Long-term Friendships Research Articles

From Vernacular to Official—and the Spaces in Between

The shuffle function of my digital music library crafts an amusingly random soundtrack for casual household chores. As I swipe a dusty bookshelf, John Milton Hendricks’s voice pulls me into alert attention. On this track, which occurs on a four-year-old mix CD of the sort that sustains our long-term friendship, John narrates his walk to the Powerhouse to investigate a Mister Indulgence otter contest/fundraiser at this esteemed leather-and-more bar, possibly the first otter contest in the history of San Francisco. With a librarian’s training, an archivist’s instincts, and a dweller’s attention to thick description and detail, John shares the excitement of encountering the flier for the event, his characteristically brisk walking pace laboring his narration. A series of brusque edits shifts us from the street into the scene of the event and takes us across its entire span to the announcement of winner. Our intrepid reporter, himself an author of a chapter on the otter identity and its relation to the figure of the bear, probes with the important question of which came first—a celebration of the otter, or a fundraiser for the Marine Mammal Center? The two organizers and hosts of the event, Sister Anni Coque l’Doo (say it out loud, it goes without saying) and Sister Constance Craving (both members of the decades-old activist group Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence), get pulled into the proceedings. Imagining them bedecked in the frocks, habits, and garish face make-up characteristic of their order, I hear the Sisters describe one of their colleagues’ ongoing work with

China-Asean Relations, September 2013 to December 2013: Chronology of Events

China-Asean Relations, September 2013 to December 2013: Chronology of Events WU Dan (bio) As a research institute based in Singapore, the EAI monitors developments in relations and interactions between China and the individual countries of Southeast Asia as well as the ASEAN grouping as a whole. This material is presented in the form of (1) a chronology of events, and (2) important documents. —the Editors September 2013 2nd The ASEAN-China Transport Ministers’ Special Meeting on Connectivity is held on the sidelines of the 10th China-ASEAN Expo in Nanning, China. China’s Minister of Transport of Yang Chuantang and Lao PDR Minister of Public Works and Transport Sommad Pholsena co-chair the meeting, which sees in-depth discussions on transport connectivity and constructive exchanges of views and ideas between transport ministers of ASEAN and China and representatives from the industry. The ministers consider it opportune to continue to build upon the existing collaborative mechanisms to deepen transport connectivity cooperation as both China and ASEAN member states are working to upgrade the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area and advance negotiations on the “Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership”. In this connection, the ministers have reached the following consensus: (i) to optimise the working mechanism; (ii) to consider establishing a financing platform; (iii) to dovetail with the connectivity master plans of both sides; (iv) to encourage the participation of enterprises in the connectivity cooperation; (v) to strengthen maritime transport connectivity; (vi) to strengthen air connectivity; and (vii) to maintain a balanced development. 3rd Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers his keynote speech titled “Bring the China-ASEAN Strategic Partnership of Long-Term Friendship and Mutually Beneficial Cooperation to a New High” at the 10th China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit in Nanning, China. Li stresses that China and ASEAN need to deepen and upgrade pragmatic cooperation, and push for new progress in the strategic partnership. To this end, Li proposes the following for cooperation: (i) to build an upgraded version of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA); (ii) to promote connectivity; (iii) to enhance financial cooperation; (iv) to carry out maritime cooperation; and (v) to increase people-to-people exchange. 4th China and Singapore hold the Senior Officials Meeting of Joint Committee of Bilateral Cooperation, co-chaired by China’s Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin and Singapore’s Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Trade and Industry Ow Foong Pheng. 11th The East Asia Summit (EAS) Senior Officials Meeting is held in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, and officials from 18 countries, including the 10 ASEAN countries, Australia, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States, attend the meeting. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin leads a delegation to attend the meeting. The senior officials exchange views mainly on the preparation work for the Eighth EAS in October and have reached broad consensus. All parties agree that as a strategic forum “led by the leaders”, the EAS has carried out very productive dialogue and cooperation in major regional and international issues of common concern, enhanced mutual understanding and trust, and promoted the process of regional cooperation in East Asia, since its establishment. The ASEAN-China, Japan, Republic of Korea (10+3) Senior Officials’ Meeting is held on the same day in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. The parties agree to take the ASEAN plus three Leaders’ Meeting as an opportunity to fully review the cooperation in various fields and to plan for the future development, promoting the ASEAN plus three cooperation to a new level. 11th–12th The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Workshop on Measures to Enhance Cyber Security—Legal and Cultural Aspects, which is jointly hosted by China and Malaysia, is held in Beijing. This is the first time that China hosts a workshop on cyber security under the ARF framework. Government officials, experts and scholars from ASEAN countries, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Russia, the US, Canada, Australia and the European Union, as well as officials from the ASEAN secretariat, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and other representatives attend the workshop. In-depth discussions revolve around the latest development in cyber security and regional practice, cyber security capacity...

