRARY 2008
Sarah Amsler has informed me about this interesting seminar which is taking place at Kingston University, from 11am-4pm on 9th February 2008, in the C-SCIAPE Debating Chamber. The seminar will discuss “… the politics and possibilities of popular education in Venezuela, widening participation and the transformation of higher learning.”

There will be talks and workshops with the following people:
Edenis Guilarte, Simon Rodriguez University, Caracas
Dr. Andy Higginbottom, Kingston University
Pablo Navarrete, Red Pepper ‘Venezuela’ blog
Dr. Sara Motta, Nottingham University
Thomas Muhr, University of Bristol

The event is sponsored by the Kinston University Institute of Social Science and Departments of Sociology and Criminology and International Politics and Human Rights
To book a free place or for more information, please contact Dr. Sarah Amsler at s.amsler@kingston.ac.uk

Many thanks to Susan Copeland, Glyn Jones and Sarah Amsler for providing information for items 4, 10 and 17 respectively.

Best
Ruth

24th January 2008