Search

This article traces the history of the relationship of papermaking and paper to libraries over time. Paper was first made in China and is traditionally considered one of that nation's four greatest inventions, along with gun powder, printing, and the compass. Papermaking was often associated with archives in its early development in China, as well as when it was introduced to Japan, where it came to be a part of some Shinto and Buddhist temples, and later governmental agencies. Under Islam, the availability of paper was linked to increased literacy and growth of libraries. In early modern Europe, before the widespread use of wood in the papermaking process, libraries and archives were part of an "economy of paper" with paper at times being in short supply. In the modern era, the world of papermaking did not intersect much with the world of the library, which made progress with the problem of brittle books, one of its greatest challenges, slow, though recent efforts of government, industry, scientists, and representatives of the library have produced positive results. The damage caused by wood-based paper in libraries was mirrored by the environmental damage caused by wood-based papermaking in communities. The history of papermaking and libraries demonstrates the importance of understanding the technologies which support the library, while also advocating effectively to the representatives of all its sources of support in ways which promote the values of the library and its associated community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper studies reading in the digital age and grounds characteristic reading features on paper and the screen. We studied various scientific points on the uniqueness of reading activities in various formats, effectiveness, and perception of readers about printed and electronic texts. The study concludes that screen-reading practices keep evolving. Digital reading dynamically changes the communication environment, speeding up and simplifying access to information. The new reading format has many opportunities and advantages, and it transforms the reading skills and habits of society. Although it revives social reading, it intensifies the digital divide, leading to a secondary mental cognitive digital divide, and modifies the personal reading experience of contemporaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chemical and physical properties of 19th and 20th century Chinese papers were investigated using a variety of material characterisation methods. A reference collection of 178 Chinese papers, dating from 1799 to 1990 was used, and properties such as pH, degree of polymerisation (DP), lignin content, and tensile strength (zero-span) were determined. Most of the papers were of approximately neutral pH, had a low lignin content and DP similar to pre-19th century European rag paper. It was found that the high inhomogeneity and the typical paper thinness affected tensile testing and as a result, a modified method for zero-span tensile strength test was developed. Using near infrared spectroscopy (NIR), proof-of-concept partial least squares (PLS) applications were developed for determination of tensile strength, pH, DP and for dating of the samples. For the latter, using post-1900 papers, the error of cross validation was 13 years. The presence of lignin was modelled using linear discriminant analysis (LDA), where the model could distinguish between high and low lignin content with 88% accuracy. Using one or multiple sheets for transmission NIR spectroscopy led to PLS results of similar quality, which was attributed to material inhomogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open Educational Resources (OER) have continued to gain traction in higher education, assisting with ever-rising costs of publisher textbooks and supporting pedagogical innovation. Starting in 2017, NY state legislature has allocated funds annually to be split between its two public university systems to support and incentivize the adoption of OER. The author's institution, an included public college, has secured portions of this funding each year. This paper will focus on the initial five years of the state-funded OER initiative at the City University of New York (CUNY) College of Staten Island, with reflections on the successes of the program, the overall process of the annual grant cycle on campus, challenges that arose in the burgeoning OER program, and suggestions for future considerations. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the impact of state funding on the establishment of a library-facilitated OER initiative, to serve as a example for other institutions who are seeking to build an OER program.

Designing clean, reusable, and repeatable experiments for a research paper does not have to be difficult. We report on our efforts to create an integrated toolchain for running, processing, and including the results of computer experiments in scientific publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to determine the learning patterns and experiences of incarcerated adults within correctional settings and how their prison learning transforms their lives after they are released. In this qualitative research, semi-structured interviews were conducted to obtain the opinions of eight formerly incarcerated people who experienced educational practices during their serving time in prison. The snowball sampling technique was used to reach the target group of the study. Thematic analysis method was used during the data analysis process. The results of the paper, which are limited to the opinions of the participants in the study, showed that the change in the educational level of the prison population had led to a transformation in group dynamics among inmates in Turkey. Although former inmates experienced a permanent transformation in their lives after attending literacy courses, they could not carry on their religious practices after being released due to the struggle to make a living. Inmates who were not interested in educational programmes within prison managed their own learning processes as self-directed learners. Moreover, although inmates are certified through vocational training programmes, they have challenges in finding jobs when they re-enter society. Educational disruptions due to COVID-19 demonstrate that it is urgent to transform the prison education system into a technologically enriched learning environment in Turkey.

Researchers say the policy could intensify existing issues with research quality and misconduct. Researchers say the policy could intensify existing issues with research quality and misconduct., Author(s): Gayathri Vaidyanathan Author Affiliations: Indian payment-for-papers proposal rattles scientists Some researchers fear that the proposed scheme could make it harder for Indian scientists to publish in international journals. [see [...]

Early industrialization and the development of cheap production processes for paper have led to an exponential accumulation of paper-based documents during the last two centuries. Archives and libraries harbor vast amounts of ancient and modern documents and have to undertake extensive endeavors to protect them from abiotic and biotic deterioration. While services for mechanical preservation such as ex post de-acidification of historic documents are already commercially available, the possibilities for long-term protection of paper-based documents against fungal attack (apart from temperature and humidity control) are very limited. Novel processes for mechanical enhancement of damaged cellulosic documents use Ionic Liquids (IL) as essential process components. With some of these ILs having azole-functionalities similar to well-known fungicides such as Clotrimazole, the possibility of antifungal activities of these ILs was proposed but has not yet been experimentally confirmed. We evaluated the potency of four ILs with potential application in paper restoration for suppression of fungal growth on five relevant paper-infesting molds. The results revealed a general antifungal activity of all ILs, which increased with the size of the non-polar group. Physiological experiments and ultimate elemental analysis allowed to determine the minimal inhibitory concentration of each IL as well as the residual IL concentration in process-treated paper. These results provide valuable guidelines for IL-applications in paper restoration processes with antifungal activity as an added benefit. With azoles remaining in the paper after the process, simultaneous repair and biotic protection in treated documents could be facilitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Historia Moderna is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The purpose of this research paper is to encourage school teachers (with an emphasis on elementary teachers) to recognize and explore the literacy potential of their classroom libraries as a powerful critical literacy tool/asset that when designed and utilized strategically has the potential to reposition their classroom pedagogy and curriculum design to be empowering, transformative, inclusive and progressive. To that effect, this paper offers/proposes a framework/model for critical text selection' that can be readily adapted by teachers across various grade levels within the K-12 classrooms to identify the specific critical literacy needs of their learners (including the learning environment) and then employ their classroom library as a critical literacy tool that facilitates learner empowerment both inside and outside their learning spaces. The paper also presents interested teachers with an alternate way to traverse the proposed framework in the hope that it will provide an impetus to teacher scholars and educators interested in adapting the framework into their classroom to innovatively modify the framework we have presented to better work with their unique curricular structure and design.