Selection and Acquisition of Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries

Author(s):  
N. K. Khatri

With information explosion, there has been a rapid increase in the number of e-resources published across the world. In addition to this, the cost of e-resources has risen steeply. This has resulted in libraries finding it difficult to acquire all the required information resources from the budget available from its parent body. The problem of libraries is compounded by the growing costs of maintaining both print and online subscription and issues related to ‘perpetual' electronic access to back files. The print industry in the world is said to be on the decline. People prefer the electronic versions of the reading materials, because they are more portable, accessible and affordable. But there are many challenges/hurdles to this path, which we have to overcome with time, effort and ingenuity. There are certain challenges relating to their selection, acquisition, maintenance and preservation, etc., which need joint efforts of library professionals and associations. Electronic publishing of scholarly journals, emerging of consortia, pricing models of the publishers give new opportunities for libraries to provide instant access to information. Consortium, formed by a group of libraries, is a unique program to facilitate electronic access to scholarly databases and journals. The beneficiaries will be faculty, researchers, students and neighbor institutes engaged in pursuing higher education. Consortia will minimize the financial burden and pave the way for an enormous amount of saving of time, money, and manpower.

Author(s):  
Rachel Popkin ◽  
Fluvio Lobo ◽  
Jack Stubbs

Stethoscopes are ubiquitous across the healthcare system. For the most part, stethoscopes do not represent a financial burden, mostly throughout the developed world. Further reducing the cost of stethoscopes has both humanitarian and prophylactic goals. The Glia project pioneered the concept of 3D printing stethoscopes for war or poverty-stricken regions of the world. Cross-contamination concerns have led researchers and manufacturers to develop single-use stethoscopes. Our aim is to develop a fully printed, multi-material, functional stethoscope to alleviate these concerns. Our team also seeks to establish a framework for the on-demand manufacturing of medical devices to reduce costs associated with shipping, distribution, and inventory.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kagiso Mabe ◽  
Andrea Potgieter

Background: Many libraries, archives and museums (LAMs) all over the world have begun digitising their collections, and with a good number of these institutions failing to sustain their digitisation projects because they cannot afford to, it is best to find ways to lessen the financial burden that comes with digitisation.Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the possible benefits and challenges if LAMs in South Africa were to collaborate on digitisation efforts.Method: A mono-method qualitative study was undertaken. The objectives were addressed by making use of a literature review and by conducting non-standardised, semi-structured interviews with 21 interviewees located at different LAMs.Results: It was found that funding for digitisation projects was a major problem, while collaboration between LAMs would involve sharing the financial burden among several institutions. In addition, reasons preventing LAMs from forming collaborative partnerships for the purpose of digitisation were also identified. A lack of collaborative digitisation policies and funding, both internally and between LAMs, was found to be a major obstacle for the formation of such partnerships. In determining the relevance of the research, it was important to determine whether or not LAMs in South Africa were open to collaboration and responses to this question were positive. It can thus be concluded that the results of this study can be used to motivate and guide collaboration partnerships for the purpose of digitisation between South African LAMs.Conclusion: It was concluded that collaboration could indeed appreciably alleviate problems related to digitisation, the most prominent being the cost associated with such endeavours.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Digby Race ◽  
Supriya Mathew ◽  
Matthew Campbell ◽  
Karl Hampton

<p>Communities around the world adapt to warming climates in a number of ways. Adaptations can often be energy intensive or dependent on expensive infrastructure to cope with harsh weather, so the use of renewable energy and energy efficient housing is becoming an increasing feature in conversations about climate change adaptation. The cost of energy for households continues to increase, with this cost adding considerable financial pressure on low-income households in both developed and developing countries. The concept of ‘energy poverty’ is gaining utility around the world to highlight the prevalent dilemma faced by low-income households that they cannot afford the level of energy use to maintain their desired livelihood. In regions of the world with extended periods of extreme weather, households can allocate as much as 20 per cent of their budget on energy consumption to maintain comfortable housing. Research by the authors indicates that effective adaptation must not add to the financial burden on low-income households, if the liveability of Australia’s semi-arid region is to be sustained.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (5) ◽  
pp. 264-271
Author(s):  
Rachel E. López

The elderly prison population continues to rise along with higher rates of dementia behind bars. To maintain the detention of this elderly population, federal and state prisons are creating long-term care units, which in turn carry a heavy financial burden. Prisons are thus gearing up to become nursing homes, but without the proper trained staff and adequate financial support. The costs both to taxpayers and to human dignity are only now becoming clear. This article squarely addresses the second dimension of this carceral practice, that is the cost to human dignity. Namely, it sets out why indefinitely incarcerating someone with dementia or other neurocognitive disorders violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. This conclusion derives from the confluence of two lines of U.S. Supreme Court precedent. First, in Madison v. Alabama, the Court recently held that executing someone (in Madison’s case someone with dementia) who cannot rationally understand their sentence amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. Second, in line with Miller v. Alabama, which puts life without parole (LWOP) sentences in the same class as death sentences due to their irrevocability, this holding should be extended to LWOP sentences. Put another way, this article explains why being condemned to life is equivalent to death for someone whose neurodegenerative disease is so severe that they cannot rationally understand their punishment.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 (3) ◽  
pp. 47-53
Author(s):  
Галина Глембоцкая ◽  
Galina Glembockaya ◽  
Станислав Еремин ◽  
Stanislav Eremin