Johnson and Boswell: a biography of friendship

In this book John Radner examines the fluctuating, close, and complex friendship enjoyed by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, from the day they met in 1763 to the day when Boswell published his monumental Life of Johnson. Drawing on everything Johnson and Boswell wrote to and about the other, this book charts the psychological currents that flowed between them as they scripted and directed their time together, questioned and advised, confided and held back. It explores the key longings and shifting tensions that distinguished this from each man's other long-term friendships, while it tracks in detail how Johnson and Boswell brought each other to life, challenged and confirmed each other, and used their deepening friendship to define and assess themselves. It tells a story that reaches through its specificity into the dynamics of most sustained friendships, with their breaks and reconnections, their silences and fresh intimacies, their continuities and transformations.

Dementia and Friendship: The Quality and Nature of the Relationships That Remain

Friendships are an integral part of the human experience. Yet, dementia often takes a toll on social relationships, and many friends withdraw. This research, however, focuses on friendships that remain, despite a diagnosis of dementia. It examines the quality of the friendships of people with dementia and long-term friendships. Data were collected through focus group interviews with people with early stage dementia and their care partners, and through interviews with designated friends. The findings show that people with dementia do have friends that remain and they have a wide variety of friendships, from those based on one shared activity to those of multifaceted deep relationships. The long-term friendships, which last across the various stages of dementia, appear to fall into two types: one, where the person with dementia has become more like a family member than a friend (suffusion); and the other where the diagnosis of dementia was the impetus for the relationship to become closer (progressive friendship).

Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic

Challenges in Comparative Oral Epic John Miles Foley (bio) and Chao Gejin (bio) Introduction (by Chao Gejin, November 2012) The present paper was composed by the late John Miles Foley and myself more than ten years ago, during the time I held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri granted by the Ford Foundation. We met frequently on campus, discussing issues covering a wide range of topics, especially oral epic traditions. During these conversations, we recognized the need to write something in response to significant challenges in epic studies that would illustrate the richness and diversity of epic traditions in particular. With these goals in mind, we started to work on this piece together two or three afternoons each week throughout the summer of 2001, sitting side by side, composing paragraph by paragraph, and incorporating examples and scholarship from our respective experiences and backgrounds. We moved forward steadily and eventually fulfilled our plan. A Chinese version of this article appeared in 2003 in a collection of papers focusing especially on Oriental Literature.1 At the time, it provoked reflections on basic dimensions of epic poetry and, furthermore, facilitated multiple ways of understanding epic, moving beyond a purely Homeric criterion of epic poetry. At a personal level as well as professional, I highly regard this paper because it reflects both our long-term friendship and our common interests. John made his first trip to China soon after I returned to Beijing. He delivered lectures in our institute, conducted field trips to Inner Mongolia, and visited a number of scholars working on related research. As a result of these early collaborations, his own compositions began to include additional Mongolian examples, such as the singers Choibang and Losor, among others. From then on, he visited China regularly. He was the first speaker to initiate the yearly “IEL International Seminar Series on Epic Studies and Oral Tradition Research,” and he held appointments within the Institute of Ethnic Literature, most notably as chief advisor of the “Center for Oral Tradition Research.” It was a great misfortune that our newly designed program on oral tradition and the Internet with partners in Missouri, Helsinki, and Beijing was interrupted by John’s unexpected absence. Still, the blueprint of this international program will be followed and fulfilled without a doubt. His cutting-edge thoughts will continue to shed light on our explorations. In Mongolian epic tradition a true Baatar (“hero”) would never truly pass away. John is, by any measure, just such a Baatar, and he, too, shall be with us forever. An Overview of the Study In this paper we propose to examine some fundamental issues in comparative oral epic. Our investigation will proceed across four epic traditions widely separated in space and time. Two of them, the Mongolian and South Slavic epic, are or were recently still living and therefore observable by fieldworkers. The other two, the ancient Greek and Old English epic traditions, are preserved only in manuscript form. Although no comparative treatment can ever claim to be exhaustive or universal, we feel that these four witnesses represent considerable diversity and collectively offer a chance to forge a suitably nuanced model for oral epic. We welcome responses from scholars in other fields, especially Africanists, as we all search for ways to understand the international phenomenon of oral epic.2 In order to provide a clear path through this complex subject, we propose a five-section structure, with each section keyed by a question that reflects an issue of contemporary importance. Thus the paper will begin by asking “What is a poem in oral epic tradition?” Scholars have argued from many different perspectives about the large-scale organization of oral epic; are the smaller tales integral parts of a single whole, facets of a single gemstone, or simply individual narratives that collectors have assembled into “anthologies” based on a literary model? On a slightly smaller scale, we will then consider the question of “What is a typical scene or theme in oral epic tradition?” The focus here will be on those recurrent passages, such as the arming of a hero or the boast before battle, that epic bards use as “large words” in their tale-telling...

‘We just stick together’: how disabled teens negotiate stigma to create lasting friendship

Friendship is a crucial relationship offering practical support, enjoyment and improved health. When disability is added into the mix, the permutations of friendship shift. Despite the presence of inclusive social policies many disabled teens continue to experience stigma and social isolation, yet some teens are able to establish long-term friendships. A nuanced understanding about how disabled teens navigate stigma to create lasting friendships was constructed through this qualitative study. Seven boys and seven girls between the ages 15 to 20 years who experienced disability engaged in research interviews and participant observation sessions. Nine adults were also interviewed. A critical approach to data analysis was complimented by coding in Atlas.ti. This article describes the strategies used by these disabled teens to make and keep friends: disrupting norms about friendship, coming out as disabled, connecting through stigma and choosing self-exclusion. Disabled teens in this study felt a greater sense of belonging when with peers who shared the disability experience, thus self-exclusion was a viable strategy for creating sustainable friendships in the context of oppression. Social policy informed by the experiences of disabled youth in the current study will more effectively promote social inclusion by first acknowledging and then disrupting ableism.

Perspectives of the social and economic cooperation among the SCO member states in condition of globalization

The paper discusses the main directions of the social and economic cooperation among SCO member states in trade, economic and investment spheres, and transport-communication potential of the region. On the example of The Republic of Uzbekistan, it is discussed the priorities of the social and economic development, such as the modernization of industry and competitiveness, the increase of investment, the development of the transport system, as well as the project of a free industrial economic zone in the context of the SCO member states. The author shows that the equal and mutually beneficial cooperation in the SCO framework in various areas of economic cooperation has to be developed, which in fact confirms the expectations of its role as a key element of strengthening of the economic security and stability, and the harmonization of the integration processes in the region. Also, the article examines the legal framework of cooperation in the SCO framework, such as the Treaty on the long-term friendship and cooperation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which establishes the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the borders of the SCO countries, peaceful resolution of differences and disputes, as well as mutual respect for the choice of the path of political, economic, social and cultural development, according to national circumstances of each state.

