Involuntary childlessness effects one in every ten couples
[info]cavlec
Childlessness brings about considerable changes in women's - and men's - lives. These included career changes, a shift in "spiritual understanding", and sometimes an ability to find fulfillment in other avenues. Dr Helen Macallan, is the author of the study and a counseling psychologist from Springfield Hospital, Tooting, south-west London.

"People who have children often don't understand that infertility is an on-going pain," Dr Macallan added. She said: "The trend for women to postpone having children until later in life means more and more will have to face the possibility of life without children." Providing emotional support for infertile women should be a priority because helping them through a difficult transition was also crucial to helping them move beyond their childlessness.

A future world without kids?
[info]cavlec

How the world would be without children and only adults all around? That’s really something impossible. Without kids can the generation continue? But we wonder how the future would be if the number of people opting for childless by choice go on increasing every year.

For the age 25 to 29, 28 percent were childless in 1998, up from 16 percent in 1976; for 30- to 34-year-olds, it was 20 percent, compared with 11 percent in 1976; for 40- to 44-year-olds, 19 percent were childless, up from 10 percent in 1976. And for the 21st century, the percentage has increased dramatically compared to the above.

From the data it seems like childless by choice would continue and would go on as long as people with the thoughts to be childfree exists......

Merry Christmas
[info]cavlec
                                Merry Christmas!!!
 

Wish You All A Merry Christmas And Happy Holidays.

Santa’s visit to the Cottonwood Community Library
[info]cavlec
santa claus

This particular week being the busiest week of the year for Santa, he and Mrs. Claus found some time out of their busy schedule to have some fun in the Cottonwood Community Library during the Story time.

The cute little voices of the children raised in song about Santa Claus,they welcomed the jolly man and his lovely wife as they made their entry into the library. Santa was adorned out in his customary red suit with the white fur trim, while Mrs. Claus was looking especially cheerful in her red dress and eyelet apron, dust cap and fancy black boots.

The children quickly warmed up to Santa and soon were busy asking queries about the elves, the reindeer and about Santa's eating habits.

Santa had a bag of toys with him, so each child was able to go home with a special gift chosen especially for them by Santa.

The Alexandria Library
[info]cavlec
The Library of Alexandria is probably the most famous and the largest library of the Ancient World. It is situated in Alexandria, Egypt. The Alexandria Library is unique among the other Egyptian sandy sculptures. Its main concerns are to conserve the Egyptian culture and the effects of Egypt on the rest of the world. They also provide the best possible sources to its patrons through the digital revolution.The great Library of Alexandria was a foundation of the first Ptolemies which was maintained to conserve the Greek civilization. It was once destroyed partially four times but still survives with its most assets even today.

Once this library had a collection over 5,00,000 books in the history. This library was even burnt down by Amr bin Aas at the behest of the Second Caliph, Umar. This library site was named as the Worlds first major seat of learning.

The Alexandria Library moved its chronological and genealogical collections to the Lloyd House in 1976 as the collection outgrew the space it had in the Barrett Library. Alexandria library rises again.

The British Library- A great resource
[info]cavlec
If you got time even if an hour visit the British Library which is next to (west-side of) St. Pancras station. The British library was established in 1973 and is known as the national library of the United Kingdom, The British Library is a forerunner in the field of information preservation. They hold over 150 million pieces of material in their compilation and are offered in several languages.

The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the Worlds greatest libraries. It established galleries formerly in the British Museum building, it moved to its spectacular flagship new home at St Pancras in Central London in 1997.

This Library holds the second place in the list of must see places in the London after the Tower of London. The British library holds a record in the Guinness Book as “Worlds Largest Library” in terms of the largest number of books in its collection. It has a collection of the world’s oldest dated printed books and the only surviving manuscript copy of Beowulf and other historical manuscripts and books. It has free exhibits at the ground floor which displays the featured holy books of the three major religions of the world.

The John Ritblat Gallery includes Gutenberg Bible, ancient texts, scientist’s notebooks/writings, Shakespeare texts, Beatles texts, etc that you must see.

A light on Famous Libraries in the world
[info]cavlec
I was thinking to talk and give a brief glimpse on the famous libraries around the world. Well.. That would be more interesting with stuffs and new things to get insight. This will be a long journey so be prepared to accompany me till the end. Thanks

More westerners move towards- only two is enough
[info]cavlec
Women are focusing their life towards professional, personal and educational development instead of choosing to remain completely being a family girl.
Western women are enduring childless by choice or childfree as they prefer to call themselves. With the increase in their number, one projection says that one in every five women could be childless in future. The most recent figures show that seven percent of North American women aged 15 to 44 are willingly childless while for those above 40, the rate is 16 percent. These figures also include women who could not conceive or were fecundity-impaired (US National Center for Health Statistics).

The Result Of National Marriage Project Research
[info]cavlec

This particular study has found that our concern with children as the central focus of marriage is declining, and more people are choosing to pair without reproducing.There is a rising cut off between American children and marriage -- society's chief child-rearing institution -- according to the latest report by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Fewer children are living in married-couple households and fewer married couples families have children when compared to past decades, according to "Marriage and Children: Coming Together Again?" from "The State of Our Unions 2003," a report issued annually by the National Marriage Project.

The Census Bureau projects that by 2010 families with children will make up only 28 percent of all U.S. households, the least number in a century. Also, a greater part of Americans disagree that the main purpose of marriage is rearing children, the report finds.

