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This paper investigates and illustrates the potential of using panorama virtual reality to enhance Web‐based library instruction. It describes a project in Sterling C. Evans Library at Texas A&M University that emulates a physical tour and renders it into an attention‐getting virtual tour with 360‐degree realistic views. The paper outlines three progressive developments in the use of tour as an instructional medium: the “physical tour”, the “Web virtual tour”, and the “virtual reality tour”. The project illustrates that panorama VR could be a powerful tool to combine the “physical tour” and the “Web‐based virtual tour” into one, making it a more useful medium that allows navigating, viewing, reading, hearing and remote access. The issues of design, hardware, software, and cost are addressed. The discussion also includes an overview of the Internet‐based VR technologies, a literature review of using VR technologies for learning and some considerations on future applications of panorama‐based virtual reality.

Evans Library at Texas A&M University has developed and released a Virtual Library Tour available via the World Wide Web (WWW). The URL for the tour is 〈http://www.tamu.edu/library/reference/ virtual/tour00.htmlhttp://www.tamu.edu/library/reference/ virtual/tour00.html〉. The tour, designed as a remotely accessible alternative to the basic library orientation tour, provides information on library departments, services, materials, and policies. Development and implementation of this new orientation tool involved technological issues and library instructional techniques. Approximately 165 hours of professional time were required to create and release the tour. To achieve an optimum combination of effective instruction and technical expertise, the development team for the Texas A&M University Evans Library's Virtual Library Tour consisted of the coordinator of instructional services, Pixey Anne Mosley, and the automated information retrieval services (AIRS) librarian, Daniel Xiao. This article discusses the process used and lessons learned through the creation of the Virtual Library Tour.

This paper aims to describe three utility tools developed at Texas A&M University Libraries, which were designed for quick access and search of the Voyager OPAC and the Voyager clients.

The Voyager Canned Search Generator provides content creators with an automatic way to generate persistent links to catalog searches. Quick‐Cat is an OPAC shortcut search tool. It allows users to highlight bibliographic data, including authors, titles, ISBN numbers, or ISSN numbers on any web site and immediately search their own library catalog, with just one click. Designed to assist in the EBSCONET serials renewal, an Excel VBA Macro provides an easy gateway from the renewal list to the Voyager Acquisitions and Cataloging clients, the EBSCONET web site, and the library's SFX system.

The three tools fulfilled their design goals. Users were satisfied with them and they improved productivity. With innovative ideas, some technical know‐how, and a good understanding of the issues librarians can turn themselves into developers of useful tools. They could come up with small, yet effective solutions by leveraging the existing system infrastructure, and combining or mixing available components. The paper discusses development issues, benefits, drawbacks and user feedback.

The paper provides useful information on developing utility tools for quick access and search of Voyager OPAC and the Voyager clients.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the use of co‐browse in live chat, customers' question types, referral to subject experts, and patrons' usage patterns as experienced in the virtual reference (VR) chat reference services at Texas A&M University Libraries.

Chat transcripts from 2005 to 2007 were sampled and analyzed by peer reviewers. Statistical data in that period were also examined. A set of methods and a pilot study were created to define the measurement components such as question types, expert handling, and co‐browsing.

Co‐browsing is used in 38 percent of the sampled chat sessions. The Texas A&M University live chat service group considers co‐browsing a useful feature. Of questions received on VR, 84 percent are reference questions. Only 8.7 percent of the total questions or 10 percent of the reference questions need to be answered by subject experts. The use of VR increases dramatically in the past two years at the Texas A&M University. The findings also reveal users' logon patterns over weekdays and weekends.

The study contributes and advances understanding in the role VR plays in a large academic library and the role co‐browsing plays in VR services. The study also provides a comprehensive method for transcript and usage data analysis. It is believed that a similar methodology may be replicated elsewhere by other institutions engaging similar services or evaluation.

As the use of electronic library resources increases, the demand for online support also multiplies. Information literacy and 24/7 customer support are some of the urgent issues related to research in an electronic environment that many libraries are trying to address today. This article describes an approach in meeting these challenges, the Let‐It‐V (Learning E‐Resources Through Instructional Technology Videos) project at the Texas A&M University Libraries. This study combines the use of screen‐captured videos and a streaming media encoder to produce topic‐specific videos for task‐oriented demands. It is visual, interactive, and seeks to provide just‐in‐time solutions at a point of need. On‐demand streaming is a viable, cost‐effective alternative for low bandwidth delivery of video‐enabled library instruction. The technologies involved, key development issues, lessons learned and their implications for distance learning are discussed.