In Memoriam: David Judson Sencer, A Public Health Giant

In Memoriam: David Judson Sencer, A Public Health Giant

Maintaining friendships in early stage dementia: Factors to consider

Friendships and the importance of social connectiveness play a critical role in aging well, regardless of gender, race, social class, or impairment. Yet, dementia takes its toll on social relationships, and many friends withdraw and ‘disappear’, because they can no longer bear to see the changes that are taking place in their diagnosed friend. The dementia care literature documents this abandonment; however, this study examines the opposite occurrence. In order to understand more clearly the role of long-term friendships and how such friendships remain and continue, despite the diagnosis of dementia, this qualitative study examines in depth eight people in the early stages of dementia who have been able to maintain strong friendships despite the diagnosis. Factors that seem to play important roles are: (1) the importance of the friendships, (2) factors affecting the quality of the relationships, (3) mutually beneficial relationships, (4) core values, (5) acceptance and disclosure, and (6) recognition of strengths and understanding of limitations.

Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer (review)

Reviewed by: Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer Judy Rosenbaum (bio) Robin McKinley: Girl Reader, Woman Writer. By Evelyn M. Perry. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2011. Because of Robin McKinley’s depiction of strong heroines, her status as a Newbery Medal winner, and her role in the development of the contemporary novelized fairy tale, she merits a book-length study, and Evelyn Perry and Scarecrow Press have provided a valuable one. This detailed examination discusses McKinley’s settings and narrative structure, as well as her use of strong female protagonists in fantasy stories. The fact that at this point Perry’s book seems to be the only full-length work devoted to McKinley gives it extra value. The study is full of McKinley’s personality and those of her creations. Because Perry’s straightforward method of examining the stories is to provide a comprehensive analytical summary of each work, the characters of Harry (Angharad) Crewe, Aerin, Catriona, Rosie, and both incarnations of Beauty are revealed in all their unique, active splendor. Perry also provides information about McKinley’s influences, including her peripatetic childhood as part of a naval family, which resulted in her establishing long-term friendships with story characters more often than with people; the tales she devoured as a child; and authors active today, including her husband and occasional literary collaborator, Peter Dickinson. Perry is thorough in her treatment of both McKinley’s short-story collections and her full-length novels. Perry’s lucid presentation [End Page 353] enables readers to get a full picture of McKinley’s writings for themselves, and it also points them to a deeper exploration of the actual works. Perry admirably elaborates on McKinley’s beliefs and stances rather than superimposing a framework based on her own theses. Most fundamentally, McKinley has gone on record, notably in her Newbery acceptance speech, regarding her intent to portray active heroines. Perry provides many concrete illustrations of how McKinley accomplishes this goal. She deals with other issues as well, such as McKinley’s take on postcolonialism (chiefly in The Blue Sword; McKinley states on her Web site that the inspiration for this novel is Kipling’s story “The Man Who Would Be King”—which starred male protagonists, of course). Plainly, Perry is sympathetic to McKinley’s belief in a central role for girls and women, as her wording shows again and again. But she allows McKinley and her characters to speak for themselves. Generally speaking, women authors who love adventure stories take one of two paths. Some, such as Rosemary Sutcliff, use settings, often in earlier historical eras, that are completely male dominated, and they self-identify with a male protagonist time after time. It seems that they feel they can only transcend the perceived limitations of womanhood in such milieus by taking on the persona of a boy or a man. So intense is their adoption of the male viewpoint that they might not feature any main female characters in their books at all. Rather, their stories typically involve a military or political milieu that’s as exclusionary as the proverbial “No Girls Allowed” secret clubhouse. Sutcliff is a peerless writer, and her multitudes of devoted female fans, including me, have no problem identifying with her heroes. But it’s nice to not always have to assume the mindset of the opposite sex when one reads a thrilling tale. Authors such as Robin McKinley understand the need for “girl readers” to identify with a female adventurer. These writers create exciting stories starring a girl or a young woman. As Perry shows, McKinley, who “considered books among her greatest and most constant friends” (xiii), grew up loving adventure stories, principally those by Kipling and Tolkien (as McKinley herself says in the FAQ section of her Web site, <www.robinmckinley.com>). Those two men wrote with a lot of vitality, but depicted few women. McKinley set out to create tales in that exciting vein, but she put girls or young women at the center of the action. Interestingly, both McKinley and Rosemary Sutcliff have cited Kipling as a key influence and inspiration. Even McKinley’s more traditional heroines have a nontraditional aspect. Her first book, Beauty (1978...

