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The purpose of this paper is to investigate similar and different wayfinding strategies used by novice and expert patrons at an academic library.

The study employed a usability study approach. In total, 12 people, places, or things were identified as important for students to be able to locate within an academic library. Students from one of three groups (high school, freshmen, and seniors) were randomly assigned a scenario requiring them to find the indicated person, place, or thing. Student researchers video recorded participants and took field notes during the wayfinding activity and conducted an interview about participant’s experience following the exercise.

Total and average time needed to locate the person, place, or thing indicated in the scenario were determined for each group. In addition, wayfinding tools (signs, maps, help desks, technology, and experience) used by participants were identified.

The research compares novice and expert wayfinding strategies. It is unique in its use of student researchers as part of a sociology class project, to collect and analyze the data.

The general population relies on the healthcare system for needed care during disasters. Unfortunately, the system is already operating at capacity. Healthcare facilities must develop plans to accommodate the surge of patients generated during disasters. The purpose of this paper is to examine a concept for providing independent, technologically advanced medical surge capacity via a Convertible Use Rapidly Expandable (CURE) Center.

To develop this concept, a site was chosen to work through a scenario involving a large earthquake. Although the study‐affiliated hospital was built with then state‐of‐the‐art technologies, there is still concern for its continued functioning should a large earthquake occur. Working within these parameters, the planning team applied the concepts to a specific educational complex. Because this complex was in the initial building stages, required attributes could be incorporated, making the concept a potential reality. Challenges with operations, communications, and technologies were identified and addressed in the context of planning for delivery of quality healthcare.

The process highlighted several requirements. Planning must include community leaders, enhanced by agencies or individuals experienced in disaster response. Analyzing regional threats in the context of available resources comes first, and reaching a consensus on the scope of operation is required. This leads to an operational plan, and in turn to understanding the needs for a specific site. Use of computer modeling and virtual deployment of the center indicates where additional planning is needed.

Previous strategies for increasing surge capacity rely on continued availability of hospital resources, alternative care sites with minimal medical capability, or, costly hospital expansions. Development of a site‐specific CURE Center can allow communities to provide fiscally responsible solutions for sustained medical care during disasters.

The adoption of the ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems Standard has proven to be a persistent and growing phenomenon in services and manufacturing, yet to date little research has been done that can indicate how far improved business performance can be attributed to it rather than counter‐intuitive causes. The paper aims to examine the evidence for the causal links between quality management system certification and improved performance in the empirical literature.

A method is proposed for testing how far performance improvement can be attributed to quality management system certification and how far attribution to other causes applies. This method is illustrated on a longitudinal study and then utilised to interpret the findings of other longitudinal studies.

It is concluded that although there is some evidence to indicate that quality management system certification has some causal influence on business performance, there is also evidence for the existence of a substantial mechanism whereby better performing firms self‐select to adopt certification. Possible causes for this mechanism are discussed.

The existence of a self‐select mechanism has profound implications for interpreting business performance achievements associated with quality management system certification because the benefits found may well be inflated by its presence. The authors suggest that richer theory is needed that can incorporate bi‐directional influences and new research is needed to explore the underlying causes of adoption selection effects.

The paper provides researchers with a method for testing and discussing causation influences on results. It provides evidence that a substantial part of the association found in the research on quality management system certification and business benefits may be due to counterintuitive causes.

The purpose of this paper is: to explain the relative influence of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on purchase intention of the 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsored products; and to compare the purchase intention of American and Korean spectators toward sponsoring products of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were predictors of purchase intention. Further, multiple group analysis revealed that the path coefficient between subjective norm and purchase intention for the two groups was significantly different.

A self-administered questionnaire was developed to measure the four constructs of the theory of planned behavior (TBP) as well as demographic information. Upon completion of the psychometric properties test of the TPB, a SEM was conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses. The same fit indices as with the measurement model were adopted to evaluate the model fit. Finally, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine if the proposed relationships are different based on nationality (American vs Korean samples). A comparison of χ2 value between unconstrained and constrained models was employed to assess whether the two groups are statistically different.

SEM revealed that subjective norm and perceived behavioral control were predictors of purchase intention. In this study, a multi-group analysis was conducted to examine if the proposed relationships in our model are different based on nationality. As a result, we found that two groups (i.e. American vs Korean) exhibited notable differences in subjective norms in determining purchase intentions of the 2010 FIFA World Cup sponsored products.

Sponsors for mega sporting events, like the FIFA World Cup, must develop global marketing plans that appeal to worldwide audiences. Sport marketers, therefore, need cross-cultural marketing analysis on equivalence and bias so that they better understand how spectators from different cultures behave after consuming the same event. Thus, application of the TPB in cross-cultural studies aimed at understanding consumer intention after spectating the FIFA World Cup would provide marketers with valuable information for the formation of global marketing strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess to what extent the loss of the ISO 9001 certification affects the decertified firms’ financial performance.

Using standard event study methods, this paper matches a sample of 143 Portuguese companies that lost their ISO 9001 certification with similar non-event counterpart firms (according to return-on-assets (ROA) and size) and compares the performance of these two groups of firms using financial data collected from the AMADEUS database.

Results show no statistical significant differences in the financial performance (as measured by ROA, return-on-sales (ROS) and sales growth) between companies that lost their ISO 9001 certification and their matched firms. Although the literature suggests that certification improves firms’ performance and that the benefits of certification may last over long periods of time, this paper’s results suggest that, after decertification, companies do not exhibit over or underperformance in their operations vis-à-vis comparable firms that do not undergo the same event.

As far as the authors are aware, this is the first study assessing the impact of ISO 9001 certificate withdrawal on the decertified firms’ financial performance.

RECENTLY I picked up a copy of NEW LIBRARY WORLD and browsed through it, detecting, or so I thought, a certain bias in its editorial approach towards the public librarian, and mentally discounted most of what I read until, emerging through the advertisements, I came to ‘The Shallow End’. Recognising yet another example of Parkinson's law (journalism expands to fill the space available) and style, I nevertheless, as they graphically say, ‘read on’. It was quickly borne in on me that the feelings expressed by the noxious Thrasher in the March and June issues were, with some modification and emendation, precisely what I uneasily felt in regard to the rôle of modern public library in this country. Both articles raise some very serious points and I thought I might expose some of my jaundiced qualms to the judicious discussion of others more nearly concerned.

Companies are no longer simply contracting out the scutwork. And the more they outsource, the stronger their ties to their vendors.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information about each source is provided. The paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

WE write on the eve of an Annual Meeting of the Library Association. We expect many interesting things from it, for although it is not the first meeting under the new constitution, it is the first in which all the sections will be actively engaged. From a membership of eight hundred in 1927 we are, in 1930, within measurable distance of a membership of three thousand; and, although we have not reached that figure by a few hundreds—and those few will be the most difficult to obtain quickly—this is a really memorable achievement. There are certain necessary results of the Association's expansion. In the former days it was possible for every member, if he desired, to attend all the meetings; today parallel meetings are necessary in order to represent all interests, and members must make a selection amongst the good things offered. Large meetings are not entirely desirable; discussion of any effective sort is impossible in them; and the speakers are usually those who always speak, and who possess more nerve than the rest of us. This does not mean that they are not worth a hearing. Nevertheless, seeing that at least 1,000 will be at Cambridge, small sectional meetings in which no one who has anything to say need be afraid of saying it, are an ideal to which we are forced by the growth of our numbers.