This study explores the application of digitisation in the context of public library local studies services. Since there has been limited previous research on digitisation and local studies ...collections, this research makes an important contribution in profiling the current situation, and highlighting the extent to which progress is limited in the digitisation of valuable local studies collections. A two-phased approach was adopted, including a website analysis, and semi-structured interviews with 12 local studies librarians and three other key informants. Findings indicate that the local studies services have established a limited online presence, and have used digitisation to some extent to promote and improve accessibility to their collections. All interviewees appreciated the potential of digitisation, but digitisation has not been adopted as a major strategy for preservation, due to lack of funding, and concerns about the longevity of digital records.
This trailblazing study examines the history of narcotics in Japan to explain the development of global criteria for political legitimacy in nations and empires in the nineteenth and twentieth ...centuries. Japan underwent three distinct crises of sovereignty in its modern history: in the 1890s, during the interwar period, and in the 1950s. Each crisis provoked successively escalating crusades against opium and other drugs, in which moral entrepreneurs--bureaucrats, cultural producers, merchants, law enforcement, scientists, and doctors, among others--focused on drug use as a means of distinguishing between populations fit and unfit for self-rule. Moral Nation traces the instrumental role of ideologies about narcotics in the country's efforts to reestablish its legitimacy as a nation and empire. As Kingsberg demonstrates, Japan's growing status as an Asian power and a "moral nation" expanded the notion of "civilization" from an exclusively Western value to a universal one. Scholars and students of Japanese history, Asian studies, world history, and global studies will gain an in-depth understanding of how Japan's experience with narcotics influenced global standards for sovereignty and shifted the aim of nation building, making it no longer a strictly political activity but also a moral obligation to society.
This paper is an exploratory study of the specialized information centers, referred to as local studies centers, in three regions of the Philippines, namely, Central Luzon, CALABARZON and MIMAROPA. ...It aims to identify and describe the nature, practices and status of these centers and to explore their innovative and transformative role in the fields of history, culture and heritage studies in the Philippines. It examines the impact of their programs, projects, services, and activities on the study, development and promotion of these three fields. Some of the outstanding features of local studies centers in the Philippines that were identified include: 1) they collect materials pertaining to ethnic groups, and make the materials available and accessible to potential users, mostly in one center; 2) their holdings include library materials, archives and museum artefacts; 3) they conduct research and publish books, relating to history, culture and heritage of the localities they serve and the Philippines. This paper may provide insights for the management (or future establishment) of local studies centers not just in the Philippines, but also in other countries. This paper received the IFLA LIS Student Paper Award 2012.
Anglo-Jewry since 1066: Place, locality and memory is a study of the history and memory of Anglo-Jewry from medieval times to the present and is the first to explore the construction of identities, ...both Jewish and non-Jewish, in relation to the concept of place. The introductory chapters provide a theoretical overview focusing on the nature of local studies then moves into a chronological frame, starting with medieval Winchester, moving to early modern Portsmouth and then chapters covering the evolution of Anglo-Jewry from emancipation to the twentieth century. Emphasis is placed on the impact on identities resulting from the complex relationship between migration (including transmigration) and settlement of minority groups. Drawing upon a wide range of approaches, including history, cultural and literary studies, geography, Jewish and ethnic and racial studies, Kushner uses extensive sources including novels, poems, art, travel literature, autobiographical writing, official documentation, newspapers and census data. This book will appeal to scholars interested in Jewish studies and British history
The 'Floodgate Street area' was a notorious slum district in the city of Birmingham in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article presents a case study, drawing on the rich ...archival sources available for this area, to examine the language that local authority and voluntary workers used to describe the local area, and their engagement with local children in terms of welfare provision and punitive measures. The work of teachers at Floodgate Street School is located within a local discourse of urban poverty, and within local attempts to improve conditions for the inhabitants of slum areas. Local activities and discussions are contextualised within broader debates concerning slums and patterns of welfare. This article places schools at the centre of a historiography of urban poverty and welfare from which education is largely absent. It explores the possibilities, and limitations, of using the local archival record for this sort of analysis.
Excavating geography's hidden spaces Lorimer, Hayden; Spedding, Nick
Area (London 1969),
September 2002, Letnik:
34, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This paper considers alternative ways to approach teaching and researching the history and philosophy of geography. While exploring the geography department as a previously marginalized space in ...accounts of disciplinary change, three different types of source are identified: first, less formal kinds of documentation; second, material sites; and third, a bodily archive of action, gesture and movement. In combination, these are shown to open up new possibilities for localized, grass-roots versions of geography's pasts and presents.
The massive expansion of electronic resources has been identified as one of the major drivers behind the ‘explosion’ in the popularity of family history, which bring ease, convenience and ...accessibility to some parts of the research process. Amongst this expanse of easily-accessible raw materials, online local studies materials (recording both historical and contemporary aspects of a community) can add real context and value to researchers’ findings and experience; turning a genealogy into a family history. However, the vast majority of these do not appear visible to online family history researchers. Through three central foci (users, e-family history resources, and Local Studies Collections), this research investigates these resources and collections from the perspective of users, to establish how to make the added value of the local studies collections more visible and encourage increased engagement for those who cannot visit collections in person. Specific evaluative criteria for e-family history resources are presented, contributing to practitioners’ awareness and understanding of their nature; in turn helping maintain their service quality to researchers. Using a hybrid (primarily ethnographic) research approach, the study also examines the online research behaviour of family historians, identifying a taxonomy of actions (seeking of genealogical facts, local or social history; communicating with other researchers or resources; locating resources or instructive information; managing own information), strategies (search modifications and incorporation of background knowledge) and outcomes (outcome; direction (projected and actual)). From these categories, a model of Family Historians’ online information seeking has been developed. Researchers have both informational and affective needs, and are highly emotionally attached to the research process. Users universally used Ancestry, FamilySearch, ScotlandsPeople, and Genes Reunited far more than other sites, seeking out quality informational content and unique records, which must be successful for researchers. Google was a major method of access to these. Very few participants were preaware of ‘e-local studies’ websites, and were surprised by the variations in quality, inconsistencies in terminology and navigation, and invisibility of quality content. Despite a lack of ease of use, the content present on e-local studies sites and their usefulness and value had been demonstrated to researchers. This suggests significant demand for local information of this kind online where it is available and made known.
