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This paper aims to review changes related to library and information science (LIS) education over the past 20 years.

The literature reviewed for this paper is obtained by internet and database searches and personal communication and is conducted to look for similarities and differences in LIS program changes. A time period for the review is set from 1997 to 2017, and is completed between January and October of 2017. The majority of the searches are conducted in English.

Numerous similarities in changes were evidenced in areas of LIS education, such as curriculum, identification of new training and skills, instructional methods, follow-up on graduates, research on the current job market and post-graduate training support. Differences were identified in areas of capability of program change due to country regulation and course change flexibility.

A review of global program changes is relevant for LIS programs to realize and maintain their value in today’s workforce. It is significant for LIS programs all over the globe to realize that their shifts in curricular and program changes are similar to other LIS programs or where differences can be equally important.

This chapter analyzes major trends in rural public libraries, beginning with a discussion of changes in service offerings since the advent of the Internet. These outlets are now better able to help patrons with their employment, education, and civic engagement needs than they have been at any point in the past. However, rural public libraries still lag behind their peers in broadband speeds, technological infrastructure, and various forms of service and training offerings that use these technologies. The difference in public offerings is not only due to problems of technology, but also limited funding for staff, aging and small buildings, and a lack of state and regional support to allow these libraries to achieve economies of scale. As libraries nationwide shift to focus more on public programming and digital offerings, these factors will be barriers to rural outlets keeping up with modern trends in the field.

This study uses Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and Digital Inclusion Survey data to analyze trends among rural public libraries. The authors returned to the original data sets from these studies to find nuance between types of rural outlets, primarily dividing this information based on libraries’ distances from more densely populated areas. These statistical data are supplemented through qualitative interviews with professionals in the rural library field. Key findings include:

• Rural public libraries have made major strides in improving broadband quality and increasing related service offerings since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s.

• Rural libraries still lag behind those in more populated areas in terms of technical infrastructure and training offerings, and this becomes more acute among those located farther from population centers.

• As the public library field places a greater emphasis on public programs, rural libraries’ small and aging buildings will likely be a barrier to them keeping up with their peers.

• The lack of regional consortia and strong state libraries in some parts of the country limits rural libraries’ abilities to achieve economies of scale and negatively impacts the range of services they can offer their patrons.

Rural public libraries have made major strides in improving broadband quality and increasing related service offerings since the advent of the Internet in the mid-1990s.

Rural libraries still lag behind those in more populated areas in terms of technical infrastructure and training offerings, and this becomes more acute among those located farther from population centers.

As the public library field places a greater emphasis on public programs, rural libraries’ small and aging buildings will likely be a barrier to them keeping up with their peers.

The lack of regional consortia and strong state libraries in some parts of the country limits rural libraries’ abilities to achieve economies of scale and negatively impacts the range of services they can offer their patrons.

Rural libraries have often been combined together in statistical analyses of their service offerings. This chapter shows nuance between these outlets, demonstrating that libraries that are distant and remote from population centers face more difficulties than those on the fringes of cities and suburbs. Likewise, while much of the advocacy surrounding rural libraries has focused on the need for improved broadband and technological infrastructure, this study moves on to study how building infrastructure, low staff funding, and a lack of mechanisms for collaboration will hinder libraries’ abilities to keep up with modern changes in the field.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with information literacy including instruction in the use of information resources, research, and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the eighteenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1991. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

The following is an annotated list of materials dealing with orientation to library facilities and services, instruction in the use of information resources, and research and computer skills related to retrieving, using, and evaluating information. This review, the sixteenth to be published in Reference Services Review, includes items in English published in 1989. A few are not annotated because the compiler could not obtain copies of them for this review.

There is an on-going debate as to whether health is negatively affected by economic inequality. Still, we have limited knowledge of the mechanisms relating inequality to individual health and very little evidence comes from less-developed economies. We use individual and multi-level data from Zambia on child nutritional health to test three hypotheses consistent with a negative correlation between income inequality and population health: the absolute income hypothesis (AIH), the relative income hypothesis (RIH) and the income inequality hypothesis (IIH). The results confirm that absolute income positively affects health. For the RIH we find sensitivity to the reference group used. Most interestingly, we find higher income inequality to robustly associate with better child health. The same pattern appears in a cross country regression. To explain the conflicting results in the literature we suggest examining potential mediators such as generosity, food sharing, trust and purchasing power.

