Attempts have been made by several organizations, including the American Library Association (ALA), to provide greater access to professional education for library managers/directors; however, the rural environment presents unique challenges to education not addressed by many of the policies and programs currently in place. This study examined the perspectives of library managers/directors in rural Northwest Georgia about the factors that impede or facilitate professional degree attainment. Participants included twelve library managers/directors serving in rural communities. Qualitative interviews with the library managers/directors identified their experiences and issues including challenges and incentives to professional degree attainment. The principal findings include: the difference in the experiences and perspectives of degreed and non-degreed participants, regarding professional degree attainment; and the degree to which multiple financial, geographical and cultural factors are affected by demographic characteristics of participants. The results of this study can be used by organizations and agencies who seek to improve the education of rural library managers/directors.

Increasing numbers of Americans are seeking information about health and medicine. The advent of the Internet has ushered in an explosion of resources, but no mediating device to help lay people discern between authoritative current data, opinion pieces or unsubstantiated anecdotes. The field of consumer health is ripe with programs and initiatives designed to address the issue of access and education, but those are often scattered, spottily coordinated, poorly advertised and, in some cases, needlessly duplicated. The formation of robust partnerships between two major entities attempting to provide consumer health information (public libraries and academic health sciences libraries) seems logical and timely, especially during this time of increased focus on all aspects of American healthcare. This thesis examines what, if any, partnership activities exist between the three academic health science libraries and three contiguous public library systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia to provide consumer health information services to the community. Partnership experiences with any entity are discussed as well as specific partnership initiatives to provide consumer health information. Brief electronic survey results and follow-up telephone interviews revealed that all six libraries embraced various partnerships with other entities to reach different audiences and experienced largely positive results; however, when consumer health partnerships were examined, the research indicated only one formalized program with tenuous partnership features that originated at an academic health sciences library. Based on these results, the recommendation to shift the coordination of consumer health information partnership activity to an overseeing state entity familiar with both types of libraries is discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2009. / "Publication number: AAT 3385825."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Library Information Science, 2009. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb. 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1075. Adviser: Susan C. Herring.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2008. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-05, Section: A, page: 1581. Adviser: Michael B. Twidale. Includes bibliographical references. Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> Clerical review of Entity Resolution(ER) is crucial for maintaining the entity identity integrity of an Entity Identity Information Management (EIIM) system. However, the clerical review process presents several problems. These problems include Entity Identity Structures (EIS) that are difficult to read and interpret, excessive time and effort to review large Identity Knowledgebase (IKB), and the duplication of effort in repeatedly reviewing the same EIS in same EIIM review cycle or across multiple review cycles. Although the original EIIM model envisioned and demonstrated the value of correction assertions, these are applied to correct errors after they have been found. The original EIIM design did not focus on the features needed to support the process of clerical review needed to find these errors. </p><p> The research presented here extends and enhances the original EIIM model in two very significant ways. The first is a design for a pair of confirmation assertions that complement the original set of correction assertions. The confirmation assertions confirm correct linking decisions so that they can be excluded from further clerical review. The second is a design and demonstration of a comprehensive visualization system that supports clerical review, and both correction and confirmation assertion configurations in EIIM. This dissertation also describes how the confirmation assertions and the new visualization system have been successfully integrated into the OYSTER open source EIIM framework.</p>

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