Reports on research undertaken because the Malaysian delegation to an ASEAN‐COCI seminar felt there was a need to understand what is meant by “Quality” from the librarian’s perspective. A survey was undertaken to obtain feedback from librarians. Questionnaires were sent to all (10) university librarians, all (13) state public libraries and six selected special libraries. The response rate was 100 per cent from university libraries, 77 per cent from public libraries and 100 per cent from special libraries. An analysis of the responses provided insights into what quality means to librarians, the policy infrastructure available, the obstacles faced by librarians in the implementation of quality measures and the strategies they employ to ensure quality services. It also provided an insight into their future plans.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of internal corporate governance mechanisms on the capital structure decisions of Chinese-listed firms.

Using a large and more recent data set consisting of 2,386 Chinese-listed firms over the period from 1998 to 2012, the authors use different statistical methods (OLS, fixed effects and system GMM) to analyse the effects of firm-specific and corporate governance influences on capital structure.

The authors find that the proportion of independent directors and ownership concentration exert significant influence on the level of Chinese long-term debt ratios after controlling for firm-specific determinants and split share reforms. Further analysis separating the sample of this paper into state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs) suggests that ownership concentration in the hands of the state leads to decrease in debt ratios.

The finding implies that concentrated ownership in the hands of the state appears more efficient compared to their private counterparts in their monitoring role.

This paper extends prior literature, which has concentrated disproportionately on firm-specific influences on capital structure, to the effects of within-firm governance mechanisms on capital structure decisions. The paper contributes to the agency theory–capital structure discourse in an emerging country context where corporate governance system appears weak.

Purpose – This chapter discusses the role of emotion expression in decision-making. To understand connections between emotion and decision it is helpful first to differentiate between emotion experience and emotion expression. Understanding how emotion expression influences decision-making is important as a practical matter. However, in contrast to emotion experience, economic research has paid little attention to the significance of emotion expression in decision-making.

Approach – I review recent studies on emotion expression, paying specific attention to possible connections between emotion expression, punishment, fair economic exchange, and well-being.

Practical implications – In contrast to emotions, which are typically difficult to control, I suggest that opportunities for emotion expression can feasibly be manipulated through appropriately designed policies. I further suggest that this approach may have the ability to positively affect well-being and economic outcomes.

Value of the chapter – The chapter provides new perspectives on how policy-makers can benefit by understanding the effect of emotion expression in decision-making. The chapter also suggests future research to improve our understanding of emotion expression.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the influence of superplasticizer and air entrainment admixtures (AEs) in the electrical resistivity of concrete.

Ten different types of concrete have been studied. Three levels of superplasticizer and air AEs have been used (0.20, 0.35 and 0.50 per cent). Concrete samples were cast and the electrical resistivity was monitored at the ages of 28, 63 and 91 days. Compressive strength and density tests have also been executed.

The superplasticizer admixture presented an optimal level of 0.35 per cent that significantly increased the electrical resistivity. The air AEs at the same dosage caused a considerable decrease in the electrical resistivity. The concrete with air AEs showed highest resistivity/MPa ratio.

The results should be carefully extrapolated for other materials and admixtures.

The usage of chemicals admixture in concrete is extremely common nowadays. However, only a few authors have studied the impact of such materials on the concrete’s electrical resistivity. Since many other researchers have already correlated electrical resistivity with other concrete’s properties, such as strength, setting time and corrosion probability, it is important to better understand how superplasticizers and air-entraining agents, for instance, impact the resistivity.

The vast majority of studies only tested the resistivity of cement paste or mortar and usually for short period of time (up to 28 days), which seems not to be adequate since the cement reaction continues after that period. This paper fills this gap and studied the impact of admixture on concrete and for a period of 91 days.

Incivility is widespread in the workplace and has been shown to have significant affective and behavioral consequences. However, the authors still have a limited understanding as to whether, how and when discrete incivility events impact team performance. Adopting a resource depletion perspective and focusing on the cognitive implications of such events, the authors introduce a multi-level model linking the adverse effects of such events on team members’ working memory – the “workbench” of the cognitive system where most planning, analyses, and management of goals occur – to team effectiveness. The model which the authors develop proposes that that uncivil interpersonal behavior in general, and rudeness – a central manifestation of incivility – in particular, may place a significant drain on individuals’ working memory capacity, affecting team effectiveness via its effects on individual performance and coordination-related team emergent states and action-phase processes. In the context of this model, the authors offer an overarching framework for making sense of disparate findings regarding how, why and when incivility affects performance outcomes at multiple levels. More specifically, the authors use this framework to: (a) suggest how individual-level cognitive impairment and weakened coordinative team processes may mediate these incivility-based effects, and (b) explain how event, context, and individual difference factors moderators may attenuate or exacerbate these cognition-mediated effects.