This study addresses the problem of reading among older adults and the relation of such reading to their sense of life satisfaction. The study also considers the relation between reading interests and activity of older adults and the availability to them of reading materials and services.

M.A. / Researchers and futurists like Alvin Toner state that we are currently moving into the information era. In the information economy, information is an alternative source of capital. The role of information in the management of an organisation is being realised by more and more high profile companies and organisations. Information management should form part of top management. Information management does not only consist of the management of information technology. It consists of the whole information spectrum which includes information technology, information services as well as information systems. It implies the management of information as an organisational resource. Many companies and organisations however do not recognise information as a resource. It is therefore not managed as such. In most organisations information management develops in different stages until it reaches a state of maturity. The question arises what the cost implication is if information in this day and age is not managed as a valuable resource. The value of information is often difficult to establish and measure. The value of information depends on its timeliness and usefulness in a specific situation. It is therefore important that the organisation should be aware of the nature of its information resources as well as its location and flow. This can be achieved by a thorough information audit. When the organisation is aware of the extent of its information resources as well as its usage, the relation between cost and value can be determent. A cost-benefit analyses will establish whether the costs spend on information is justified. Because of the intricate nature of information a cost-benefit analyses renders several problems. Its usefulness are often questioned. It goes without saying that where unnessary costs are avoided the organisation will benefit. The process of cost avoidance is seen as a form of cost-benefit analysis. Local government in South Africa is the third tier of government, and currently in a process of change. The principles of Public Administration plays an important part in the management of local government. The absence of the profit motive in local government is often used as a reason why general management principles are not applied. Information plays an important role in local government decision making. An information audit in the Roodepoort Administration identified several important information resources. Through interviews and a case study it was established that information management does not occur on top level. Information is not recognised as a resource. This does not lead to cost avoidance. This study concludes that the Roodepoort Administration is in an early stage of information management, where information technology is managed to a certain degree. The lack of information management in the Roodepoort administration causes unnessary costs, departmentalisation and duplication of information. The recognisation of information as an organisational resource in the Roodepoort Administration, and in local government as a whole will assure effective and cost-effective decision making and administration. Cost avoidance will lead to accountable administration of communities.

[Introduction] The 1980s have ushered in an era of extreme competitive pressure for the modern business organisation. In previous times many business organisations have succeeded simply because of the excellence of their products, with little concern or attention being paid to the wants and needs of potential customers. As the business environment has become more competitive, however, the point of focus has changed. There is ample evidence which suggests a correlation between success in business and firms which have adopted a marketing-orientated philosophy of business. The evolution of marketing as a discipline has been hastened in recent times by the need of the firm to survive in the face of increasing competition. This "increasing attention" is occurring because of the realisation that sheer product excellence alone will not necessarily mean that the firm will succeed in establishing a group of satisfied customers in the long term. It is the adoption of the so-called "marketing concept" which provides the opportunity for the firm to develop a competitive edge which will more likely eventuate in success.

This thesis explores the ability of data visualisation to enable knowl-edge discovery in digital collections. Its emphasis lies on time-based visualisations, such as timelines. Although timelines are among the earliest examples of graphical renderings of data, they are often used merely as devices for linear storytelling and not as tools for visual analysis. Investigating this type of visualisation reveals the particular challenges of digital timelines for scholarly research. In addition, the intersection between the key issues of time-wise visualisation and digital collections acts as a focal point. Departing from authored temporal descriptions in collections data, the research examines how curatorial decisions influence collec-tions data and how these decisions may be made manifest in timeline visualisations. The thesis contributes a new understanding of the knowledge embedded in digital collections and provides practical and conceptual means for making this knowledge accessible and usable. The case is made that digital collections are not simply represen-tations of physical archives. Digital collections record not only what is known about the content of an archive. Collections data contains traces of institutional decisions and curatorial biases, as well as data related to administrative procedures. Such ‘hidden data’ – information that has not been explicitly recorded, but is nevertheless present in the dataset – is crucial for drawing informed conclusions from dig-itised cultural collections and can be exposed through appropriately designed visualisation tools. The research takes a practice-led and collaborative approach, work-ing closely with cultural institutions and their curators. Functional prototypes address issues of visualising large cultural datasets and the representation of uncertain and multiple temporal descriptions that are typically found in digital collections. The prototypes act as means towards an improved understanding of and a critical engagement with the time-wise visualisation of col-lections data. Two example implementations put the design principles that have emerged into practice and demonstrate how such tools may assist in knowledge discovery in cultural collections. Calls for new visualisation tools that are suitable for the purposes of humanities research are widespread in the scholarly community. However, the present thesis shows that gaining new insights into digital collections does not only require technological advancement, but also an epistemological shift in working with digital collections. This shift is expressed in the kind of questions that curators have started seeking to answer through visualisation. Digitisation requires and affords new ways of interrogating collections that depart from putting the collected artefact and its creator at the centre of human-istic enquiry. Instead, digital collections need to be seen as artefacts themselves. Recognising this leads curators to address self-reflective research questions that seek to study the history of an institution and the influence that individuals have had on the holdings of a collection; questions that so far escaped their areas of research.

