“Serving the masses,not the classes”: Station WHN,pioneer of commercial broadcasting of the 1920s

Historical accounts of how American radio developed into an advertising medium in the 1920s have focused almost exclusively on the broadcasting activities of large corporate concerns, especially AT&T. The contributory role of small broadcasters to this process has been overlooked, despite the fact that many of these were operating on a commercial basis when their larger corporate competitors were still eschewing direct advertising as an abuse of the medium. Drawing on contemporary publications and archival sources, this article details the controversial career of one such commercial pioneer, station WHN of New York, which played a crucial and hitherto overlooked role in opening up the airwaves to commercial use.     

Abstracts of theses in the field of speech,XIV∗

In this paper we report on a longitudinal case study of an administrative unit of a large nonfederal government following the election of a new Chief Elective Official. In this case, the changing climate becomes a dominant characteristic of the emerging situation. Poole and McPhee's (1983) extension of Giddens' Structuration Theory is employed as an analytic framework, tracing through the evolution and transformation of climate themes in the case. We find new categories of, and conditions affecting, climate—theme emergence, spread, and sedimentation. More particularly, the case demonstrates the complexity of organizational climate, with several processes interacting simultaneously to generate a constantly changing climate in the course of reproducing the organization's culture and beliefs. Importantly, the case shows how these complex climate processes are related to demoralization and counterintentional results in organizational change.     

Abstracts of theses in the field of speech,XVI∗

The effects of interpersonal reward and violations of conversational distancing expectations on compliance and interaction behaviors were tested in three retail shopping settings. Subjects were salespeople (N = 70, N = 49, N = 104) who were approached by confederates posing as customers or students conducting interviews on consumer behavior. Two levels of interpersonal reward (high versus low levels of apparent status, attractiveness, purchasing power and/or expertise) and three levels of distance (close violation, norm, far violation) were manipulated. Results showed high reward to induce more compliance with a request and more favorable interaction patterns than low reward. Distance violations evoked more arousal, activation and apparent distraction, while the favorability of reactions to distance violations tended to vary by reward level, as expected. Confounding effects of gender, confederate communication style, and possible nonverbal norms for compensation and reciprocity are also discussed.     

Documenting the Efforts of the Home Countries: Poland,the Czech Republic,Slovakia and Émigré Collections in the United States of America

The article discusses work by Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia with Polish-American, Czech-American, and Slovak-American collections in the United States.     

The Idea of the Comprehensive Research Collection,the Perils of “Linguistic Impoverishment,” and Print Publications in the Turkic Languages of the North Caucasus, 1806-2017 (Part II)

ABSTRACT

After several centuries of intensive collection development activity, the major research library collections of North America and Western Europe, taken as a whole, can be expected to provide reasonable coverage for all of the world’s languages and peoples. One might also expect that any two languages with a similar number of speakers and a similar publishing output might have similar profiles in terms of the amount and quality of materials available to scholars in Western library collections. For the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus (Kumyks, Karachais, Balkars, Nogais, and a few others), however, this is not the case. This article (which is Part II of a three-part series) demonstrates that, despite the scholarly value, intrinsic interest, and potential geopolitical significance of publications in North Caucasus Turkic languages, these publications are severely under-represented in Western libraries and, relatedly, in Western scholarship about religion, politics, history, culture, war and revolution on the northern perimeter of the Muslim world. Print and online bibliographic resources for the study of the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus are considered, and are used selectively to assess the strength of Western library collections. Part I of this article appeared in the previous issue of Slavic & East European Information Resources (vol. 18, nos. 3–4).     

An archive of humanity: the NSW Division of the Australian Red Cross, 1914–2014

To commemorate its centenary, the NSW Division of the Australian Red Cross decided to donate its archive to the State Library of New South Wales in 2014. The State Library is honoured to be the recipient of these significant and extensive archives. In this article, the authors outline the process the librarians and archivists used to manage the donation and the importance of communication, both internally within the Library, and externally with the volunteers at the Red Cross who had arranged, compiled and cared for the archive. They describe the extent and organisation of the collection, the variety of formats and subjects, its historical significance and how it has been promoted to the State Library’s audiences. The authors reflect on how the archive charts the evolution and growth of Australia’s longest-running humanitarian organisation and how it contains the records of people who made history, but did not write the history books.     

