This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study of position vacant announcements appropriate for library and information studies (LIS) graduates appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald over a four week period in each of the following years: 2004, 1994, 1984 and 1974. The period studied witnessed change-demanding developments in information technologies as well as changes in workplace conditions and client expectations. The study collected data on the demands of employers as expressed through job advertisements that included data on work status (full-time, part-time, contract, casual), qualifications and the experience required of the information professional at the selected timeslots. To investigate similarities and differences between periods a content analysis and co-word analysis of the job advertisements was undertaken. The ads indicated a movement from simple advertisements in 1974 inviting applications for reference or technical services librarians, to complex and specialised positions being advertised in 2004 where the most called for attributes were interpersonal skills and behavioural characteristics.

The Division of Information Studies offered a module on music libraries for the first time in 2005. This paper explains the rationale for offering the module, and describes the experience in offering the module. The paper is divided into three parts. The first part describes the topics covered in the module. The second part discusses the challenges faced and how they were overcome. Lastly, some anecdotal feedback and suggestions from the students will be presented.

A strategic approach to succession planning, a commitment to the profession of librarianship and a genuine desire to provide authentic learning opportunities for students committed to postgraduate studies in librarianship, resulted in an innovative professional cadetship program being established at the University of Wollongong Library. The program development, overview and preliminary evaluations will be shared in this paper.

This presentation (of 26 slides) at the Research SIG session "Intriguing Interdisciplinary Initiatives" was presented on Thursday, January 13, 2005 at the 2005 ALISE Conference, Boston, MA. It presents an NSF-funded initiative in which five different academic units at Rutgers University collaborated to do interdisciplinary research with regard to undergrad studentsâ career choices.

This report outlines few selected presentations of the ALIEP 2006 conference based on the theme "Preparing Information Professionals for Leadership in the new age" held at the Executive centre, School of Information and communication, NTU, Singapore, during 3-6, April 2006. The four-day event provided both professional librarians and educators a unique opportunity to explore the collaborative agenda emerged due to pervasive convergence technologies in todayâ s knowledge society. The author, who was also a speaker provides an overview of the ALIEP- 2006 Asia Pacific discussion forum, which carried out a variety of program viz. industry updates, keynote sessions, Paper presentations, invited guests and local tours to national library, university libraries and national Archives of Singapore.

This is a juried paper presentation (of 16 slides) in Session 3.4 â LIS Faculty and the Future (Juried Papers) on Wednesday January 12, at the 2005 ALISE Conference. Management and leadership in library operations is important and future LIS graduates must be educated in these areas. Leadership development as a process in ALA has been explored, as has the relationship between management and leadership. Literature in this area is reviewed, current curricula pertaining to this training is evaluated, and suggestions for future development are made.

Seamless information and their accessibility in different formats have created a turbulent atmosphere in the ever-changing library and information domain. A multitude of resources, such as information, human, financial and many more, and the need for their management, makes it imperative for advanced training in ‘Management’ as a discipline on a larger scale in LIS programs. In view of the changing paradigms of library and information organizations in the recent past, an attempt is made to frame appropriate course contents with management facets to be included in the 2 years integrated Master’s level programs in India.

The problem being studied in this research is the relationship between a specific series of integrated science courses in a science teacher preparation program and the actual needs of the science teacher during the first years of teaching practice. Teachers often report that there is a disconnect between the coursework they have taken in college as pre-service teachers and the reality of their classroom practice during their first years of teaching. The intent of this study was to record the descriptions of three teachers who were members of a cohort and took a series of integrated science courses (NSCI series) during their teacher preparation program as it related to the influence of these courses on their teaching practice. The focus of inquiry is guided by a single question: How do former participants in the series of science courses who are currently novice teachers describe their confidence in their ability to teach science content to their middle school students? The theoretical framework was based on Shulman’s (1987) pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). PCK involves the teacher understanding the content of science so thoroughly that ways are identified of representing and formulating the subject matter to make it understandable to others. The teacher who has a strong PCK uses powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations and demonstrations that promote personally meaningful student understandings. Novice teachers’ reflections on their confidence to teach science content to their middle school students were observed through the lens of PCK. All three novice teachers reported a high confidence level to teach middle school science and attributed their confidence level to a great degree to the integrated science series of courses (NSCI). METHOD A qualitative design, specifically a case study, was used for this study. Multiple forms of data collection were employed including a semi structured interview and a focus group. Data was collected, categorized and analyzed over a six week period. A constant comparative method (Bogdan & Biklen, 1998) was used to examine the data. Triangulation, member checking and a peer reviewer were used to reduce the risk of bias and increase the trustworthiness of the data.

