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Article
Publication date: 26 June 2023

Fidelia Ibekwe

Celebrate Michael Buckland's impressive legacy to LIS by showing his humanity, generosity and versatility.

Abstract

Purpose

Celebrate Michael Buckland's impressive legacy to LIS by showing his humanity, generosity and versatility.

Design/methodology/approach

This article is walk through a scientific career in LIS. Through personal anecdotes and life history and building upon Michael Buckland's legacy, it summarises the author’s own work seen through the prism of her interactions with Buckland, leading to scholarly contributions articulating significant statements about the field of LIS as well as pointers to past relevant publications.

Findings

Michael Buckland has a unique way of putting an end to thorny LIS issues as well as being a documentator extraordinaire.

Originality/value

It is a personal account, as such cannot be evaluated through the classical norms of empirical research as there is no ground truth. This account shows how chance encounters with fellow scholars can have a lasting influence on one's academic career as well as wider impact in a field.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Content available
Article
Publication date: 24 April 2024

Tim Gorichanaz, Ronald E. Day and Kiersten F. Latham

Abstract

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Article
Publication date: 30 August 2023

Roswitha Skare

The purpose of this study is to show that the neo-documentary – or complimentary – approach in Library and Information Science by no means is conservative, but highly necessary…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to show that the neo-documentary – or complimentary – approach in Library and Information Science by no means is conservative, but highly necessary also in today's digitized media landscape. An example from a digitized photo archive is chosen to demonstrate the importance of a complimentary analysis that considers both material aspects as well as social and mental ones.

Design/methodology/approach

By taking Jenna Hartel's description of the neo-documentary turn as point of departure, the paper focuses on one case, the portrait of Johannes Abrahamsen Motka taken by Sophus Tromholt in 1883 and discusses different versions of the photograph from glass plate negatives to digitized versions in different contexts and media.

Findings

Many of the same paratextual elements can be found in different versions, also the digitized ones, to help the viewer to establish a historical context, but the images exhibited today are nevertheless no longer the same ones taken by Tromholt at the end of the 19th century. Not only have the material properties changed, but also – and probably even more important in most cases – the social and mental aspects. More re-contextualization is needed for today's audiences to recognize and understand a historical photograph taken in a colonial context. Focusing on document's material elements is not novel within the LIS-field, but the so-called neo-documentary turn was also a reaction on political and technological developments during the 1980s and 1990s. The increased focus on understanding a document in a complimentary way has demonstrated its impact during the last decades and is, at the same time, still work in progress.

Research limitations/implications

As a scholar in the humanities the author can only relate to and therefore analyze what the author can experience and observe on screen level.

Originality/value

In providing a case study, this article illustrates the necessity of employing a complimentary approach when analyzing documents. This also implicates the claim that the neo-documentary turn – or complimentary as it rather should be called – by no means is a conservative one, but a highly necessary one in today's digitized media landscape.

Details

Journal of Documentation, vol. 80 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0022-0418

Keywords

Case study
Publication date: 24 April 2024

Jared D. Harris, Samuel L. Slover, Bradley R. Agle, George W. Romney, Jenny Mead and Jimmy Scoville

In early 2014, recent Stanford University graduate Tyler Shultz was in a quandary. He had been working at Theranos, a blood-diagnostic company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a…

Abstract

In early 2014, recent Stanford University graduate Tyler Shultz was in a quandary. He had been working at Theranos, a blood-diagnostic company founded by Elizabeth Holmes, a Stanford-dropout wunderkind, for almost a year. Shultz had learned enough about the company to realize that its practices and the efficacy of its much-touted finger-prick blood-testing technology were questionable and that the company was going to great lengths to hide this fact from the public and from regulators.

Theranos and Holmes were Silicon Valley darlings, enjoying positive press and lavish attention from potential investors and technology titans alike. Just as companies like PayPal had revolutionized the stagnant payments industry and Uber had upended the for-hire transportation sector, Theranos had been positioned as the latest technology firm to substantially disrupt yet another mature sector: the medical laboratory business. By the start of 2014, the company had raised more than $400 million in funding, and had an estimated market valuation of $9 billion.

Shultz's situation was exacerbated by the fact that his grandfather, the highly respected former US Secretary of State George Shultz, was on the Theranos board and was one of Elizabeth Holmes's biggest supporters.

But Tyler Shultz worried about the customers he was convinced were receiving highly unreliable and often inaccurate blood-test results. With so much at stake, Shultz wondered how he should proceed. Should he raise his concerns with the firm's investors? Blow the whistle externally? Report to industry regulators? Go away quietly?

This case and its subsequent four brief follow-up cases are based largely on interviews with Tyler Shultz, and outline the dilemma he faced and the various steps he would take both to extricate himself from his unsavory position and let the public know the full extent of the deception at Theranos.

Five optional handouts are available to instructors to further discussion after the case has been debriefed. The handouts serve as additional decision points for the students if your class time permits.

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 10 November 2023

Maria Mouratidou, Mirit K. Grabarski and William E. Donald

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the intelligent career framework in a public sector setting in a country with a clientelistic culture to inform human resource…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to empirically test the intelligent career framework in a public sector setting in a country with a clientelistic culture to inform human resource management strategies.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on a qualitative methodology and an interpretivist paradigm, 33 in-depth interviews were conducted with Greek civil servants before the COVID-19 pandemic. The interview recordings were subsequently transcribed and coded via a blend of inductive and deductive approaches.

Findings

Outcomes of the study indicate that in a public sector setting in a country with a clientelistic culture, the three dimensions of knowing-whom, knowing-how and knowing-why are less balanced than those reported by findings from private sector settings in countries with an individualistic culture. Instead, knowing-whom is a critical dimension and a necessary condition for career development that affects knowing-how and knowing-why.

Originality/value

The theoretical contribution comes from providing evidence of the dark side of careers and how imbalances between the three dimensions of the intelligent career framework reduce work satisfaction, hinder career success and affect organisational performance. The practical contribution offers recommendations for human resource management practices in the public sector, including training, mentoring, transparency in performance evaluations and fostering trust.

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