Diatom studies of French running waters over more than twenty-five years revealed the recent appearance of a number of species which could not have been overlooked before because of their abundance ...or size. Their absence in modern European floras supports the idea of a recent introduction of these taxa in Europe. Their distribution and progression in France are examined according to available data. Taxa not yet found in France until 1990 but showing an important proliferation and rapid dispersal since that time are considered as invasives. This is the case, for example, for Gomphoneis minuta, a diatom originally described in North America, reported in Europe for the first time in the River Ardèche in 1991 and presently occurring throughout southern France up to the Loire. Among the so-called exotic taxa, Navicula jakovljevicii, Achnanthes catenata, A. subhudsonis sensu lato and Nitzschia cf. tropica have probably been misidentified in the past. Their distribution must be reexamined from existing slides collections. A new species, Eolimna comperei, is described by light and electron microscopy; its recent discovery in France appears to be related to the introductions in Europe of a number of diatoms from other continents. The most remarkable taxa are of tropical origin and proliferate in summer. The abundance of Hydrosera triquetra in French estuaries and of Diadesmis confervacea in power plant discharges and various rivers in southwestern France, illustrates their recent acclimatization under temperate conditions. The study of the spatio-temporal extension of these as well as of less abundant forms of recent appearance, e.g. Capartogramma crucicula, Encyonema triangulum, Gomphoneis eriensis var. variabilis, Luticola mitigata, Luticola peguana, Nitzschia elegantula, Nitzschia dissipatoides or Gomphosphenia oahuensis, might provide indications of the warming of running waters in Western Europe due to the "greenhouse effect." /// Les investigations menées sur le réseau hydrographique français depuis plus d'un quart de siècle ont permis de recenser dans les eaux courantes un certain nombre d'espèces de diatomées qui n'auraient pas pu passer inaperçues auparavant en raison de leur abondance ou de leur taille. Leur absence même des flores européennes modernes semble conforter l'idée d'une apparition récente. La localisation d'une quinzaine d'espèces est décrite ainsi que leur progression chaque fois que des données sont disponibles. Ont été considérées comme "invasives", les espèces non encore signalées en France avant 1990 et qui ont donné lieu à de véritables proliférations et dont l'extension est rapide dans les cours d'eau. C'est le cas en particulier de Gomphoneis minuta décrit en Amérique du Nord, observé pour la première fois en Europe dans l'Ardèche en 1991, et qui colonise aujourd'hui toute la France méridionale jusqu'à la Loire. Parmi les formes exotiques, Navicula jakovjlevicii, Achnanthes catenata, Achnanthes subhudsonis sensu lato ou Nitzschia cf. tropica ont probablement fait l'objet de confusions systématiques par le passé et la confirmation de leur apparition récente nécessite une consultation des collections existantes. Une nouvelle espèce de Naviculacées, Eolimna comperei, est décrite en microscopie photonique et électronique. La découverte récente en France de ce taxon est probablement aussi due aux introductions en Europe de diatomées originaires d'autres continents. Le cortège le plus remarquable est constitué par des formes connues comme tropicales qui prolifèrent en France en période estivale. L'abandance dans les estuaires français d'Hydrosera triquetra ou celle de Diadesmis confervacea dans les rejets d'eau chaude de certaines centrales thermiques et dans diverses rivières du sud-ouest témoigne d'une acclimatation récente de ces taxons sous nos climats tempérés. L'étude de leur progression en France, comme celle de formes moins représentées telles que Capartogramma crucicula, Encyonema triangulum, Gomphoneis eriensis var. variabilis, Luticola mitigata, Luticola peguana, Nitzschia elegantula, Nitzschia dissipatoides ou Gomphosphenia oahuensis d'apparition récente, pourrait bien apporter dans un futur proche, des éléments utiles aux scientifiques préoccupées par "l'effet de serre" ou le réechauffement de notre planète.
Regular observations on the phytoplankton community have been made during two years along the Bia river, modified by the hydro-electric dam of Ayamé, and another river without a dam (Ivory-Coast). ...280 and 148 phytoplankton taxa have been observed in the Bia and Agnébi river respectively. For each taxon, a short description, an illustration and the observed distribution are given. The composition of the populations is compared and discussed. /// Des observations régulières sur le plancton végétal ont été effectuées durant deux années dans le cours de la rivière Bia modifiée par le barrage hydroélectrique d'Ayamé et dans une autre rivière sans barrage, l'Agnébi (Côte d'Ivoire). 280 et 148 taxons phytoplanctoniques ont été recensés respectivement dans les rivières Bia et Agnébi. Sont donnés pour chaque taxon: une description sommaire, une illustration et la distribution observée. La composition des populations est comparée et discutée.
