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How can academic libraries unlock staff capacity for new initiatives as they transition their collections from print to digital? The following are four strategies for recapturing staff time as libraries adopt new formats while still supporting older ones at a smaller volume. First, librarians should employ strategic collection development that takes into consideration opportunities for efficiencies as they make the print to digital transition. Second, libraries should implement creative reorganizations in order to scale down print services and effectively manage new digital formats. Third, libraries should rightscale their infrastructure, that is, choose the appropriate level – local, consortial/regional, national, or global – where collection management activities should take place. Fourth, libraries, library software vendors, and publishers should develop purchasing and resource discovery infrastructures that harness shared data to enable network level electronic resource management.

Because of online digital resources, academic libraries no longer need to spend as much time and energy organizing their own collections as they used to. They now have an opportunity to pivot their expertise in organizing information outward. “Inside-out” library services can include support for special collections, digital scholarship, scholarly communication, and data management. A key characteristic of such services is that an academic library takes on broader information management challenges at their college or university. This chapter will examine what it takes to build successful inside-out library services by looking at their cost, how well they complement existing library expertise and culture, and their impact on teaching, research, and the wider community.

This paper aims to propose a new indicator of product differentiation in the mortgage market and use it to examine how the double crisis, local market competition and bank-specific characteristics have influenced the supply of non-conventional mortgages in Italy.

This paper uses a special Bank of Italy’s survey on 400 Italian banks over the period 2006–2013, to compute a new indicator for product differentiation in the mortgage market. This paper considers mortgage with non-conventional characteristics: loan-to-value ratio greater than 80%; duration longer than 30 years or with a flexible maturity. This paper estimates probit and ordinary least squares (OLS) models using panel data at bank-time level.

The findings suggest that during the double crisis that hit the Italian economy between 2008 and 2013, the diversification process in the Italian household mortgage market slowed down. Controlling for banks’ and local markets’ this study finds that larger, less risky banks and those that have adopted scoring systems are more likely to offer non-conventional mortgages; moreover, banks operating in more competitive markets and in markets where other banks offer non-conventional loans tend to diversify their supply more. Most of these indications are confirmed by analyzing the quantities actually granted. These results suggest that the structure of the local markets does matter, and that there could be a non-price competition effect among banks in providing differentiated mortgage contracts.

The indicator, computed using data at bank level drawn from a special Bank of Italy’s survey, goes beyond the standard approach on product differentiation followed in the empirical literature, mainly base on the dichotomy between fixed and variable lending rates. Furthermore, to best of the authors’ knowledge, so far there is no empirical evidence on the supply-side factors that influenced the diversification of mortgages’ contractual terms during the crisis; particularly, there is no evidence on the role of local market competition and bank-specific features. This paper contributes to fill this gap in the literature.

Looks at the pathfinder approach to library instruction, which was developed in the 1960s by Patricia Knapp. Knapp's system focused, not on the simple provision of answers to questions, but on the teaching of the effective use of the library and its resources– in other words, on the finding of one's “way” in the library.

A traditional theoretical model for the creation and evaluation of pathfinders (subject research guides) can be identified through study of the literature. This model, expressed in the design criteria of consistency, selectivity, transparency and accessibility, sprang from an impulse to serve the inexperienced user by emulating or facilitating the user's search process.

A gap in this model can be detected, in the form of a missing multi‐dimensional picture of the user and the user's experience of the information service via the pathfinder. In an attempt to fill the gap, literature examining information behavior, the search process, the design of user‐centered services, and the information retrieval interaction is discussed.

An experience‐centered model for online research guide design and evaluation is derived from the findings.

This chapter maps existing patterns of broad-based worker ownership and control in contemporary advanced capitalism and considers future possibilities for expanding democracy within firms. Section one discusses worker ownership and control arrangements in relation to different theories of the firm and shows how these arrangements map onto different national systems. Section two compares Germany, which is characterized by worker control without ownership, and the United States, which is marked by worker ownership without control. Section three explores three pathways through which broad-based worker ownership and control might be deepened and more strongly coupled in the future.

Studies on trajectory and trends of democratic growth frequently dominate scholarly debates. These studies are led by two distinct points of view. On the one hand, scholars believe that the prevalence of democracy is inevitable and thus marks an era of prosperity and of human rights. Such an era is dominated by the cultural values of independence, individuality, and freedom (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005) and leads to the end of the world's history and the end of the last man (Fukuyama, 1992; Mandelbaum, 2008). A contrasting point of view, on the other hand, is expressed by scholars who studied the crises of modern liberal democracies believing that democracies are failing and hence, the time of worldwide democratization is coming to an end (Mouffle, d’Angerville, 1994, The private life of Louise XIV. Cited in Thomas, Vagueness in law and language the concept of despotism. Oxford: Oxford University Press). This study adds to the ongoing debate by determining which of the trends prevails worldwide across the past two centuries and especially in the beginning of the 21st century. Moreover, it sheds light on existing knowledge about democratic paths and trends by suggesting that a comprehensive investigation of democratization processes requires both regional and worldwide analyses, and investigations of historical events and regional characteristic effects are more beneficial for long-term longitudinal studies.