Material characterization,stratigraphy, textures,and painting techniques of the mural painting The Allegory of the Industrial Development of São Paulo by Fulvio Pennacchi

ABSTRACT

This work presents a study of samples of the mural painting The Allegory of the Industrial Development of São Paulo (Alegoria ao Desenvolvimento Industrial Paulista), made in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, by the artist Fulvio Pennacchi. Using transmitted light petrographic microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and X-ray fluorescence, the stratigraphy, the textures, the mineralogy, and the chemical compositions of the mural were established; therefore the painting techniques, pigments, and materials applied by the artist were identified. The mural was painted with the fresco technique and variations. This technique involves the use of materials of mineral origin, both in the support and for the pigments. About the artist’s relevance, Fulvio Pennacchi is considered an important muralist of his time, being one of the pioneers in the production of frescoes in Brazil. The mural, measuring approximately 11?×?6?m, painted in 1954, was removed from where it was originally made, in consequence of a fire that affected the place. Specialized engineers transported it, and today it is stored awaiting restoration. The data presented here can support the process of restoration of the mural, as well as contribute to the improvement of protocols for the analysis of works of art, and to the historical record of mural painting techniques over time.     

The bigger,the better? Measuring the financial health of media firms

Abstract

This study examined the degrees of product diversification of media conglomerates since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and tested the impact of product diversification of the firms on their financial health. The strategy of related product diversification enables firms to gain market power and synergy effect, then improves financial performance. Based on that assumption, for a sample of 26 media firms from 1996 to 2002, this study conducted a regression analysis to test the hypotheses. The results showed two contradictory curvilinear models. First, revenue, EBITDA and sales growth rates revealed a U‐shaped relationship with diversification. That is, performance decreased as firms shifted from concentrated business strategies to related diversification, but performance increased as firms changed from related diversification to unrelated diversification. On the other hand, financial efficiency variables measuring management effectiveness or profitability (ROS, ROA and ROE) and stock market evaluation (earnings per share) showed an inverted U‐shape relationship. Thus, the unrelated diversification led to a decrease in financial efficiency.     

Government information of,by, and for the people The changing mission of the American Library Association's Public Documents Committee, 1876–1956

Even before the creation of the American Library Association's Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) in 1972, librarians had long distinguished themselves as champions of the people's right of access to government information. In particular, it was the American Library Association's Public Documents Committee, which, during its long tenure from 1876 to 1956, remained the premier organizational body through which the library profession sought to shape government information policies. While the commitment of members of the Public Documents Committee to the goal of open access to government information never wavered, the underlying sense of mission that guided the Committee's work underwent considerable evolution during its history. Whether as genteel reformers of the Gilded Age, patriotic popularizers of the 1920s, or university-oriented social engineers during the Great Depression, Public Documents Committee members crafted a government documents reform agenda that translated a recognizably modern objective into the social and intellectual idiom of the age in which they lived.     

Meetings of Directors of the National Libraries in the socialist countries held in, 1967–1968

Abstract

The years 1989–91 saw tremendous changes in the political map of Eastern Europe. These changes have resulted in varying degrees of acquisition difficulties for Slavic and Eastern European language collections in Western libraries. The following is an early assessment of the difficulties and the resultant damage done to Slavic collections in the West. Preliminary results show that, on the whole, book receipts are down considerably, prices are up considerably, and inconsistency is the only consistency. The data discussed here were gathered by means of a survey of certain aspects of Slavic¹ acquisitions. These data are supplemented throughout by qualitative material gleaned from comments made by vendors and librarians at the 1993 Slavic Librarians' Workshop held at Urbana, Illinois.     

