Women and books in the seventeenth century

A summary account of women’s book ownership patterns during the seventeenth century. Although much work is now ongoing to understand the extent of female book ownership and reading in the early modern period, the documentary record is unbalanced. This chapter brings together many kinds of evidence—contemporary lists, inscriptions, bookplates, bindings, inscriptions, wills—to provide an overview of women’s book ownership during the seventeenth century. Women interfacing with books was widespread, not restricted to the closets of gentry ladies, and cultural historians keen to see women’s reading as controversial or subversive are overstating the case. Subject coverage of women’s libraries is explored, noting the high proportion of devotional and English language material typically found, alongside a wider range of books which may be also be associated with women.

A study of Open Access research data repositories developed by BRICS countries

Purpose In the present era, research data is a concern for researchers, as they are trying to find new ways to communicate their research findings and conclusions to other researchers in order to increase visibility and credibility. BRICS nations are fast emerging economies and contribute significantly in research output. This study makes an effort to analyze and explore the role of BRICS nations towards open access research data repository registered with Registry of Research Data Repositories. Design/methodology/approach The data were gathered from re3data repository, and the search was limited to BRICS nations. The data were further analyzed and tabulated as per set parameters, namely, country-wise distribution, types of contents, subject coverage and language diversity. Findings The findings depict that in terms of strength, India has the highest number of data repositories, thereby achieved the first rank among BRICS nations, and South Africa has the least number of data repositories, whereas in terms of content type and subject coverage, India again is leading among BRICS nations. The English language is used by repositories as the main language of the interface. Practical implications The study helps to understand the development of research data repositories by BRICS nations. The study is further beneficial to researchers, as Registry of Research Data Repository provides a single platform to access repositories from various disciplines. Readily available data saves time, money and efforts of researchers and helps the researcher in completing their research activity in a very short span of time. Originality/value The paper has investigated open access data repositories of BRICS nation that has not been attempted earlier. This gives readers comprehensive overview of research data repositories developed in fast emerging economies of the global. The paper can be very helpful for information managers, OA promoters and education and research policy makers to devise plans and policy bearing in mind the evolving research channels in emerging economies.

An index of teaching performance based on students’ feedback

Evaluation of teaching performance of faculty members, on the basis of students’ feedback, is routinely performed by almost all tertiary education institutions. Objective assessment of faculty members requires a comprehensive index of teaching performance. A composite indicator is proposed to assess teaching performance of faculty members. It is based on the combination of several items evaluated by students such as punctuality, communication ability and subject coverage. Robustness of the indicator is assessed applying uncertainty analysis. An application to a data set from an Indian institution is presented. It is shown that the proposed index can be used to rank faculty members from the least to the worst performer according to students’ feedback.

Sociology Source Ultimate

EBSCO’s Sociology Source Ultimate is the latest iteration of SocIndex and SocIndex full-text. The database purports to offer the broadest purview of sociological research and related literature. Sociology Source Ultimate stands out from its predecessors in the degree and extent of its full text journal offerings including 1,072 full-text journals of which 1,009 are peer reviewed, 647 peer reviewed without embargo, and 601 full text offerings that are covered by either Web of Science or Scopus. In addition, the database offers full-text access to thousands of monographs, edited volumes, conference papers and proceedings, reports, working papers, etc. Subject coverage ranges from deviant behavior to gender identity to social movements. A particularly notable feature of the database is its expansive coverage of international and foreign language journals.

Use of Electronic Resources among the Students in Engineering Colleges in Chennai: A Study

This study analyses the status of electronic resources facilities and services provided by the Engineering Colleges in Chennai. It also discusses the purpose of using e-resources, benefits, subject coverage, students satisfaction, problems that are faced by the Engineering College students while accessing e-resources .The study was limited to only four engineering colleges situated on the line to OMR road, Chennai. Majority of the students are accessing the e-resources from their Central Library followed by their home (17%), Internet centre (13%) and from their department libraries (10%). Since the student community has to depend on the e-resources for their academic endeavour, the libraries should subscribe the e-resources as per the required norms to fulfill the academic needs of the student community.

