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The purpose of this paper is to explore the claim that online communication technologies are detrimental to off‐line communication practices.

This paper is based on material from focus groups with students from the University of Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), and in‐depth interviews from a mixture of employed people and students. The breakdown is as follows: three focus groups in total are ran, two cohorts of participants were students from University of Cambridge, and the third group from ARU. Six individuals aged between 21 and 36 were interviewed in‐depth on their Facebook use. Questions relating to personal use of Facebook are asked. All names of participants have been changed.

The research findings show that opportunities for communication are increased by using Facebook. Facebook use also impacts on how other types of communicative technologies are used – such as the phone and email. From the small participant sample, it is founded (with only one exception, the Facebook user had accepted a request from a “stranger” on recommendation from her friend, only to reject this friend within a short time from her network due to his reliability. Since the study, it is founded that one individual who has befriended individuals that were not known to him. When asked about this, he explained that many of these friends were developed after playing online games with them. In his mind, he had built up trust through game‐playing and used this as a measure of their reliability. Whilst he only joined Facebook in early 2008, he has now accumulated over 350 friends.) that off‐line encounters were a prerequisite for a friend connection to be made online in Facebook. Finally, it is founded that the participants rarely interact with the majority of their Facebook friends and it is this dormant archive of relationships that hold the most interest as it provides an archive of relationships that would have dissipated without these technologies.

The key value of the paper lies in understanding this technology as an archive of human relationships.

We issue a double Souvenir number of The Library World in connection with the Library Association Conference at Birmingham, in which we have pleasure in including a special article, “Libraries in Birmingham,” by Mr. Walter Powell, Chief Librarian of Birmingham Public Libraries. He has endeavoured to combine in it the subject of Special Library collections, and libraries other than the Municipal Libraries in the City. Another article entitled “Some Memories of Birmingham” is by Mr. Richard W. Mould, Chief Librarian and Curator of Southwark Public Libraries and Cuming Museum. We understand that a very full programme has been arranged for the Conference, and we have already published such details as are now available in our July number.

MY reaction to being appointed Director of Library Services would be one of frank amazement, rather as if I had been a commercial traveller in a rather dubious line of trade, such as ladies' underwear, who had suddenly been offered a bishopric. The recovery from this amazement would take about ten seconds flat and I would doubtless find myself in the thick of finding an office, a desk, a rubber plant and a regulation‐size piece of carpet appropriate to my grade. My first real task would be to bring some order to the seven sections of the D.E.S. now dealing with library matters and to initiate among librarians generally some radical thinking on the problems that face us all.

The story of budgeting practices in Louisiana strongly resembles its political history. The last decade was no exception. The relatively peaceful beginning of the decade was followed by two major natural disasters in 2005 − Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which suddenly changed the economic outlook of the state. The disaster was followed by a global boom in oil prices which benefited Louisiana greatly. Then, of course, the Great Recession hit. The immediate consequence was a projected budget shortfall of $1.6 billion over upcoming fiscal years 2011 and 2012. Such dramatic events create a perfect opportunity for understanding and analyzing Louisianaʼs “innovations” in the area of budgeting and financial management. Furthermore, the analysis of these developments is enhanced by the multiple perspectives of various participants with intimate knowledge of the political processes and mechanisms employed by the state in its dealings with consequences of the Great Recession.

The purpose of this paper describes a second‐year induction programme developed to support student transition. The sophomore slump theory suggests that students may experience a slump in the second year, resulting in poorer outcomes and increased attrition rates. Students were asked to reflect on their first year experience in order to identify learning and plan for the year ahead, in order to reduce potential for a slump during the second year.

Students beginning the second year of a four‐year BSc Honours Nursing programme participated in a one‐day induction prior to commencement of semester 1 classes. Students were assigned to groups and asked to reflect on some key questions in relation to their first year experience. Responses were collated on flip chart paper and discussed together.

Emergent themes are discussed here: forward planning, engagement with the institution, and building a strong foundation.

This process served to illustrate to staff some of the “hidden curriculum” issues and offered opportunities to focus on areas of student weakness such as referencing and academic writing. Using a combination of reflection, and experiential learning in induction may serve to transition students through the sophomore slump.

The challenge for academics is to continue to find ways to enhance the student experience in an increasingly diverse student population, and determine its effect on attrition rates. This paper offers a reflective commentary, exploring the authors’ learning, on the implementation of one innovative programme of longitudinal induction.