Review of Harald Krebs and Sharon Krebs, Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (Oxford University Press, 2007)

[1.1] My songs are my diary.[1.2 ][Composing songs] is a rampant weed within me that cannot be exterminated...[2] These two quotations from nineteenth-century German composer Josephine Lang (1815-1880) underscore her life. Lang's statement that her songs served as her diary drives Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs by Harald Krebs and Sharon Krebs. The authors end their introduction with this thought; they organize the chapters by alternating sections of biography and contemporaneous songs, and they conclude the book with an extensive exploration of possible interpretations of the phrase. The second quotation is from a letter written around 1861 to poet Eduard Eyth, in which Lang compares composing to the admirable qualities of weeds: they spring up abundantly amidst adversity. These qualities were true for Lang, who persevered despite challenging circumstances, and for this book, a culmination of many studies by Harald and Sharon Krebs about Josephine Lang that displays a wealth of material in several formats.(1)[3] Ostensibly I am writing a book review, but in reality the Krebses have produced a book with very useful exterior sections, a CD of the authors' performances of thirty songs by Lang, and URLs for related websites that augment this material. Josephine Lang is well served by this abundance.[4] The seven numbered chapters of the book are preceded by a relatively short Introduction. The Introduction captures the thrill of the authors' chase for Lang's manuscripts, a chase spread over time and locations and compounded by the task of transcribing the documents. The Introduction summarizes existing scholarship about Lang and concludes with the reasserted voice of the Krebses as they use Lang's remark that her songs are her diary to lay out their format of interspersing sections on her life with her songs. The authors set a wide scope and warm tone for the book, with a unified voice expressed as we.[5] Chapters 1 through 6 cover Lang's life, and Chapter 7 puts her life and work into perspective. The biographical chapters introduce her family's musical heritage in Munich, including several female musicians. Lang's meeting with Mendelssohn, which occurred as he passed through Munich during his Grand Tour in 1830, was fortuitous. Mendelssohn's high esteem for Lang-based on hearing her perform several of her songs-induced him to offer her professional assistance ranging from short-term lessons in harmony and counterpoint to long-term friendship and advice until his death in 1847; he helped her publish some of her songs, and he commended her to other musicians. Chapters 2 through 4 cover Lang's coming of age and her relationship with Christian Reinhold Kostlin, a complex man who died after their fourteen-year marriage and left her with six children. Chapters 5 and 6 depict Josephine's life after the demise of her husband until her own death. She faced great challenges during these years: money was scarce, two of her children died while three others moved away after marrying, and her own health was poor. Artistically, she sought strength to continue composing (ironically, her illnesses afforded her time to compose), and to find wider acceptance of her songs. Her friendships with Clara Schumann and, particularly, the conductor Ferdinand Hiller, helped to sustain her. Hiller, who knew Lang through Mendelssohn, published a biographical essay about Lang; although the essay took seven years to produce, it had the desired effect of increasing public interest in her music and stimulating financial assistance for her.[6] The Krebses's discussions of Lang's songs in these six chapters form an equal strand to the biographical sections, offering analyses sensitive to music and text.(2) The musical analysis shifts the focus among form, harmony, rhythm and meter (incorporating Harald Krebs's hallmark topics of hypermeter and metrical dissonance),(3) and range and register. …

Context and companionship in children’s short-term versus long-term friendships

Children ( N = 341) and their mothers participated in interviews when children were in fourth and fifth grades. Mothers and children worked together to identify children’s friends across various contexts of their lives. Children rated the companionship of each friendship and friendships were coded as either short term or long term. Higher levels of companionship were associated with increased odds of a friendship being long term, as was a friendship being maintained within the contexts of neighborhood, family friend, relative-as-friend, and efforts of parents. A friendship being maintained in more contexts was associated with increased odds of the friendship being long term. The findings are discussed in terms of implications for the understanding and support of children’s friendships.

