Browsing by Author "White, Bruce"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    Barriers to the use of digital information by university researchers
    (2005) White, Bruce; Gendall, Rae
    The transition of academic libraries from print to electronic resources is well underway and for most scholars non-engagement with the digital environment has ceased to be an option. The demands placed on the computing skills and understanding of the main features of this environment are considerable, however, and a significant proportion of researchers either fail to take advantage of it or are in fact impeded in their work by their minimal skill sets. We examine the barriers to use of the technology and describe our own experience in training university academics to become more fluent users of electronic information resources. A higher level of engagement by both library and computing staff in training and advocacy is suggested.
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    Cybertopia, Dystopia Or More Of The Same—Recent Writings On The Unknowable Future Of The Internet.
    (Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA), 2012) White, Bruce
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    Examining the claims of Google Scholar as a serious information source
    (2006) White, Bruce
    Since its introduction in mid 2004 the Google Scholar search engine has been the subject of considerable interest within the library community and has been the subject of both excitement and criticism. While applauding its ambitious scope various writers have pointed out its shortcomings through unfavourable comparisons with the traditional scholarly databases. This article summarises the debate and then critically examines Google Scholar through a number of practical examples concluding that in terms of its coverage and functionality it outperforms traditional databases in locating a major portion of the available information.
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    Issues in equivalence: Information literacy and the distance student
    (Distance Education Association of New Zealand, 2008) Lamond, Heather; White, Bruce
    Information Literacy is a recognised lifelong learning skill, and an expected graduate attribute. With the growth in distance provision of tertiary education it is important to acknowledge the barriers faced by distance students and the difficulties libraries face in delivering equivalent learning opportunities to students who are physically isolated from their institution. This paper outlines the importance of information literacy, the major barriers faced by distance students and makes suggestions as to how institutions and their libraries can better meet their learning needs.
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    Minding our ps and qs: Issues of property, provenance, quantity and quality in institutional repositories
    (International Association of Technological University Libraries, 2008) White, Bruce
    The development of institutional repositories has opened the path to the mass availability of peer-reviewed scholarly information and the extension of information democracy to the academic domain. A secondary space of free-to-all documents has begun to parallel the hitherto-closed world of journal publishing and many publishers have consented to the inclusion of copyrighted documents in digital repositories, although frequently specifying that a version other than the formally-published one be used. This paper will conceptually examine the complex interplay of rights, permissions and versions between publishers and repositories, focussing on the New Zealand situation and the challenges faced by university repositories in recruiting high-quality peer-reviewed documents for the open access domain. A brief statistical snapshot of the appearance of material from significant publishers in repositories will be used to gauge the progress that has been made towards broadening information availability. The paper will also look at the importance of harvesting and dissemination, in particular the role of Google Scholar in bringing research information within reach of ordinary internet users. The importance of accuracy, authority, provenance and transparency in the presentation of research-based information and the important role that librarians can and should play in optimising the open research discovery experience will be emphasised.
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    "A most exquisite fellow" — William White and an Atlantic world perspective on the seventeenth-century chymical furnace
    (Maney Publishing, 2007) White, Bruce; Woodward, Walter W.
    The seventeenth-century technologist and colonist William White (ca. 1600–73) has been cited as an alchemical tutor to Gabriel Plattes and George Starkey, and hailed as an early modern “wizard of industrial efficiency.” This study — the first that focuses on White individually — pays particular attention to White’s extraordinary reputation for furnace design and manufacture. By examining the sources of knowledge and social connections that enabled White to acquire and disseminate his knowledge of metallurgy, the authors develop a genealogy of fornacic design that extends from the continent to the Atlantic world and back again, connecting White to better known figures such as Cornelis Drebbel and Robert Boyle. By foregrounding, through White, the technology of early modern alchemy, the authors also hope to emphasise the importance of practical craft in the development of the chemical arts.
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    No end in sight: Information skills for academics and researchers
    (Central Queensland University Press, 2004) White, Bruce; Gendall, Rae; Naidoo, Kogi; Danaher, Patrick Alan; Macpherson, Colin; Nouwens, Fons; Orr, Debbie
    This paper follows the genesis, development and delivery of knowledge management seminars aimed at academics and researchers in the university environment who, although they are lifelong learners in their own subject areas, are not necessarily maintaining the currency of their own information-seeking skills.
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