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Books in Social sciences

The Social Sciences collection forms a definitive resource for those entering, researching, or teaching in any of the many disciplines making up this interdisciplinary area of study. Written by experts and researchers from both Academic and Commercial domains, titles offer global scope and perspectives.

Key subject areas include: Library and Information Science; Transportation; Urban Studies; Geography, Planning, and Development; Security; Emergency Management.

  • Research 2.0 and the Future of Information Literacy

    • 1st Edition
    • Tibor Koltay + 2 more
    • English
    Research 2.0 and the Future of Information Literacy examines possible congruencies between information literacy and Research 2.0, because the work of today’s researcher mobilizes a number of literacies. From among the various types of relevant literacies, at least three types of literacies can be mentioned in this relation: information literacy, scientific literacy and academic literacy. This book addresses these literacies in the light of the changing research landscape. Broad contexts of the researcher’s abilities, as adaptive and innovative thinking, problem solving skills, self-management and design mindset are also examined. Computational thinking and the computational paradigm in a number of fields of research are taken into consideration, as well. Researchers differ to non-researchers when populating social media, which means that these two different groups require different literacies. The relationship between information literacy and information is approached in a new way. Among the multitude of issues, we introduce a new interface between information literacy and Research 2.0. It encompasses the issues of research data management and data literacy, which represent also a challenge both for the academic library and for the communities of researchers. Similarly, the questions of new metrics of scientific output are addressed in the book.
  • Maximizing Electronic Resources Management in Libraries

    Applying Business Process Management
    • 1st Edition
    • Lenore England + 1 more
    • English
    Maximizing Electronic Resources Management in Libraries: Applying Business Process Management examines the use of Business Process Management (BPM) and the ways it can be beneficially applied to electronic resources management (ERM) to help organize processes in libraries. The book offers librarians a skillset that will make them ready for a variety of library environments. It focuses on the organizational tools offered by BPM, including key elements of ERM functions that lay the groundwork for the present and future use of ERM, and how they will drive methods by which libraries provide access to resources. BPM theories are then reviewed, along with a discussion of present applications of BPM to ERM and a final look at possibilities for future applications.
  • Researching Developing Countries

    A Data Resource Guide for Social Scientists
    • 1st Edition
    • Forrest Daniel Wright
    • English
    Why are some countries rich while others are poor? Why are some well governed while others experience frequent conflict? And how do you measure a country’s true success anyways? Social scientists have attempted to answer these types of questions for decades, and have increasingly turned to data for this task. Researching Developing Countries: A Data Resource Guide for Social Scientists serves as a reference guide for social scientists and students interested in answering these complex questions. The book will also be helpful to librarians serving the social science disciplines. Topics covered in the book include: human development, economics, governance, conflict, demographics, migration and refugees, environment, foreign aid, energy and infrastructure, innovation and entrepreneurship, geography and urban development, and public opinion.
  • The Mindful Librarian

    Connecting the Practice of Mindfulness to Librarianship
    • 1st Edition
    • Richard Moniz + 4 more
    • English
    The Mindful Librarian: Connecting the Practice of Mindfulness to Librarianship explores mindfulness, approaching it in such a way as to relate specifically to the many roles or challenges librarians face. Coinciding with the increased need to juggle a variety of tasks, technologies, ebooks, and databases, the new Association of College & Research Libraries Framework for Information Literacy, and the challenges faced by solo librarians in school libraries which have suffered cutbacks in help in recent years, the time is exactly right for this publication. The authors hope to be helpful in some small way towards improving the joy and quality of life that librarians and library science students experience in their personal lives and jobs. The loftier goal would be to create a new lens from which to view librarianship, having a transformative impact on readers, and opening a new dialog within the profession. The topic of mindfulness is not new; it has been connected to various religious traditions in a wide variety of ways for centuries, most notably Buddhism. In the latter part of the 20th century, however, a secular version was popularized largely by the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn and his work on MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) at the University of Massachusetts’s Medical School. The medical benefits and the overall quality of life improvements from its adoption have exploded in recent years, in particular, the last two decades which have seen mindfulness traditions incorporated into education to a greater degree and with very positive results.
  • Forensic Plant Science

    • 1st Edition
    • Jane H Bock + 1 more
    • English
    Forensic botany is the application of plant science to the resolution of legal questions. A plant’s anatomy and its ecological requirements are in some cases species specific and require taxonomic verification; correct interpretation of botanical evidence can give vital information about a crime scene or a suspect or victim. The use of botanical evidence in legal investigations in North America is relatively recent. The first botanical testimony to be heard in a North American court concerned the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby boy and the conviction of Bruno Hauptmann in 1935. Today, forensic botany encompasses numerous subdisciplines of plant science, such as plant anatomy, taxonomy, ecology, palynology, and diatomology, and interfaces with other disciplines, e.g., molecular biology, limnology and oceanography.Forensi... Plant Science presents chapters on plant science evidence, plant anatomy, plant taxonomic evidence, plant ecology, case studies for all of the above, as well as the educational pathways for the future of forensic plant science.
  • Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