This thesis reports on issues to consider when building a web site to serve as a marketing tool and as a channel for communication. Background regarding the Program in Interior Design is provided. The needs and characteristics of the target group are provided to substantiate the need for such a product. In order to build a web site of this nature, knowledge of the principles for design, development and production is imperative as well as a clear understanding of marketing and communication on the WNW. The different phases of the development process, these being analysis, design and development, are discussed. The evaluation process, where formative- and summative evaluation was applicable, is described. A single questionnaire completed by four sample groups was used to obtain relevant information regarding the prototype web site. The questionnaire was divided into four different sections being layout, navigation, content, and communication. The findings are presented and described in detail. Conclusions in terms of the findings are discussed. It was found that a web site of this nature can serve as an effective marketing tool and that it can provide functional communication facilities. Recommendations for the improvement of the product as well as general recommendations for similar development are made. / Dissertation (MA (Multimedia))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Information Science / unrestricted

This is a report of the use that farm operators make of twenty-seven different sources of agricultural information and the attitudes that they hold toward these sources. In addition, several concepts are described and delineated in order to precisely define the areas of concern of the study. Personal interviews were conducted with a stratified random sample of 147 farm operators in the County of Two Hills in the province of Alberta. A primary purpose was to determine any associations that might exist between seventeen selected socio-economic characteristics of the farm operator and his use of and attitude toward each source of agricultural information included in the study. The study also suggests that farmers may be grouped according to their information seeking activity. It presents a model for such groupings and identifies some of the socio-economic characteristics which may describe the persons in each group. Scaling techniques were used and correlation coefficients were calculated for all possible associations. The data were processed at the Computing Centre at the University of British Columbia. The study reports the associations existing between each socio-economic characteristic and the use of all sources of information as well as attitude toward each source of information. Each source of information was examined with respect to the use of the other sources of information. Attitudes were also examined on a similar basis. The final examination of data identifies 3 groups of respondents based on their information seeking activity. It also determines that certain socio-economic characteristics may be useful to identify these groups. / Land and Food Systems, Faculty of / Graduate

