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This paper was originally presented as a keynote presentation to the annual conference of the ANZHES whose theme was “knowledge skills and expertise”. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on history as a field of study in the context of changing conditions and new debates about knowledge in the twenty-first century.

The paper reviews three important lines of sociological argument about changed conditions for knowledge: the case to “bring knowledge back in” to school curriculum; the contention that knowledge in universities is moving from “mode 1” to “mode 2” forms; and arguments about testing and audit culture effects on the practices of universities and schools. It then draws on interviews with historians and history teachers to show how they think about the form of their field, its value, and the impact of the changing conditions signalled in those arguments.

The paper argues that some features of the discipline which have been important to history continue to be apparent but are under challenge in the conditions of education institutions today and that there is a disjunction between teachers’ views of the value of history and those evident in the public political arena.

The paper draws on a major Australia Research Council funded study of “knowledge building across schooling and higher education” which focusses on issues of disciplinarity and the fields of physics and history.

The paper is intended as a new reflection on the field of value to those working as historians.

In this paper we narrate a story of working on a large project funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant the ‘Keeping Connected: Young People, Identity and Schooling’ project. The purpose of the study is to consider the social connection and schooling of young people who have experienced long‐term chronic illness. While the research involves both quantitative and qualitative elements, the qualitative component is the largest and involves the most researcher time and diversity. At an early stage of the project, three of the researchers working on the qualitative team consider why the study was framed as a series of case studies rather than as ethnography. The second issue considered in this paper is the different approaches to data collection, data analysis and truth claims we might take.

The paper aims to analyse the development of broadcast radio in the USA during the 1920 s, focusing on the legislative and regulatory background, considering the broadcasting spectrum, programme content, and nature of radio as an information resource at that time.

An analysis of primary materials, and of recent secondary materials, is carried out.

The legislative and regulatory framework failed to take note of the unique attributes of information resources, and attempted to treat them in the same manner as more traditional resources. Records of the early days of USA radio are very limited. More positively, radio information resources played a major part in developing several aspects of society, including education, agriculture, and jazz culture.

The study shows lessons for development of current information society. The research is limited to one communication medium, in one country, in one decade. It is not a full historical analysis of the development of radio broadcasting, rather it is limited to information resource aspects, largely of public sector broadcasting.

The paper is the first study of the early development of radio broadcasting from an information perspective. It shows the value of the “information‐as‐resource” model for analysing developments in the communication of information.

Now and again a book relating to library interests comes to hand that deserves special notice, and such a work is the New York State Library School Register, 1887–1926, which was published by the New York State Library School Association, Inc., in 1959. We might have received a copy for notice earlier, but Mr. Karl Brown, the Editor of the volume, writes that he “had not thought of sending copies outside the States feeling that it might be considered a provincial book, as London sometimes tells us!” Mr. Brown has been much too bashful. We personally were most happy to receive a copy from him following an enquiry the nature of which will be explained later. In this article we begin by reviewing the book, but at a later stage we indicate by a little study of one person the unusual interest of the work to librarians in terms of library history and of the movements of librarians from one land to another.

This study aims to fill the gaps in mandated reports with social accounts to provide more inclusive accountability during a crisis using the illustrative example of Anglicare’s Newmarch House during a deadly COVID-19 outbreak.

This study uses a close-reading method to analyse Anglicare’s annual review, reports, board meeting minutes and Royal Commission into Aged Care submissions. Informed by Foucault’s concept of biopolitics, the study collocates alternate “social accounts” in the form of investigative journalism, newspaper articles and media commentary on the events that transpired at Newmarch House to unveil a more nuanced and human-centric rendering of the ramifications of a public health/aged care crisis.

COVID-19 exacerbated pre-existing issues within the aged care sector, exemplified by Newmarch House. The privileging of financial concerns and lack of care, leadership and accountability contributed to residents’ physical, emotional and psychological distress. The biopolitical policy pursued by powerful actors let die vulnerable individuals while simultaneously making live more productive citizens and “the economy”.

Organisations express their accountability by using financial information provided by accounting, even during circumstances with more prevailing humanistic concerns. A transformational shift in how we define, view and teach accounting is required to recognise accounting as a social and moral practice that should instead prioritise human dignity and care for the betterment of our world.

This paper contributes to the limited literature on aged care, extending particularly into the impact of COVID-19 while contributing to the literature concerned with crisis accountability. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is also the first to examine a form of biopolitics centred on making live something other than persons – the economy.

LIBRARIES have come impressively into the public picture in the past year or two, and seldom with more effect than when Their Majesties the King and Queen opened the new Central Reference Library at Manchester on July 17th. In a time, which is nearly the end of a great depression, that the city which probably felt the depression more than any in the Kingdom should have proceeded with the building of a vast store‐house of learning is a fact of great social significance and a happy augury for libraries as a whole. His Majesty the King has been most felicitous in providing what we may call “slogans” for libraries. It will be remembered that in connection with the opening of the National Central Library, he suggested that it was a “University which all may join and which none need ever leave” —words which should be written in imperishable letters upon that library and be printed upon its stationery for ever. As Mr. J. D. Stewart said at the annual meeting of the National Central Library, it was a slogan which every public library would like to appropriate. At Manchester, His Majesty gave us another. He said: “To our urban population open libraries are as essential to health of mind, as open spaces to health of body.” This will be at the disposal of all of us for use. It is a wonderful thing that Manchester in these times has been able to provide a building costing £450,000 embodying all that is modern and all that is attractive in the design of libraries. The architect, Mr. Vincent Harris, and the successive librarians, Mr. Jast and Mr. Nowell, are to be congratulated upon the crown of their work.