The Politics and Poetics of Sisterhood: Anna Mary Howitt's The Sisters in Art

The Politics and Poetics of Sisterhood:Anna Mary Howitt's The Sisters in Art Alexandra Wettlaufer (bio) The emergence of the professional female painter during the Victorian period was notably tied to political as well as economic and aesthetic concerns. As Deborah Cherry reminds us, art "became a battleground for intense debates about the role of women in contemporary society" when the 1840s and 1850s produced a number of young women who became both "artists and activists" (Beyond the Frame 11). As women entered the field of cultural production in unprecedented numbers during the Victorian era, many self-consciously constructed an artistic identity that engaged with larger issues of representation, gender, labour, education, and collectivity. Striking in these works of the 1840s to the 1860s is the common desire to shift away from the idea of the "exceptional woman" as artist—embodied in Mme de Staël's fictitious Corinne and the real-life careers of eighteenth-century painters Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and Angelica Kauffman—and to forge a definition of art that could encompass all women—not just singular and exceptional women—in its norms and hierarchies. For, as Mary Sheriff so eloquently demonstrates, "separation from other women is the price a woman pays for her exceptionalness" while she is "managed, contained and controlled" in order to prevent the exception from becoming the rule (Exceptional Woman 2-3). Although Sheriff explores the ways in which the exceptional woman "contained subversive potential" ("So What Are You" 49), the exceptional woman's singularity is nonetheless always part of the equation. In a departure from the paradigms established at the end of the eighteenth century, a significant number of women in the nineteenth century embraced the ideal of sisterhood as an important component of female artistic identity and advancement. This communal ideal became a popular trope in British women's fiction (see, for example, Auerbach; Marcus; Rogers), and at the same time, the very word sisterhood resonated not only with familial overtones1 but also with religious ones closely tied to charitable and reform work through the Anglican and Catholic churches.2 In this latter sense, sisterhood became associated both with communal labour and with female spiritual community, and, as Dinah Craik reflected in her essay "On Sisterhood" (on a friend's becoming an Anglican sister), "entering a Sisterhood, almost any sort of Sisterhood where there was work to do, authority to compel the doing of it, and companionship to sweeten the same, would have saved many a woman from a lunatic asylum" [End Page 129] (55). Martha Vicinus notes that the religious sisterhoods "were clearly in the vanguard of women's single-sex organizations" at mid-century and "offered examples of fully trained and educated single women dedicated to nursing, teaching, and good works. They also demonstrated the greater effectiveness of women working in organized groups" (48, 46). Accordingly, sisterhoods set the stage for a growing demand for expanded educational opportunities for women and signalled the powerful potential of female collective engagement in the social (and by extension the political) realm. For Anna Mary Howitt and her cohort of self-proclaimed "sisters in art," the politics and poetics of sisterhood were further shaped by the contemporaneous Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, which served as both an inspiration and a symbol of exclusion. Loosely affiliated with the group both as a painter and as a writer, Howitt maintained a long-term friendship with D.G. Rossetti, and, as a casual but affectionate drawing from 1852 attests, Rossetti appreciated Anna Mary's passionate intensity. Like the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Howitt and her friends embraced the desire for a socially engaged art, the belief in the strong connection between work and identity, a spiritual impetus for art, and a commitment to collaboration. Thematically and stylistically, the paintings and poems of the art sisterhood reflected an undeniably Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic, yet despite these intersections and their participation in some of the group's activities,3 women were never considered members of the fraternity. As Jason Rosenfeld has documented, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was "an insistently patriarchal construction" (72), and like the fraternal associations of the period (trade guilds, compagnonnages, Masonic orders, Gesellenverbande), the artistic brotherhood was...