In order to identify promising strategic development possibilities for the pharmaceutical industry in the Russian Federation, a pilot study was conducted, which has analyzed the main trends in the development of innovative medicines. As a result of the content analysis of available sources of scientific literature, the characteristics of options used in the world practice for increasing the innovative activity of individual subjects and the pharmaceutical market as a whole are presented. Possible reserves for the further development of the innovative component of the pharmaceutical market within the framework of the concept of personalized medicine according to the P4 principle (predictive - personalized - preventive - participatory) are identified and structured. The results of use by individual pharmaceutical companies of scientifically and practically justified approaches to optimizing the costs of development and promoting drugs are presented. The advantages and real prospects of a generally accepted method to reduce the cost of development by «expanding the pharmacological effect» (label expansion) of already existing drugs with a known safety profile in the world practice are shown. A scientific generalization and structuring of the goals and results of the post-registration phase of clinical trials to expand the pharmacological action of a number of drugs already existed at the market have been carried out.


The contributions, by eminent scholars, included in The Indian Yearbook of Comparative Law 2016 discuss the discipline of comparative law in India and is of immense importance for legal scholarship around the globe. Unlike the West, that has covered almost all aspects of law from private to public law matters of national, transnational, and international relevance, not much work has been done in the discipline of Comparative law in India. In view of the countries and people of the world coming closer day by day, the need for the comparative study of law is becoming a sine qua non for participation in almost all transactions among people living across the globe. The attempt made with this volume will not only meet the much-awaited need of having reading materials on comparative law, but will also create a forum for legal scholars around the world to express their views on different aspects of law in comparative perspective. The issues covered her range from comparative legal methods to comparison in different aspects of law in different countries, as well as transnational and international bodies such as European Union and the various bodies of the United Nations. The issues covered include corporate law, constitutional law, human rights, environmental law, globalization, democracy, privatization, and several other contemporary legal issues.


Games ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Ramzi Suleiman ◽  
Yuval Samid

Experiments using the public goods game have repeatedly shown that in cooperative social environments, punishment makes cooperation flourish, and withholding punishment makes cooperation collapse. In less cooperative social environments, where antisocial punishment has been detected, punishment was detrimental to cooperation. The success of punishment in enhancing cooperation was explained as deterrence of free riders by cooperative strong reciprocators, who were willing to pay the cost of punishing them, whereas in environments in which punishment diminished cooperation, antisocial punishment was explained as revenge by low cooperators against high cooperators suspected of punishing them in previous rounds. The present paper reconsiders the generality of both explanations. Using data from a public goods experiment with punishment, conducted by the authors on Israeli subjects (Study 1), and from a study published in Science using sixteen participant pools from cities around the world (Study 2), we found that: 1. The effect of punishment on the emergence of cooperation was mainly due to contributors increasing their cooperation, rather than from free riders being deterred. 2. Participants adhered to different contribution and punishment strategies. Some cooperated and did not punish (‘cooperators’); others cooperated and punished free riders (‘strong reciprocators’); a third subgroup punished upward and downward relative to their own contribution (‘norm-keepers’); and a small sub-group punished only cooperators (‘antisocial punishers’). 3. Clear societal differences emerged in the mix of the four participant types, with high-contributing pools characterized by higher ratios of ‘strong reciprocators’, and ‘cooperators’, and low-contributing pools characterized by a higher ratio of ‘norm keepers’. 4. The fraction of ‘strong reciprocators’ out of the total punishers emerged as a strong predictor of the groups’ level of cooperation and success in providing the public goods.


Author(s):  
Whitney N. Goldsberry ◽  
Sarah S. Summerlin ◽  
Allison Guyton ◽  
Brittani Caddell ◽  
Warner K. Huh ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (4) ◽  
pp. 526-535
Author(s):  
Cindy Bolden

Jesus’s encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well is a paradigmatic text for the Church, showing new possibilities for how the Church can engage the world, specifically engagement through invitational conversation and acts of charity at modern-day community wells. A Place at the Table is a pay-what-you-can café in Raleigh, North Carolina. Patrons can pay the suggested price, less than the suggested price, redeem a token worth the cost of a meal, or pay by volunteering at the café. Patrons who are able to “pay it forward” can further support the mission by tipping or buying meal tokens for others. At this café, a space reminiscent of an ancient “community well,” thirsty travelers receive the life-giving waters of acceptance, connection, and sustenance. The custom of hospitality is a life-giving and transformational practice for the Church, a viable and tangible way to connect with its neighbor and draw all persons into the experience of God’s love.


1999 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-104
Author(s):  
Susan Brady

Over the past decade academic and research libraries throughout the world have taken advantage of the enormous developments in communication technology to improve services to their users. Through the Internet and the World Wide Web researchers now have convenient electronic access to library catalogs, indexes, subject bibliographies, descriptions of manuscript and archival collections, and other resources. This brief overview illustrates how libraries are facilitating performing arts research in new ways.


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