The purpose of this paper is to provide organizations which are keen to implement wikis with insight into its usefulness and possible role in the knowledge sharing and management process through lessons learnt from implementation of wikis by organizations ranging from SMEs with less than ten users to those with a vast network of 193 million members. These organizations are from the non‐technology as well as technology‐based sectors.

The paper takes the form of a general review. It provides a background into the advent of wikis and briefly discusses related work on use of Wikis in corporate, public and educational context. This is followed by review of three case studies carried out on implementation of wikis and an analysis of the review.

The review proposes a framework for the wiki adoption process which may be used as a guide for in future adoption by organizations. It also found that some benefits which move these organizations towards the usage of wikis include its ease of use, ability to track and edit, its influence on the building of a trusting culture and as a central repository of information. One significant and tangible benefit from the use of wikis is its ability to save time and therefore, money. Issues to be addressed include security, control as well as technical issues such as data migration.

The paper presents examples based on case studies conducted by other authors and a framework based on the observation of the key push factors and commonalities among the cases. Further empirical testing is needed to demonstrate the framework introduced in this paper.

The paper suggests that wikis may be the key to a viable and usable knowledge management tool due to its ease of use and collaborative nature, which ultimately leads to time and cost savings. A preliminary framework to represent the implementation flow of a wiki is also presented and may serve as a guide for organizations considering the use of wikis as a knowledge management tool.

The rising dominance of sustainable development (SD) and green growth (GG) in contemporary societies have become one of the foremost sources of contentions that most states face today in the developing world. It is often suggested that institutionalizing key policies of the SD and GG present a win-win situation. The purpose of this paper is to scrutinize and evaluate such a debate in the light of existing empirical evidence on SD, GG and economic development (ED). It seeks to answer the question “does the sustainability discourse fit in the modern socioeconomic needs of the developing nations or not.”

This paper adopts a qualitative research technique. It mainly relies on secondary sources of data. In aligning with key technical approach of qualitative research; the secondary sourced data were also subject to content and thematic analyses from which facts, and assumptions were derived to undertake the present study.

The main verdict of the paper is that SD and GG discourses do not fit in the crucial socioeconomic needs of the underdeveloped nations. Endorsing SD and GG policies in emerging countries is essentially about restraining their economic prosperity. In fact, it is an anti-growth agenda in its essence. What makes it anti-growth is the core element of minimal use of critical natural capital to grow economically, which lies at the heart of entire SD and GG. What makes it hard for the emerging nations to comply with core elements of the sustainability is their capacity to comply with alternative growth pathways. Thus, limiting the growth process by promoting the agendas of SD is fundamentally about keeping deprived state/people poor.

The work is exclusively limited to the author’s understanding of issues and key concerns of developing world concerning institutionalization of the SD and GG. The author’s comprehension may not fully reflect the foremost concerns of the emerging nations. Moreover, Just a single research approach was employed in this study. A further empirical investigation is required in this field for acknowledging and documenting all the key motives and perspectives of third-world states when endorsing SD and GG policies.

The paper sheds light on the political aspects of promoting the SD, and the long-lasting fact that the key concerns of sustainability pose challenges to the very existence poor states in the south. Most of them are highly exposed to socioeconomic shocks. They cannot afford to implement the policies of SD and GG as the majority of their citizens are living under poverty line. The only panacea they have to overcome the existing social deprivation is the massive ED. Furthermore, institutionalizing SD and GG may cause societal clashes in the poor states.

This paper aims to study the evolution of definitions of internet of things (IoT) through time, critically assess the knowledge these definitions contain and facilitate sensemaking by providing those unfamiliar with IoT with a theoretical definition and an extended framework.

164 articles published between 2005 and 2019 are collected using snowball sampling. Further, 100 unique definitions are identified in the sample. Definitions are examined using content analysis and applying a theoretical framework of five knowledge dimensions.

In declarative/relational dimensions of knowledge, increasing levels of agreement are observed in the sample. Sources of tautological reasoning are identified. In conditional and causal dimensions, definitions of IoT remain underdeveloped. In the former, potential limitations of IoT related to resource scarcity, privacy and security are overlooked. In the latter, three main loci of agreement are identified.

This study does not cover all published definitions of IoT. Some narratives may be omitted by our selection criteria and process.

This study supports sensemaking of IoT. Main loci of agreement in definitions of IoT are identified. Avenues for further clarification and consensus are explored. A new framework that can facilitate further investigation and agreement is introduced.

This is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study that examines the historical evolution of definitions of IoT vis-à-vis its technological features. This study introduces an updated framework to critically assess and compare definitions, identify ambiguities and resolve conflicts among different interpretations. The framework can be used to compare past and future definitions and help actors unfamiliar with IoT to make sense of it in a way to reduce adoption costs. It can also support researchers in studying early discussions of IoT.