The perceived impact of accreditation on the quality of academic accounting education: students` perspective

The last few years have been a period of intensive accreditation processes concerning accounting majors in Polish universities by institutions which confirm accounting qualifications. Our paper aims to investi- gate the quality of academic education in the context of ACCA accreditation from the perspective of a critical stakeholder group – students. The identification of their views contributes to the ongoing discus- sion surrounding the quality of accounting education, and how it relates to practice. The study is based on an online survey questionnaire. There was a total of 384 responses used in the study, provided by students of three leading Polish universities. We took into consideration the characteristics of our respondents such as gender, age, type of studies, and work experience. The multiple regression analysis allows us to con- clude that accreditation is a factor that moderately influences the quality of accounting education. Stu- dents indicate the subject coverage and difficulties in preparing for accredited exams as highly important factors influencing the education quality. Accreditation and its impact on the quality of education are important and current issues; at the same time, these issues have not been addressed in academic research. The presented study is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature of this field, while also being relevant for practice. The results contribute to a better understanding of accreditation processes and students’ expecta- tions. They may also be useful to more successfully design and develop accounting curricula at higher education institutions which have already been accredited or are considering such a possibility.

Essential and core books for veterinary medicine

Objectives:This study defined core and essential lists of recent, English-language veterinary medicine books using a data-driven methodology for potential use by a broad audience, including libraries that are building collections supporting veterinary sciences and One Health initiatives.Methods: Book titles were collected from monograph citation databases, veterinary examination reading lists, veterinary college textbook and library reserve lists, and published bibliographies. These lists were combined into a single list with titles ranked by the number of occurrences.Results: The methodology produced a core list of 122 monographs and an essential list of 33 titles. All titles are recent, edition neutral, English language monographs. One title is out of print.Conclusions: The methodology captured qualitative and quantitative input from four distinct populations who use veterinary monographs: veterinary practitioners, educators, researchers, and librarians. Data were collected and compiled to determine core and essential lists that represented all groups. Unfortunately, data are not available for all subareas of veterinary medicine, resulting in uneven subject coverage. This methodology can be replicated and adapted for other subject areas.

НЕТНОГРАФІЧНИЙ АНАЛІЗ ТЕМАТИЧНОГО СПЕКТРУ ПЕДАГОГІЧНИХ ДОСЛІДЖЕНЬ У ВИДАННЯХ З НАУКОМЕТРИЧНОЇ БАЗИ SCOPUS

Netnographic analysis of international pedagogical periodical journals which are indexed in Scopus scientometric database has been realized in the article. The authors gave appraisal of pedagogical investigations’ priority directions which are published in the most quoted world’s journals. Subject coverage of the Top-300 pedagogical periodical journals from the rank-list presented by Scimago Journal & Country Rank Internet-platform has been also analyzed. Comparison between pedagogical journals’ quotation-indexes and corresponding indexes of technical, natural-scientific, legislative and political subject issues has been also completed. The authors succeeded in refuting the widely-spread but mistaken opinion that pedagogical issues are insufficiently presented or even absent in Scopus database. It has also been found out that the majority of pedagogical periodical journals which are indexed in Scopus deal with problems of general education and upbringing; pedagogical psychology and sociology; organizing of pedagogical investigations and pedagogical statistics.

Institutional Repositories Initiatives in India

The purpose of this chapter is to present the development and current situation of Institutional Repositories (IRs) in India. This chapter explores the main concepts of open access, institutional repositories, and their needs and benefits. The chapter highlights the current status of Institutional Repositories (IR) in India by its collection type, subject coverage, and present working status of the repositories available to the academic community as open sources. This chapter examines the overall growth of IRs in Asia and enumerates the Institutional Repositories in India. The chapter analyzes the accessible institutional repositories based on the selected study criteria and studies various digital library software used in the development of IRs in India.

Deal or No Deal? Evaluating Big Deals and Their Journals

This paper presents methods to develop metrics that compare Big Deal journal packages and the journals within those packages. Deal-level metrics guide selection of a Big Deal for termination. Journal-level metrics guide selection of individual subscriptions from journals previously provided by a terminated deal. The paper argues that, while the proposed metrics provide helpful quantitative data for comparative analysis, selection of individual subscriptions must also involve informed judgment about a library’s subject coverage needs and alternative sources of access. The paper also discusses how replacing a Big Deal with a reduced number of individual subscriptions may affect the collections budget, use of other resources, and interlibrary loan.