Research findings have suggested that today’s consumers view nutrition in a positive light. The findings of this survey support such evidence. The majority of consumers consider diet to be a very important component of their lifestyles and regard nutrition as a positive attribute of food products. A high level of awareness of nutrition labelling is evident among consumers, and 58 per cent of respondents use nutrition labels. However, consumers have to deduce information from nutrition labels in their current format. This proves rather difficult as knowledge of a balanced diet is quite low. Therefore, consumers find it difficult to implement current dietary advice through the use of nutrition labels, and only 17 per cent of the sample surveyed use labels for this purpose. Social networks and the “popular” media were found to be the most used sources of nutrition information, the medical profession was seen as a source of “cure” rather than prevention and a negligible percentage of the sample used official government information channels. Concludes that nutrition labels have a role to play; however, the food industry needs to respond to consumer needs and education/information provision needs to be improved.

This study aims to explore the application of reflective pedagogy within a course-embedded library instruction session (as opposed to a semester-long credit bearing course) as a means to foster transfer learning of research practices.

This conceptual essay adapts theories of reflection for transfer learning as found in composition and rhetoric literature to the traditional course-embedded library instruction classroom.

The application of reflection as a structured learning construct may have the potential to transform the library instruction classroom into an environment where transfer learning is more likely to take place.

Most models for transfer learning are based on semester-long courses and do not take into account the abbreviated context of the traditional library instruction event. This presents a challenge to any adaptation of theory, as library instruction is often an event isolated to one or a few sessions.

This study provides a structure for reflective pedagogy for librarians who desire to engage students in practices that offer the potential of fostering transfer learning.

Librarians are practicing reflective pedagogies in semester-long information literacy courses, but few have used reflection in traditional instruction sessions beyond the documentation of student learning for assessment purposes. This essay provides a theory that extends reflective pedagogies into the traditional library instruction classroom with the hope of fostering transfer learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore objective and subjective career success and to identify factors contributing to career success among a sample of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) “late bloomers” working in Malaysia.

Incorporating a mixed method design, the authors quantitatively surveyed 86 TVET graduates from two multinational companies, followed by in‐depth qualitative interviews with five high‐performing “late bloomer” TVET graduates.

Quantitative results indicate that the respondents progressed in their careers both in terms of salary and promotions, while most were satisfied with their careers and felt that they were internally and externally marketable. Qualitative findings indicate that the success of the late bloomers was the result of a perceived good fit between an individual's strengths and the organization's ability to compensate, motivate and support the individuals in their career progression.

The limited sample size employed can only provide initial insights into career success levels and contributing factors of career success. The results may spur larger scale research on career success of TVET graduates in Malaysia and the neighbouring region.

The paper provides important initial findings on the technical and vocational career line as an alternative pathway for Malaysian youth, particularly school leavers and underachievers, to achieve career success and enhanced social inclusion through higher salaries, job status and educational attainment.

The paper highlights the unexplored potential of career success as a facilitator of educational attainment and social inclusion, rather than the traditional path of educational attainment first, followed by career success.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the factors deriving effective tax rate (ETR) for Indian manufacturing firms in different sectors. The study also tries to analyze the sensitiveness of ETR because of shocks on its key determinants.

The study is using Arellano–Bond dynamic panel regression model to identify the key drivers of ETR, and impulse response functions of panel vector auto-regression model to analyze the response of ETR because of one standard deviation (SD) shock to its key determinants.

This study concludes that ETR is significantly explained by firm size, profitability, growth rate and non-debt tax shield in most of the sectors, and debt ratio, asset tangibility and age of the firms are impacting ETR differently across sectors. In case of entire manufacturing sector, firm size, profitability, growth and non-debt tax shield are driving ETR positively and asset tangibility is driving ETR negatively. Interest coverage ratio (ICR) and firm age are not significant drivers of ETR. ETR is positively related with firm size, but responses negatively when there is an immediate shock to firm size. Similarly, ETR is negatively related with asset tangibility, but responds positively following an immediate shock to it. Overall, ETR is more sensitive and responses significantly because of shocks in firm size, profitability, growth, asset tangibility and non-debt tax shield whereas, the response is very marginal following shocks to debt ratio, ICR and age of the firm.

Firm managers may find the study useful to understand the receptiveness of ETRs at each sector level. The empirical findings are not only validating the theoretical developments but also providing a root cause analysis to the firm managers to understand the cause and consequence of ETRs for firms at different sectors.

Empirically investigating the factors driving ETR and analyzing its sensitiveness because of one SD shock on its key determinants for Indian manufacturing firms from different sectors is the originality of this study. Developing a strong theoretical background and empirically validating it through advanced methodology makes the study unique.