<p> There are an insufficient number of university students, specifically women, graduating with an education in agronomy to fill work force demands. This need, driven partially by population growth, is increasing due to growing rates of industrialization and consequential environmental issues. Agronomy pays special attention to the supply and demand of resources from the environment. Though there is an apparent regression in students choosing an education in agronomy, there is a need for their skill set. This study hypothesized that urban and rural women have different perceptions that influence them towards agronomy careers. To quantify these perceptions, a survey was issued to women at the 2014 American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America Joint Annual Meetings in Long Beach, CA, USA. Rural and urban women had significantly different (p &lt; 0.05) perceptions about their birthplace environment's influence on career choice, proving the hypothesis. Rural women were more influenced by this setting than their urban counterparts, which could prove to be a major issue if urban encroachment progresses. This study defines the rural urban birthplace population break at 25,000 for women in agronomy careers. This population break knowledge should be helpful for revisions of marketing, recruitment, and retainment programs. Other trends presented are helpful because together they disclose potential future investigations into agronomy women's perceptions, their decision-making processes, and what influences their career choice.</p>

<p> <b>Purpose:</b> The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of notecards, a study aid, on students&rsquo; learning in three sections of a non-majors undergraduate Human Biology course. Moreover, the effectiveness of illustrations as study aids was compared with the effectiveness of descriptions as study aids. Presently, there is not much research on this particular topic, but notecards are a quite common method of studying. </p><p> <b>Hypothesis:</b> It was expected that the use of notecards would be more beneficial to student learning than no use at all. Furthermore, it was expected that drawing illustrations would be more effective than writing definitions or descriptions. </p><p> <b>Method:</b> Three Human Biology courses taught by the same instructor took part in the study. One class acted as the control in which they did not complete notecards, while the other two courses completed three notecards per unit. Of the two classes, one class completed notecards by drawing illustrations while the other course completed notecards in which students were to write definitions or descriptions. Pre-tests and post-tests were given at the beginning of the semester and the end of the semester, respectively, to identify students&rsquo; overall knowledge retention and learning during the semester. </p><p> <b>Results:</b> The Paired t-test and Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test showed that there was a statistically significant difference of change scores between the pre-tests and post-tests within each group meaning all sections of the course learned. The Shapiro-Wilk&rsquo;s test showed that data was normally distributed to continue the One-Way ANOVA tests. The results of the One-Way ANOVA showed that there was a statistically significant difference between all groups, and the Tukey post-hoc test pinpointed the statistical significance of the One-Way ANOVA between the illustration group and the control group. There was neither a statistically significant difference between the illustration group and the description group nor between the description group and the control group. The Effect Size was small-to-medium, &omega; = 0.044. The Kruskal-Wallis H test performed on the weekly assignment scores showed there was a statistically significant difference between groups. Dunn&rsquo;s (1964) procedure with a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons showed that, generally, there was a statistically significant difference from the control group to the illustration group as well as from the control group to the description group, meaning students in the illustration group and the description group performed better on weekly assignments than the control group. The illustration group performed as well as the description group on weekly assignments. The weekly assignment and exam analysis compared average exam percentages and final exam percentages of each group to average assignment percentages to assess whether there were any certain notecard assignments, descriptive or illustrative, that led to different exam percentages between groups. Exam scores between all groups were similar and there was no specific trend between certain assignments and respective exam scores. Largely, in all groups, there was a positive correlation amongst exam scores and their respective assignments as well as a general positive correlation amongst the assignments and the final exam according to the results of Spearman&rsquo;s Correlation test. The Kruskal-Wallis H test performed on all five exam scores of each group showed there was not a statistically significant difference between exam scores of each group. By assessing the change in number of correct answers per question between pre-tests and post-tests, it was determined that learning in some specific content areas may have been improved by utilizing notecards (descriptive in some cases and illustrative in other cases) as a study aid whereas learning in other content areas were nearly equivalent across all groups. Student reflection on course evaluations showed a mixed reaction to the notecard assignments with some students regarding them as their least favorite part of the course and still others commenting on how helpful they were to their study. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> All groups learned throughout the semester, and learning gains for the illustration group and the description group doubled compared to the control group. Short-term learning based on weekly assignments was increased for both the illustration and description groups, but exam scores were not really affected by the different learning interventions. Exam scores were similar among the three groups, so notecards were neither superior nor inferior to the standard curriculum when it came to academic performance. The student divide concerning using notecards illuminated the idea that all students have different learning styles, and in the case of the present study, some students in one group may have preferred to complete the type of assignment of another group. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) </p>