“If you can walk down the street and recognise the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, the world is altogether a better place”: Being Enthusiastic about Industrial Archaeology

“If you can walk down the street and recognise the difference between cast iron and wrought iron, the world is altogether a better place”: Being Enthusiastic about Industrial Archaeology

Retooling the Profession: Librarianship in an Era of Accountability and Competition

Librarianship has changed substantially in recent years. We who work in libraries must continually acquire new knowledge and skills. We must adapt to the reality that academic libraries, along with their parent institutions, face increased accountability. The functions that many of us have thought to be at the core of our profession are slipping from our grasp and will leave behind a mere managerial role. Nevertheless, many academic libraries will find a viable future by adopting and taking seriously the role of supporting learning. As we look at disruptive innovators in the information and learning scene, we should consider carefully whether to treat them as competitors or partners. Our libraries’ prospects will be bright if we learn to analyze data, make evidence-based decisions, and communicate to our constituents the value that our libraries create. And while many emerging technologies vie for implementation, we must exercise Christian judgment regarding their ultimate value. Good morning! I’d like to thank the conference planning committee for inviting me to address you today. I’m entering my 14th season of involvement with the Association of Christian Librarians (ACL). I first attended an ACL conference at Cedarville University in 1996, and I’ve managed to do so ten more times since then. To a large extent I have to give credit to ACL for influencing my professional development. Encouragement from fellow members has led me to publish articles and present workshops over the years. My book, Christian Librarianship, was conceived during a conversation at the 1999 conference. Networking through ACL helped me secure a job at Liberty University in 2003. And the care and concern of members has been the basis for some long-term friendships. This morning I’d like to share seven propositions that summarize trends in, and prospects for the future of, librarianship— especially academic librarianship. The first of these propositions is fairly easy to appreciate. #1: Change is a constant What I mean by this is that librarianship has changed substantially over the past five years. I was told in graduate school that the “shelf life” of an MLS degree, without continuing professional development, was five years. With that in mind, I’d like us to take a look at some of the changes that have occurred in the world of libraries since mid-2004. In June 2004 Amazon’s Search Inside the BookTM feature was relatively new, having been introduced in October of the previous year. Five years ago we weren’t experiencing overuse of FacebookTM in our libraries; in fact, in March 2004 that service had just expanded from its first campus, Harvard, to three additional campuses: Stanford, Columbia, and Yale. In April 2004 Wikipedia® had 250,000 English-language articles. The entry for Barack Obama consisted of three paragraphs and four links. In May of this year, Wikipedia® had 2.9 million English articles— an 11-fold increase over five years! GoogleTM Scholar was released in beta in November 2004. It’s still in beta, but that hasn’t stopped it from playing an important role in research. The very next month we were treated to another surprise: the library digitization component of GoogleTM Books—known then as GoogleTM Print. GoogleTM Books is still in beta, too, but it has certainly begun to exert a lot of influence in the realm of library practice. The free version of Worldcat® was launched at worldcat.org in August 2006. I daresay that this service is used heavily by librarians as well as library users. Back in 2004 kindle was something

Media use and relational closeness in long-term friendships: interpreting patterns of multimodality

Although most friendships use a variety of media to stay in touch, many studies have ignored the multimodality of social life. This study uses media niche theory to consider: changes in patterns of media use across time, which modalities tend to be used in association with other modalities; and the association between specific modalities and relational closeness. Data assessing modality usage and degree of friendship closeness were collected on best friendship pairs in 1987 and 2002. The results suggest that postal mail use has declined between 1987 and 2002, telephone contact has become a particularly potent predictor of relational closeness, and face-to-face contact is a less stable indicator of closeness. Intimacy and efficiency or convenience emerge as two potentially important constructs for understanding how modalities are used for maintaining relational closeness.

The Relationship Between Mothers’ Social Networks and Severe Domestic Violence: A Test of the Social Isolation Hypothesis

To understand the relationship between characteristics of mothers' social networks and domestic violence, battered mothers who were severely assaulted were compared to battered mothers who were not severely assaulted and mothers who were not assaulted. The results showed that all three groups of mothers had several family members in their social networks with whom they had frequent contact during the past month. No differences were found between the groups on the number of family members who gave emotional support. However, the mothers who were severely assaulted had fewer friends, fewer contacts with their friends, fewer long-term friendships, and fewer friends who really listened to them than did the nonbattered mothers and the battered mothers who were not severely assaulted. Batterers may be more successful in disrupting friendship ties than family ties.

