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Corporate environmental benchmarking is difficult with the range and inconsistency of environmental information available, even from facilities within the same firm. Environmental management systems can assist firms in organizing internal corporate benchmarking efforts. They attempt to capture environmental impacts from activities throughout a facility under a single system and generally follow traditional benchmarking cycles of plan, do, check, and act. However, the systems lack important features that enable benchmarking. Based on a critical analysis of environmental management systems, the article recommends minor changes to extend environmental management systems for corporate environmental benchmarking. Consistent goals should be encouraged at all facilities to produce common metrics. Procedures should require data collection and reporting to a central office. Management review should monitor performance and determine where leading facilities can transfer better processes to lagging facilities.

MBA/MS/Executive Training.

Business and society; sustainability; women business leaders.

This case is about the development of sustainable viticulture in Israel. Michal Akerman, a viticulturist and agronomist, implemented out-of-the box ideas at Tabor Winery, Israel, and was successful in developing organic and sustainable vineyard. However, she faced challenges in terms of improving the quality of grapes as she looked forward to growing some of the best quality French grapes in Israel in the challenging conditions of the Negev desert region.

The expected learning outcomes are: to analyze the environmental impact of viticulture and sustainable viticulture through Tabor’s example, to examine how leaders can drive businesses to be involved in sustainable practices and challenges involved in implementing sustainable practices and to develop a framework for female leaders working in male-dominated business environments.

This case captures Michal Akerman’s (Michal) endeavours to develop organic and sustainable viticulture at Israel-based Tabor Winery. The traditional practices followed to grow the vineyards were proving adverse to the biodiversity. Unsustainable practices wiped out rare plants, and micro-organisms, which were essential for cultivation of grapes. The imbalance and unnatural ecosystem ultimately posed a threat to the very sustenance of the vineyards. As a seasoned viticulturist, Michal was of the view that a stable, diverse and balanced ecosystem prevented diseases among plants, and improved the quality of grapes.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only.

CSS 4: Environmental Management.

Algermissen, Virginia, Penny Billings, Sandra Grace, Barbara Guidry, and John Blair. “Subminute Telefacsimile for ILL Document Delivery.” Information Technology and Libraries, I (Sept., 1982), 274–5.

Arnold Arons, along with Robert Karplus, can fairly be called one of the founding fathers of U.S. Physics Education Research and a pioneer of inquiry methods of education. The instructional methods advocated by Arons were influenced by the work of Socrates, Plato, Montaigne, Rousseau, Dewey, Whitehead, and Piaget, but are primarily derived from Arons’ epic half century effort to improve introductory science teaching by shutting up and listening carefully to students’ responses to probing Socratic questions on physics, science, and ways of thinking. Arons emphasized: (1) conceptual understanding, (2) operative knowledge, (3) interactive engagement, (4) Socratic dialogue, (5) attention to cognitive development, (6) attention to preconceptions of beginning students, (7) operational definitions, (8) reduction of volume and pace of standard introductory courses, (9) idea first, name afterward, (10) importance of a course “story line,” and (11) science as a liberal art. Most of these are attributes of enlightened inquiry-based learning as described in Inquiry and the National Science Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning (NRC, 2000).

Beginning in 2007, many countries around the globe began to experience substantial downturns in their respective economies. Stock markets began to falter, unemployment rates began to climb, and it became readily apparent that a worldwide economic recession was underway.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and exhibition catalogues examining library instruction and information literacy.

The paper provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

Writing in 1995, what seems from our vantage point an almost primitive moment in technological evolution, hypertext theorist, and fiction writer Catherine Marshall, with her colleague David Levy, presciently described modern libraries;The academic and public libraries most of us have grown up with are the products of innovation begun approximately 150 years ago. We would find libraries that existed prior to that time largely unrecognizable. It is certain that the introduction of digital technologies will again transform libraries, possibly beyond recognition by transforming the mix of materials in their collections and the methods by which these materials are maintained and used. But the better word for these evolving institutions is “libraries,” not digital libraries, for ultimately what must be preserved is the heterogeneity of materials and practices. As library materials and practices of the past have been diverse—more diverse than idealized accounts allow—so they no doubt will remain in the future (Levy and Marshall, 1995, p. 77).By reminding us that libraries were always much more than repositories of collated pages of print, Levy and Marshall highlight the characteristics of modern libraries that mark them not as something new and different, but as something wholly in keeping with the diversity of “traditional” library holdings. “Our idealized image of a library imbues it with qualities of fixity and permanence. This is hardly surprising, since the library is considered to be the Home of the Book, and books are by and large one of the more fixed, more permanent types of documents,” the authors write, but “libraries have always contained materials other than books. Special collections and archives are filled with unbound and handwritten ephemera—correspondence, photographs, and so on … [And] traditional libraries have long contained a diversity of technologies and media; today these include film and video, microfilm and microfiche, vellum and papyrus” (p.77). Now that libraries contain various forms of digital media as standard parts of their collections (electronic journals, electronic catalogs, digital images, digitized sound files), the distinction between “traditional” and “digital” libraries has lost much of its original use, and so has the distinction between traditional and new types of librarians, the stewards of the libraries in any and all forms.

To provide library service to users of all ages has been one of the primary missions of county libraries since 1908 when the first branch of the first county library system was born in Sacramento as a proud milestone in the history of California public library. It has been a constant challenge to local governments and library staff members alike, especially when there are economic downturns or many priority programs to balance with. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

The paper introduces an innovative methodology in collection development to promote the concept that library collections, traditional or digital, can serve users of all ages as long as they can be adaptable to meet the changing needs of users, and compatible with changing information technologies.

By examining the process of an audio collection integrated as part of library collections and deeply rooted in users’ lives, the author reports the findings in the following areas: developing a robust audio collection catering to all users at Santa Cruz Public Libraries, despite technological changes and limited budget; getting involved in the whole organization’s programs and projects by collaborations; offering innovative promotion approaches; providing comprehensive subject coverage and always keeping the local community in mind; and evolving constantly to make technologies your friends, not foes.

The paper analyzes a successful collection development experience in audio collections to strive to realize the original county library’s ideal to serve users of all ages in California.

The successful collection development experience is useful not only for acquisition librarians, but a much broader audience such as library managers in charge of library material budgets.

The findings point out a number of social implications confronting library professionals worldwide. They include conflicts between users’ real needs vs our assumptions, limited budget vs expanding coverage, and library services vs the nature of technology.

The paper helps library professionals to develop, maintain, and succeed in their short- and long-term goals in collection development.