Assessment of Different Methods for Cleaning the Limestone Façades of the Former Workers Hospital of Madrid,Spain

Abstract

Five different methods for cleaning the limestone façades on what was originally the Workers Hospital in Madrid are analyzed in this paper. Due to the pollution in the surrounding air, just 20 years after a prior cleaning operation, sulfate crusts had developed on the entire stone surface of the building. The gypsum mortar used in the original masonry constituted an additional source of sulfur. Limestone is a traditional building material in Madrid and its surroundings. The petrography, mineralogy and petrophysical properties of the biomicrite, pelmicrite and biopelmicrite varieties of limestone identified in the hospital walls were determined. Analysis of a black layer on the stone surface showed that it consisted primarily of sulfate crusts. The cleaning methods tested were alkaline gels (sodium hydroxide and potassium hydroxide), pressurized hot water, glass bead blasting and latex peeling. The criteria for assessing the effectiveness and potential risks of the various cleaning systems included changes in the chromatic parameters of the stone, the formation of alteration products (i.e. salts) and modification of the stone surface. The stones cleaned with the three most effective methods, together with a rain-washed stone as a reference, were washed with water to generate an artificial runoff. The collected drain water was analyzed to determine the presence of any by-products from the cleaning process. The method found to be most effective and which caused the least alteration to the stone surface was glass bead blasting, particularly after adjustment of the bead size and pressure conditions used for the test.     

The Great Survival——Analyzing the hero of the Call Of the Wild,Buck

《野性的呼唤》是杰克．伦敦的第一本最畅销的书,该书虽篇幅不足百页,情节也较简单,却被视为美国文学的一部经典。本文试图分析主人公巴克在一次次的挑战中其顽强的性格,表达了一个真正伟大的适存者,从而也暗示了适者生存理念。     

Report of the “Train the Trainers in Information Literacy” Workshop Hosted by the Centre for Information Literacy,University of Cape Town,Cape Town,Republic of South Africa, 4–6 October 2008

This study was conducted to investigate research scholars’ perceptions of the information sources, services and infrastructures in university libraries in Kerala. A survey questionnaire was sent to research scholars working in four universities. The study revealed that the organization of resources and services in university libraries is not fully oriented towards supporting the process of research, and scholars were not satisfied with existing primary resources and personalized services. The study provides recommendations to enhance research-oriented library resources and services.     

The Prokudin-Gorskii Collection of Early 20th Century Color Photographs of Russia at the Library of Congress: Unexpected Consequences of the Digitization of the Collection, 2000–2017

The article describes activities in Russia related to the Library of Congress’ Prokudin-Gorskii collection of early 20th century color photographs. The collection was digitized in 1999/2000 and is freely available on the Internet. Russian interest in the photographs has resulted in websites, blogs, documentary films, dissertations, exhibitions, and books about the collection and the photographer and his work.     

The Idea of the Comprehensive Research Collection,The Perils of “Linguistic Impoverishment,” and Print Publications in the Turkic Languages of the North Caucasus, 1806–2017 (Part I)

Publications in the Turkic languages of the North Caucasus (Kumyk, Karachai-Balkar, Nogai, and a few others) are intelligible to readers of Turkish, Tatar, Kazakh, and other more commonly taught Turkic languages, but have suffered from serious neglect as sources for Western scholarship and, concomitantly, as materials that Western libraries might want to acquire. This is largely due to three factors: a lack of awareness on the part of scholars and librarians that publications in these languages exist; a lack of awareness that these publications have scholarly value at least as high as that of publications commonly cited in scholarly works about Islam in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, etc.; and the difficulty (especially in the past) of acquiring materials in these languages via the established acquisitions networks of Western libraries. Part of a planned series of articles exploring the publication history of and bibliographic record for the languages of the North Caucasus, this article will use language family (e.g., Turkic) as the unit of analysis, rather than the ethnoterritorial units created during the Soviet period (i.e., Kabardino-Balkaria) or in earlier eras (i.e., Daghestan). More broadly, the (quite understandable) failure of Western libraries to amass comprehensive collections in the vernacular languages of the North Caucasus raises interesting questions regarding the nature and purpose of the contemporary research library, which will be explored as well.     

Sonic Oppression,Echoes of Resistance and the Changing Soundscapes of Rio’s Favelas in the Build-Up to the Olympics

This article aims to explore the ways in which the transformations that Rio de Janeiro experienced prior to hosting the Olympics echo in the soundscapes of Favela da Maré. Here, we draw from an (auto)ethnographic approach, and combine theoretical perspectives from sound studies, auditory culture, and studies of activist media. Our research indicates that some of the authorities’ oppressive impositions on favela residents’ daily lives manifest precisely through the suppression of sounds. We would like to argue that activist media in Latin America can be better understood if situated in a complex set of daily rhythms.