    • 1st Edition
    • Ramesh Sivanpillai
    • English
    Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks, and Disasters provides an integrated look at major impacts to the Earth’s biosphere. Many of these are caused by diseases, algal blooms, insects, animals, species extinction, deforestation, land degradation, and comet and asteroid strikes that have important implications for humans. This volume, from Elsevier’s Hazards and Disasters Series, provides an in-depth view of threats, ranging from microscopic organisms to celestial objects. Perspectives from both natural and social sciences provide an in-depth understanding of potential impacts.
  • Emotions, Technology, and Learning

    • 1st Edition
    • Sharon Y. Tettegah + 1 more
    • English
    Research suggests two important roles of emotion related to learning and technology. First, emotion can be the key factor that is being learned or taught through technological means. Second, emotional responses with and through technology can alter what is being learned or how the content is learned. The goal of this volume is to compile and synthesize research that addresses these two perspectives by focusing on the relationship between emotion and learning as facilitated by technology. The book is divided into four sections to represent the specific interest related to emotion and learning: Theory and Overview of Emotions and Learning; Emotions and Learning Online; Technology for Emotional Pedagogy with Students; and Technology of Emotional Pedagogy with Teachers.
  • The Crime Scene

    A Visual Guide
    • 1st Edition
    • Marilyn T. Miller + 1 more
    • English
    The Crime Scene: A Visual Guide provides visual instruction on the correct way to process a crime scene. While the primary crime scene comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by crime scene investigators (CSIs), forensic scientists, or law enforcement personnel, this book also covers secondary and often tertiary crime scenes, all locations where there is the potential for the recovery of evidence. By using photographs and other diagrams to show proper and improper procedures, the reader will learn how to identify the correct principles required to process a scene. The book presents chapters on the investigation, the varying types of documentation, and the tactics used to connect events through crime scene reconstruction using evidence The book's authors have a combined experience of over 70 years in crime scene investigation as primary responders and consultants giving testimony in all levels of the U.S. court system. In addition, both teach forensic science and crime scene investigation at the university level.
  • Practical Deployment of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)

    Real-World Examples of AAA Deployments
    • 1st Edition
    • Andy Richter + 1 more
    • English
    With the proliferation of mobile devices and bring-your-own-devic... (BYOD) within enterprise networks, the boundaries of where the network begins and ends have been blurred. Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) is the leading security policy management platform that unifies and automates access control to proactively enforce role-based access to enterprise networks. In Practical Deployment of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE), Andy Richter and Jeremy Wood share their expertise from dozens of real-world implementations of ISE and the methods they have used for optimizing ISE in a wide range of environments. ISE can be difficult, requiring a team of security and network professionals, with the knowledge of many different specialties. Practical Deployment of Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) shows you how to deploy ISE with the necessary integration across multiple different technologies required to make ISE work like a system. Andy Richter and Jeremy Wood explain end-to-end how to make the system work in the real world, giving you the benefit of their ISE expertise, as well as all the required ancillary technologies and configurations to make ISE work.
  • Managing eBook Metadata in Academic Libraries

    Taming the Tiger
    • 1st Edition
    • Donna E Frederick
    • English
    Managing ebook Metadata in Academic Libraries: Taming the Tiger tackles the topic of ebooks in academic libraries, a trend that has been welcomed by students, faculty, researchers, and library staff. However, at the same time, the reality of acquiring ebooks, making them discoverable, and managing them presents library staff with many new challenges. Traditional methods of cataloging and managing library resources are no longer relevant where the purchasing of ebooks in packages and demand driven acquisitions are the predominant models for acquiring new content. Most academic libraries have a complex metadata environment wherein multiple systems draw upon the same metadata for different purposes. This complexity makes the need for standards-based interoperable metadata more important than ever. In addition to complexity, the nature of the metadata environment itself typically varies slightly from library to library making it difficult to recommend a single set of practices and procedures which would be relevant to, and effective in, all academic libraries. Considering all of these factors together, it is not surprising when academic libraries find it difficult to create and manage the metadata for their ebook collections. This book is written as a guide for metadata librarians, other technical services librarians, and ancillary library staff who manage ebook collections to help them understand the requirements for ebook metadata in their specific library context, to create a vision for ebook metadata management, and to develop a plan which addresses the relevant issues in metadata management at all stages of the lifecycle of ebooks in academic libraries from selection, to deselection or preservation.