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The real challenge of Alaska's changing telecommunications landscape is approaching the opportunities in an orderly and logical manner. Given the exciting nature of the possibilities that new technology presents, it is all too easy to get wrapped up in what is new, instead of what is truly useful. For that reason, the main focus of the Telecommunications Information Council (TIC) in the near future will be developing and adopting a comprehensive technology plan for the state, and then examining where new technologies fit into that plan. The Knowles/Ulmer administration's first task in this effort was to reinvigorate the TIC and charge it with taking the lead in bringing Alaska back to the forefront of telecommunications technology. Our state has long had a reputation for leading the way in telecommunications. Our climate, geographic size, and location have always forced Alaskans to be innovators in technology. Supercomputers and satellites have operated in and above our state for many years, but much of that momentum was waning. That needed to change.

Evidence of audit committee activity in the formative years of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad indicates that control and reporting activity developed long before the existence of regulatory mandate or the external auditing function. This is the earliest example of such an organized and continuing activity in American business history. With no previous business experience to model this enterprise, the organizers of the corporation put in place an audit committee of directors as a control device to safeguard assets and ensure proper handling of cash receipts and disbursements. Research into primary materials establishes that the committee not only performed regular routine audits of the “treasurer’s report,” but also identified and addressed critical problems of control and payment weaknesses. The discovery of the function of value‐for‐money (VFM) auditing by a committee of directors establishes historical context for today’s audit process and audit committee. Because the B&O was such an important entity, it influenced other railroads; and the railroad industry, in turn, greatly influenced the development of modern American businesses during the Industrial Revolution.

The purpose of the paper is to establish a common framework for measuring and reporting sustainability for commercial property assets.

The paper is based on a review of a series of benchmarking tools and company reports plus workshop consultation with industry.

The paper produces an initial list of common metrics for the measurement and monitoring of key sustainability indicators for commercial property. The complexity presented by the heterogeneity of property assets is discussed and suggested means of normalising for particular buildings types is provided.

The research draws largely from desk research of existing tools and company reports. It does not attempt to produce additional reporting methods, rather to draw on and simplify those already in place. The work is largely UK focused.

The work has significant practical implications in that it makes recommendations for a common approach to sustainability reporting at the building level for industry to adopt. This will aid decision making as it will enhance understanding of the sustainability performance of assets relative to their peer group whilst also supporting higher corporate‐level reporting and hence transparency.

Greater clarity of reporting for commercial property would be beneficial in reducing the negative impacts of the asset class on the environment and on society.

The paper aims to provide clear guidance in what has become a crowded and complex area. This is of significant value to the sector.

This paper examines how a beginning teacher in Virginia and a beginning teacher in Florida make sense of the high-stakes tests in their state. By examining beginning teachers in two states where the tests are so very different, we gain important insight into whether there are similarities and differences across states and how the nature of the test affects the teaching and learning of history. We first offer insight into the context of accountability in Virginia and Florida and then discuss what ambitious teaching and learning look like in these states as informed by the literature. Then, we turn to our research methods, findings, and implications for the field of social studies.

This article recounts the history of electronic journals, and the evolution of library processes to manage them. The article reviews recent controversies regarding the future of electronic publishing, and describes one important and innovative electronic publisher, the Public Library of Science.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how in Britain, France and Italy the idea of the living animal is being detached from the action of eating meat. It is an ongoing historical process, which has recently been fuelled by the new issue of cultured meat.

Starting from Goody's developmentalist stages (Production, Distribution, Preparation and Consumption), first this work analyses historically how these stages have undergone the process of the disappearance of the animal origins of meat (animal origins of meat are parts like the head and legs that remind us that once meat was an animal). Second, this paper applies cultured meat to Goody's stage of Production, linking the new product to the historical, above described, process.

The analysis shows that, in the past, Goody's stages of Consumption, Distribution and Preparation witnessed the disappearance of the animal origins of meat, while Production was not affected by the phenomenon. Today, with testing on cultured meat, even the stage of Production has gone through this process. Now, all of Goody's stages are involved in the process. Usually considered a shocking novelty, cultured meat is instead a stage of a historical process.

No one has previously analysed the disappearance of the animal origins of meat relating it to Goody's stages, and a current issue like cultured meat has never been considered a further step of this process.

Two new members of staff are joining BLRDD in September: Lawrence Howells, who is at present working in the Science Reference and Information service, will become a project officer, and Ros Cotton, who is currently working in the Library Association Library, will be the new dissemination officer.

This paper aims to give an overview of OpenCon 2014, organized by the Right to Research Coalition, SPARC (The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) and an organizing committee of students and early career researchers from around the world that took place between the 14th and 17th of November 2014 in Washington DC.

A narrative approach was used to describe events.

OpenCon 2014 is an exciting new conference that targets early career librarians and researchers who are involved with and/or interested in aspects of the open-access movement. It is attempting to galvanize the upcoming generation of scholars to demand more of traditional publishing models by bringing together a selective group that spans diverse interests and experience levels.

This report outlines the author's takeaways and opinions concerning the events of the conference, as well as identifies some of the themes and issues that were relevant to librarians in research institutions.