Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to assess initial user perceptions and use of Amazon's Kindle e-book reader. Design/methodology/approach -Thirty-six participants were provided with a Kindle e-book reader and $100 to spend at Amazon. After one month of use focus groups were conducted to elicit user feedback about their experiences and overall first impressions. Findings -Analysis of the discussions indicates overall interest in the Kindle as a basic reading device for fiction. However, its use in an academic setting is limited due to content availability and licensing issues, graphic display capabilities, organizational issues, and its prohibitive cost. Originality/value -This is the first research paper of its kind to report on qualitative research conducted on user perceptions of the Kindle e-book reader.
Tenure status for library faculty in the academic environment is coming under increasing attack from administration, faculty members in other departments, and non-academics. This is due to incorrect perceptions about what academic librarians do and how they serve their profession. This paper describes the many challenges faculty librarians face in balancing their work load with service and scholarship; justifies why academic librarians need tenure; and ultimately proves that tenure and faculty status for academic librarians are an absolute necessity.
The widespread theft of collection materials, including rare and unique items, continues to be an issue of great concern to libraries of all types. The potential loss of such items threatens not only an institution's operations but, in many cases, global cultural heritage. Despite an increasingly open attitude among institutions regarding sharing information about lost items and suspected perpetrators, little scholarship has examined such thefts quantitatively in an effort to draw conclusions about how such incidents occur and how best to prevent them. This paper describes a project that examines data from over twenty years of reported library theft cases in libraries and special collections to determine how frequently such losses are perpetrated by library insiders.ver the past three decades, and the last several years in particular, research libraries and their allied special collections have seen a notable shift in attitudes and practices regarding thefts from their collections. Not only have institutions begun to acknowledge the threat of theft more actively, but greater resources have been dedicated to establishing and maintaining security procedures. The stigma associated with publicly acknowledging theft has also decreased; rather than reacting in embarrassment or with fear about the potential disapproval of donors or administrators, many institutions now respond to the unfortunate reality of theft with openness and transparency. This climate of disclosure frequently extends to the active pursuit of thieves, including the willingness among libraries to press charges or to publicize the loss in an effort to recover the stolen artifact.
Contemporary fan fiction is overwhelmingly digital in both publication and dissemination; it has never been easier to access this subculture of writers and writing. However, fan fiction in print has likewise never been so accessible, as a slew of recent popular novels proudly proclaim their fannish origins and make claims such as "More Than 2 Million Reads Online—FIRST TIME IN PRINT!" Further, traditional fannish mores insist that fan work should never be done for profit, and yet numerous print works adapted from fan fiction have become best sellers. I would like to problematize how we consider form and content in both creation and reception, how the popular value of work waxes and wanes in relation to its fan fiction status. In other words, how can we read fan fiction as part of a continuum of historical publication practices by women, and problematize our hierarchies of value between print and digital?
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