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Community libraries now constitute a significant proportion of library provision in the UK; however, there is relatively little research on how the transfer to this model has affected those libraries and the wider balance of provision. The purpose of this paper is to broaden the discourse and understanding about the impact of changing libraries to community models.

The paper provides a qualitative evaluation of all the libraries transferred to community-managed models within a large city council region in the UK. Structured research visits were made to appraise each library. These are discussed in the context of published literature and data, both specific to the study area and nationally.

Transferring the management of libraries to community organisations is often reactive and perceived with negative associations. This study uncovers increases in use and diversification of services following transfer; however, support from the local authority and the previous experience of managing organisations are significant factors. The paper also reveals how the successful transfer of a library to a community organisation led to more being moved out of local authority control, but that the support they receive from the local authority can be inconsistent between them.

The paper provides a study of community-managed libraries across a large city council area, affording an in-depth understanding of their impact on overall provision over one region. It will be of value to those involved in library management and service provision at both local and strategic levels, including local authorities and community groups considering library transfer.

In this chapter I argue that intimate massacre and home-grown jihadi terrorism can be explained similarly through the concept of the Doomed Antihero. In both forms of public mass killing the perpetrator has subjectively experienced a long period of humiliation; he has slowly converted humiliation into rage; he has adopted an antiheroic style from a culturally available catalog to channel his rage; he has identified a symbol of his humiliation for attack; he has become determined to permanently destroy the symbol by killing people inhabiting it; and he sees “his” attack as a final act that will erase his past and reify his future.

This paper aims to contribute to discussion about the changing role of libraries and their collections, through discussing projects designed by architecture students.

The paper reflects on design projects produced by final-year students studying for an undergraduate degree in architecture. A project was set for a group of students to design a “Book Repository”. Each researched their own interpretation of what this might be, given contemporary issues such as increasing digitisation, falling numbers of library visitors, changing users’ needs and what they interpret as a future for books. This paper reviews a selection of the projects in the context of contemporary research, and discusses the book as a physical object, contemporary library design and the role of libraries as civic buildings.

Despite being designed by digitally literate students, physical books are highly significant in every project; however, the cultural significance of the books is more important than the objects themselves. Also, the provision of spaces for the act of reading is notably absent. The relationship between the library and its context was a key theme for several projects, which explore innovative means through which to engage the public.

Collectively these projects contribute to debate over the role of books and libraries in contemporary culture through the eyes of young designers. The paper will be of interest to those involved in the procurement and design of libraries.

Celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms (such as Twitter or Weibo) has become a widely adopted marketing practice. Compared to its counterpart on traditional mass media, celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms has some unique characteristics. For example, the endorsement information is usually more implicit and the endorsers tend to use different tactics so as to maximize the impact on their followers. However, these new practices have not been thoroughly investigated and the underlying mechanism by which the endorsers influence potential information receivers is not well understood. Anchored on the theory of parasocial interaction borrowed from the mass communication literature, this paper aims to reveal the underlying mechanism of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms. More specifically, it examines the relationship between the intensity of microbloggers’ various celebrity-following activities and endorsement effectiveness.

The authors designed and conducted a Web-based survey containing scales for all focal constructs and demographic and control variables. Through online and offline campus advertisement, undergraduate and graduates students who have used microblogging for at least three months were recruited.

First of all, the survey results show that the intensity of users’ celebrity-following activities on microblogging platforms has a positive effect on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement. Second, the positive effect of the intensity of microbloggers’ celebrity-following activities on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement is mediated by the perceived parasocial interaction with the endorsers.

Firstly, most respondents of the survey are university students. Second, because of the intrinsic disadvantage of the survey method, the causal relationship between constructs cannot be examined directly. Last, parasocial interaction/relationship is a complex theoretical construct whose influence is unveiled partially in this research.

First, this study found that the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement on microblogging platforms are largely affected by celebrity-followers’ online involvement. Second, this study revealed that celebrity-following activities that help enhance followers’ perceptions of parasocial interactions are particularly beneficial for endorsement effectiveness. Last, the exploratory analysis further revealed that followers’ perceptions of ingenuousness and companionship are two key sub-dimensions of parasocial interaction.

First, the authors verified the positive relationship between information receiver’s involvement and the effectiveness of celebrity endorsement in the context of microblogging platforms. Second, this study found that parasocial interaction fully mediates the relationship between celebrity-following intensity and endorsement effectiveness. Last, through an exploratory factor analysis, the authors further decomposed the construct of parasocial interaction into three sub-dimensions, namely, ingenuousness, empathy and companionship.

This study aims to ask how HIV/AIDS is arranged as a public threat in and through Canadian law, particularly in relation to transmission, and how strategies of capture extend the affective force of criminalization leading to poor health outcomes for persons living with HIV/AIDS.

This is a conceptual paper with a focus on applying affect theorist Jasbir Puar’s work on assemblage and debility. The authors use Puar’s work to frame the conditions that persons with HIV/AIDS experience in the Canadian criminal justice context as debilitating.

The authors found that while HIV transmission is not itself a criminal act in the Canadian criminal justice context, activities where transmission is prevalent or possible have been criminalized, particularly in relation to nondisclosure of health status, sex work and substance use. Further, the authors found that when the activities associated with HIV transmission are criminalized, strategies of capture extend the affective force of criminalization first in the inadequate provision of health-care and pharma-care services, second in state resistance to implement harm reduction measure and third in punitive population management strategies.

Persons living with HIV/AIDS have historically experienced stigmatization, especially intersecting with neoliberal, white supremacist and heteropatriarchal axes of power. This paper uses assemblage theory to shore up how these relations operate in ways that close off possibilities, by constituting the HIV/AIDS assemblage as a criminal – rather than a health phenomenon. This paper, thus, holds Canada to account for debilitating a historically disadvantaged and multiplying marginalized population.