As of 2021, nearly 538 million adults and children live with diabetes mellitus worldwide, with projections for 2045 estimated at 645 million adults globally. In the United States, there are 34 million adults with diabetes and an additional 88 million with prediabetes. The economic costs are staggering, primarily due to management of acute or chronic complications. As a chronic condition requiring daily self-care, the psychosocial burden of diabetes is significant. Therefore, diabetes self-management education is recommended as a standard of care for all people with diabetes. The Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists (ADCES) has created a framework of education incorporating seven self-care behaviors, each with several knowledge, skill, and barrier resolution outcome measures. However, research has suggested that diabetes self-management and support services are not utilized sufficiently. YouTube™ with a reach of over 2 billion users is a potential medium to reach more people with diabetes. At the present time, there is a paucity of research describing the source and content of the most widely viewed videos on diabetes selfcare. This study aimed to help fill that gap. Specific aims of the study included: (a) describe characteristics of widely viewed YouTube™ videos on Diabetes Self-Care concerning length, date posted, source, speaker(s), format, and number of views; (b) describe the content of the most widely viewed YouTube™ videos on diabetes self-management education and support, categorized by the ADCES7 Self-Care™ behaviors; and (c) examine the source of videos in relation to number of views. The researcher used a YouTube™ Application Programming Interface to retrieve video URLs along with meta data such as source, duration, date posted, and view counts. Data were sorted by URL and view count, duplicates removed, and screened for inclusion and exclusion criteria. The top 100 videos by view count were used as the sample in the study. A codebook developed for this study categorized the upload source, speaker, format, and seven content categories. Descriptive analyses were conducted to understand the most viewed sources and the content categories likely and not likely to be mentioned. Collectively, these 100 videos were viewed 146,405,133 times, with an average duration of 12.2 minutes. Most of the videos (N = 77) were uploaded between 2017 and 2021. Results indicated that the two most popular sources for videos were Professionals and Corporations together uploading 72 videos and garnering 77% of cumulative views. In contrast, government agencies uploaded 1 video (<1% of cumulative views). Professionals was the most common protagonist (N = 42) when a speaker could be identified. Talk by professional received 34.09% of cumulative views, almost as much as Animation with voice (35.95%). The content areas most mentioned were Background on Diabetes, focusing on factors affecting blood sugar and ADCES7 Self-Care BehaviorsTM, especially Healthy Eating. Reversal of Diabetes was broached in 18 videos with 23.13% of cumulative views. Prevention Strategies for Communities was not mentioned at all, and Prevention Strategies for Individuals garnered less than 4% of cumulative views. YouTube™ is a popular source of online information for people with diabetes. As such, it presents an excellent avenue to raise awareness of prediabetes and dissemination of diabetes self-management education. Significant opportunity exists for government and advocacy agencies to increase their presence on YouTube™ in terms of viewership, while presenting meaningful and credible information. Recommendations for population and public health initiatives as well as future research and practice were presented to utilize the power of YouTube™ as a medium to expand the reach of diabetes self-management education and support.

This manual is written as a self-training guide on the elements of Information and Referral (I and R) service and on the process of providing I and R to the older population. The manual attempts to build a useful framework for methods of providing I and R service. The manual is directed at workers who are providing I and R services to the elderly. It is intended to serve as an orientation guide on the basic elements of I and R service and as a "how to" guide for methods and techniques of service provision. The new worker should find the manual helpful as a basic training tool and the experienced worker who may wish to use the material to assess or strengthen his/her current practices. Information and Referral services for the elderly were given high priority in the 1973 amendments to the Older Americans Act which established a goal of providing "reasonably convenient access" to I and R services for all older persons in this country. Numerous organizations are involved in providing this service, ranging from small senior centers to large public bureaucracies. With this assortment of organizations, there are differences in interpretations and methods of providing I and R service. land R is provided over the telephone, in office settings and through outreach efforts. This manual was written in an attempt to pull together basic information on the elements and dimensions of I and R service provision, that would be useful for all I and R workers securing services for the elderly. The manual is organized in three self-contained chapters which can be used separately for the specific topic areas or together as a comprehensive training guide. Each chapter is followed by exercises which enable the worker to practice specific techniques and to apply information obtained in the text to his/her work situation. Chapter I serves as an overview and should furnish the worker with a historical perspective and an understanding of the basic elements of I and R service. Chapter II focuses on the process of I and R service provision and the interaction between the worker and the consumer. Chapter III presents techniques and guidelines for providing I and R service. An appendix of suggested readings is also included. The manual is most profitably used when followed by discussion with a supervisor or co-worker.

Objective: To determine if the library resources being utilized most frequently by medical residents correlate to the cost of the resource and the clinical value of the resource. To determine the quality of medical library services provided to residents. Methods: A survey analysis was conducted of 217 medical residents from the 2005/06 East Tennessee State University Quillen College of Medicine class in surgery, family medicine, internal medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, psychiatry, pediatrics, and pathology with a return rate of 48.4%. Quantitative analysis was performed with the SPSS (v. 14.0 for Windows) software program. The results were expressed in percents in graphical or tabular form. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequencies, mean, median, and mode), and inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney U test and chi-square test.) Results: The most frequently used resources by residents were Google, PubMed, UptoDate, and free web resources. The resources that were rated with the highest clinical value and rated by at least 25% of the respondents were online journals, InfoRetriever, MDConsult, and the Cochrane databases. When clinical value, frequency of use, and cost were combined, the highest ranking resources were Google, free web resources, PubMed, and Up-ToDate. Conclusions: As suspected, medical residents heavily use the web for information. Although online journals are expensive, residents highly rate their clinical value. Medical librarians need to frequently measure the resource use patterns of their different patron groups to plan for training and to make wise purchase decisions.

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