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The purpose of this paper is to describe a new approach to a well-known problem for digital libraries, how to search across multiple unrelated libraries with a single query.

The approach involves creating new Dewey Decimal Classification terms and numbers from existing Dublin Core records. In total, 263,550 records were harvested from three digital libraries. Weighted key terms were extracted from the title, description and subject fields of each record. Ranked DDC classes were automatically generated from these key terms by considering DDC hierarchies via a series of filtering and aggregation stages. A mean reciprocal ranking evaluation compared a sample of 49 generated classes against DDC classes created by a trained librarian for the same records.

The best results combined weighted key terms from the title, description and subject fields. Performance declines with increased specificity of DDC level. The results compare favorably with similar studies.

The metadata harvest required manual intervention and the evaluation was resource intensive. Future research will look at evaluation methodologies that take account of issues of consistency and ecological validity.

The method does not require training data and is easily scalable. The pipeline can be customized for individual use cases, for example, recall or precision enhancing.

The approach can provide centralized access to information from multiple domains currently provided by individual digital libraries.

The approach addresses metadata normalization in the context of web resources. The automatic classification approach accounts for matches within hierarchies, aggregating lower level matches to broader parents and thus approximates the practices of a human cataloger.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of workplace support measures offered by employers on the academic performance and satisfaction of distance-taught paramedic students.

Using a combination of quantitative, qualitative and open text data, the authors identified factors important for student success.

Dedicated study time was not a significant predictor of student pass rate, but was related to the quality of achievement as measured by pass grade. More important for success were less tangible factors such as relationship with a mentor and being part of a supportive peer group.

The number of respondents to the survey of graduates in the second part of the investigation was small (n=30; 8.9 per cent) and limited to one profession (Emergency care).

The support measures the authors have identified should be overtly built into new course design. Placements undertaken away from the primary workplace should be well organised, and students proactively supported while undertaking them.

The value of these findings is that they inform, and can be used to enhance, the experience of students on work-based learning programmes and also on degree apprenticeships.

THE year 1954 opened more brightly, in some respects, than most previous years. Salaries are better than they used to be, staffs are larger, and hours are shorter. But there is even less room for complacency or even bare satisfaction than there was forty years ago. Then, however poor was the pay and however long the hours, there was every indication that librarianship was gradually becoming recognized as a profession which in time would rank with the great professions. Principles and objectives were clear and were never lost sight of, but librarians and assistants of that day realized that the great professions were dependant, not only on principles but upon absolute mastery of technique; that no lawyer could survive who merely talked grandiloquently about the principles and objectives of his calling; that the medical man endured—and in many instances enjoyed—a severe and lengthy training in technique and practice, and that even when he became a specialist his prime need and principal qualification was absolute mastery and up to date knowledge of technique and practice in his field of specialisation. In the light of that fad a detailed study of library technique became accepted as essential, and a mass of practical and technical literature was studied and mastered by more than one generation. For examination purposes, perhaps more than for any other reason, the present generation of assistants continues that study, but there has been a change of weight. Today we hear frequently that technique is relatively unimportant and that principles and objectives are the vital essentials.

The following bibliography focuses mainly on programs which can run on IBM microcomputers and compatibles under the operating system PC DOS/MS DOS, and which can be used in online information and documentation work. They fall into the following categories:

This study aims to examine whether China's unique dual audit policy affects one specific aspect of audit quality: auditor conservatism. In China, listed companies issuing B/H-shares in addition to A-shares must release two financial reports – one based on Chinese accounting standards and the other based on international accounting standards (ISA). The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) further requires that the financial reports following Chinese accounting standards should be audited by a domestic CPA firm, and the financial reports following ISA should be audited by an approved overseas CPA firm. This study investigates whether the dual audit requirement induces more auditor conservatism.

Based on a sample of 7,046 firm-year observations that issue A-shares from 2001 to 2006, the authors empirically test whether the dual audit requirement induces more auditor conservatism, measured by the level of discretionary accruals.

The authors find the dual audit requirement significantly restricts the use of income-increasing discretionary accruals but not income-decreasing discretionary accruals. Moreover, financial reporting becomes most conservative when two auditors are from two un-affiliated audit firms. Nevertheless, the difference-in-difference analysis fails to show a significant decrease in auditor conservatism after the revocation of the dual audit rule for the treatment group with dual audit before but no dual audit after 2007 comparing to the control group that experience no change in 2007.

First, the previous studies examine issues regarding the effects of supervision pressure through experimental setting. The authors extend the literature by examining empirically the impact of perceived peer pressure on auditor conservatism. Second, the findings from China regarding the effect of the dual audit system on auditor conservatism serve as a reference for other emerging markets that have not yet established sound audit systems.

This index covers all issues between February 2005 (Volume 9, Issue 1) and November 2008 (Volume 12, Issue 4). Numbers in bold refer to yolume, numbers in brackets refer to issue, with subsequent numbers to pages.

This paper aims to consider the increased commercialisation of motherhood and particularly the consumer practices of women as they prepare for the birth of their first child. The commercial world appears omnipresent in the lives of new mothers in Western societies.

Based on a five-year study of motherhood in the UK, the paper focusses on women’s relationship to the marketing and consumption of everyday maternity and baby products made available to them through readership of pregnancy magazines and mainstream commercial outlets.

Documenting how consumer culture features in the lives of mothers-to-be, the study identifies age and socio-economic status as key features in shaping the maternal experience and consumer “choice”.

The paper explores the significance of consumption as preparatory work in the transition to motherhood.