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the history and development of transaction log analysis (TLA) in library and information science research. Organizing a literature review of the first twenty‐five years of TLA poses some challenges and requires some decisions. The primary organizing principle could be a strict chronology of the published research, the research questions addressed, the automated information retrieval (IR) systems that generated the data, the results gained, or even the researchers themselves. The group of active transaction log analyzers remains fairly small in number, and researchers who use transaction logs tend to use this method more than once, so tracing the development and refinement of individuals' uses of the methodology could provide insight into the progress of the method as a whole. For example, if we examine how researchers like W. David Penniman, John Tolle, Christine Borgman, Ray Larson, and Micheline Hancock‐Beaulieu have modified their own understandings and applications of the method over time, we may get an accurate sense of the development of all applications.

Due to the young age of proptech, little is known about the dynamics of its expansion. In particular, there is limited agreement about a definition of “proptech,” while different categorizations are popping up. A severe lack of information emerges for the proptech scenario in Italy. The goal of this paper is to systematize multiple proptech maps in the attempt to create a framework for comparison of country-specific trends and an overarching definition of proptech. The research examines the evolutionary stage of the Italian digital real estate sector and compares it to the international context.

An in-depth analysis of 12 proptech maps at both national and international level was conducted based on online research. A list of Italian proptech companies was composed through multiple methods. A map was built for a cross-country comparison.

Each country or organization tends to develop its own categorization. This creates a multifaceted context where comparison and analysis are challenging. The Italian proptech sector seems underdeveloped compared to neighboring countries. Big room for improving the proptech business in this country still exists.

The results are valuable for proptech start-ups, business investors and well-established real estate actors to build on new entrepreneurial initiatives. The opportunity to advance proptech mapping and categorization emerges as a prospect for future research.

This research adds an overview of cross-country proptech categories and proposes the first analysis of Italian proptech. This will contribute to support entrepreneurial opportunities.

This research was motivated by the strong desire of the researchers to make an impact on the protection and conservation of the environment and to make recommendations to enhance sustainable ecotourism development in the Karpaz peninsula, North Cyprus. The aim of the research was first to assess the current challenges faced by those involved in ecotourism and sustainable practices and secondly to develop solutions for these challenges.

Qualitative applied research was used with the objective of combining the concerns of local entrepreneurs with the knowledge of the members of the ecotourism associations and organisations to raise public awareness, empower locals, bring social change and improve the lives of the local community. Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with ecotourism entrepreneurs, members of the Ecotourism Association, the Ecotourism Movement and the Karpaz Ecotourism Cooperative.

The results showed that the main challenges faced were a lack of finance, a lack of support from the local and national governments and a lack of knowledge regarding ecotourism and sustainable development amongst members of the local community. The solutions are educating the local community about agri-ecotourism, putting pressure on local and national governments to support agri-ecotourism, getting other tourism associations such as tour operators on their side and setting up farming cooperatives for farmers.

The value and originality of this study lie in the use of applied research approach with its social agenda of finding solutions which can be developed from the new knowledge which arises from the study.

Anecdotal accounts of suicide among temporary low-wage migrant workers in the UAE are numerous, but unofficial and qualitative accounts remain unexplored. This study aims to examine how the socio-environmental context can lead some low-wage migrants, irrespective of their nationality or culture, to contemplate suicide for the first time after arriving in the host country.

The findings draw from ten months of qualitative fieldwork (2015–2016) and in-depth interviews conducted with 44 temporary migrant workers from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, earning in the lowest wage bracket in Dubai. The study used a non-probabilistic, purposive sampling approach to select participants. Three criteria drove eligibility: participants had to reside in the UAE, be non-national and earn Dh1500 (US$408) or less a month. Otherwise, diversity was sought in regard to nationality, occupation and employer.

Eight (18%) of the 44 study participants interviewed admitted to engaging in suicidal thoughts for the first time after arriving in the UAE. The findings suggest that for low-wage migrants working in certain socio-environmental contexts, the religious, gendered or other cultural or group characteristics or patterns that may be predictors of suicide in migrants’ country of origin may become secondary or possibly even irrelevant when one is forced to survive under conditions that by most objective standards would be deemed not only oppressive but extremely exploitative and abusive.

This study contributes to understandings of how the emotional and psychological well-being of temporary foreign low-wage migrant workers can be impacted by the socio-environmental context of the host country. It is a first step in understanding the intimate thoughts of low-wage migrant workers on the topic of suicidality, furthering our understanding of suicidal ideation and the factors that can contribute to it.