How Do Friendships Form?

We examine how people form social networks among their peers. We use a unique data set that tells us the volume of email between any two people in the sample. The data are from students and recent graduates of Dartmouth College. First-year students interact with peers in their immediate proximity and form long-term friendships with a subset of these people. This result is consistent with a model in which the expected value of interacting with an unknown person is low (making traveling solely to meet new people unlikely), while the benefits from interacting with the same person repeatedly are high. Geographic proximity and race are greater determinants of social interaction than are common interests, majors, or family background. Two randomly chosen White students interact three times more often than do a Black student and a White student. However, placing the Black and White student in the same freshman dorm increases their frequency of interaction by a factor of three. A traditional “linear in group means” model of peer ability is only a reasonable approximation to the ability of actual peers chosen when we form the groups around all key factors including distance, race and cohort.

History versus Geography: The Role of College Interaction in Portfolio Choice and Stock Market Prices

We study the link between portfolio choice and different college-based interaction - defined as the one that relates the portfolio choice of an investor to that of the other investors who went to the same college. We explain it in terms of a common cultural imprinting and the development of long-term friendship and alumni network and we directly quantify this bonding effect. We use a new dataset with information on portfolio choice - broken down at the stock level - wealth, income and demographic characteristics of a big panel of investors as well as information on the college they attended and their family situation at the time. We compare college-based interaction to other forms of social interaction, such as educational, professional and geographical interaction, properly controlling for all the standard motivations of portfolio theory, such as hedging of non-financial income risk, familiarity and information effects, wealth and income effect, a host of demographic, geographic and professional dummies, trend-chasing and momentum behavior. All the different sources of social interaction significantly affect stock-picking as well as the choice between direct and delegated investment, both statistically and economically. College-based interaction is, however, the most important of them and the third single most important factor affecting stock picking. The impact of college-based interaction aggregates at the market level and affects stock prices. For each company, we construct measures of the degree of strength of college-based interaction among shareholders. We show that an increase in the strength of interaction reduces stock return and volatility. This can be rationalized in terms of recent theories on the impact of dispersion of beliefs in the presence of short-sale constraints.

Do Bubbles Have a Birthdate? The Role of College Interaction in Portfolio Choice

We study the link between social interaction and stock market bubbles. We argue that an increase in social interaction may facilitate the birth of a cascade-type pattern and indirectly of a bubble. We concentrate on a form of interaction that is rooted back in the past: college-based interaction - defined as the one that relates the portfolio choice of an investor to that of the other investors who went to the same college. We explain it in terms of a common cultural imprinting and the development of long-term friendship and alumni networks and we directly quantify this bonding effect. We study how it affects bubble-related portfolio decisions: the choice to focus in growth stocks, the decision to invest in a particular stock, the choice to herd and the decision to concentrate the portfolio in few stocks. We use a new dataset with information on portfolio choice - broken down at the stock level - wealth, income and demographic characteristics of a big panel of investors as well as information on the college they attended and their family situation at the time. We show that the impact of college-based interaction is statistically and economically significant. Investors invest in the same stocks in which their former classmates do and skew their portfolios towards growth stocks if their former classmates do the same. Moreover, investors are more likely to herd with the other investors who went to the same college than with the rest of the population. College-based interaction also affects investors' decision to concentrate their portfolios in few stocks. College-based interaction is stronger than the other sources of interaction (professional and geographical) and ranks third as the single most important factor affecting portfolio choice, with an explanatory power higher than that of all standard determinants of portfolio choice, such as hedging non-financial income risk, information and familiarity and so on. This holds even after controlling for all the standard motivations brought forward in portfolio theory, such as hedging of non-financial income risk, familiarity and information effects, wealth and income effect, a host of demographic, geographic and professional dummies, trend-chasing and momentum behavior.