Marriage is making a big comeback in the fashionable culture through such hit movies as "My Big, Fat Greek Wedding" and reality television shows like "The Bachelor." Yet, while American adults still reward marriage and seek it for themselves, American children are less able to count on it as a secure foundation for their family lives, according to Barbara Dafoe Whitehead and David Popenoe, co-directors of the National Marriage Project.

"If there is a story to be told about wedding in recent decades, it is not that it is withering away for adults, but that it is withering away as a family experience for children," said Whitehead.

What the Childless by Choice prefer? A list for all those who
[info]cavlec
• Like kids and feels fine as long as they belong to someone else.
• Get grossed out by baby drool.
• Would rather give a dog a flea bath than change a diaper.
• Never heard the tick of a biological timer.
• Get tired of being challenged by total strangers, met with hostility and suspicion for our choices, and told that there is something wrong with us for not interested to have children.
• Feel that being a family doesn't necessitate anything more than one person.
• Respect the choice of those who have determined to have children.
• Expect the same respect from those with children for our choice to remain child free.
• Look forward to the day when our relatives and friends will finally accept our decision.

If you feel that you belong to any one of the above, then may be you belong to the Proud, Childless by Choice.
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Mindblown
[info]cavlec
Like Meredith, I’m coming up on the end of a further semester teaching. It’s still unclear whether I’ll be allowed to teach any more courses at UW-SLIS, but I’ve already had feelers from other institutions with distance-ed programs, so one way or another, I’ll keep doing this—because just like Meredith, I get a significant charge from it.

I can see that I need to change some things about the course the next time I teach it ($DEITY volent). The lecture on standards and DNS needs to move way earlier in the semester. Some nuts-and-bolts “what’s in a computer?” stuff needs to happen, mostly for the sake of the jargon. And I need to do a lot more things hands-on, especially early in the semester when people are feeling at their most tech-stupid and vulnerable. It’s a little like language teaching—students don’t internalize grammar until they use it, but by the same token you don’t want to leave them entirely alone with the language because they’ll get lost and frustrated.

That said, I think it was a successful semester, and I owe Jason Griffey a lot of props for his final-project idea. (Last year’s final project was pretty disastrously underspecified and vague. This year’s is definitely getting there.) What some of them did absolutely blows my mind.

One of the technology-implementation problems I set was to create “Kiosk Firefox”—a library computer with kiosk-only web functionality, where pesky patrons couldn’t get in to mess with the machine’s innards. One group that took this on seriously went whole-hawg with it. They came to the last class session dispirited because (for various reasonable reasons) they didn’t actually have a kiosk machine they could show me. I think they knew me well enough to know that their grades weren’t going to suffer. I think they really wanted to show me it worked! But no, the whole-hawgness was things like figuring out how to disable keyboard hotkeys (!) and getting rid of the Microsoft taskbar. Real above-and-beyond stuff.

I couldn’t be happier about them. They’re departing my class with a can-do attitude that will mean more in the long run than anything specific I actually taught.

Is This It?
[info]cavlec
A long and complicated path through reading and considering some things, placed together with the near-constant dunning I get to provide examples of and paths to successful institutional repositories, led me to the following hypothesis:

An institutional repository is successful in direct correlation to the extent to which its organization is an enabler rather than an obstacle.

This is probably simplistic… no, it’s definitely simplistic. But I think there’s something to it. It explains maverick manager syndrome, at least

Keeping Copyright
[info]cavlec
As is my way after a long talk, I’m a bit sensitized to interrelated issues… so I’m noticing copyright-related tidbits more than I usually might.

The central logistical complexity is the one-time nature of these discussions. Once something is signed, that’s all she wrote—going back to renegotiate agreements is so costly in time and hassle that it pretty much never works out. It is thus fatefully important to get this right the first time, the first time being the only. That’s a burden on all areas of the question.

(This doesn’t just hit publishers, either. I have had to disappointedly turn down collections of student work for the repository because no one considered at the time of authoring that students are copyright owners too, and we can’t just make free with their work without their permission.)

I don’t have a magic answer to this; I note that my own personal preferred word in a copyright concord is “non-exclusive.” I also doubt idly if some of the author-identity ferment happening right now may result in a world where it’s easy enough to find former authors that renegotiation when essential becomes a viable thing
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Does childfree makes you lonely?
[info]cavlec
Few people would rather hate to be childfree, they wouldn't choose it. But that's for the reason that they love and adore kids and being a mother. Childfree = Lonely? Might be! But even being a parent, someone can be lonely at some stages. You feel lonely when you are stuck in the quarters exhausted looking after toddlers. You feel lonely the day your youngest child moves out of home. Loneliness is a normal human emotion and we can't completely avoid it by having children.

For other people it is good to have a choice. In the old days you had to get married and bear kids, or you were considered as a freak to be pitied. These days there are many ways to fill your life and if people prefer no kids then it’s their choice. We can’t say that they are selfish as there are various examples where you can find people childfree but they would enjoy the life to the fullest and give life and love.

The only thing which is to regret is about ''childfree'' tiny minority who is aggressive and hate parents and kids.

A Bibliography of Child-Free Research
[info]cavlec

I was browsing through the web one day and tripped over a list of articles in scientific journals involving voluntary childlessness. This was posted by one Adam H., a member of the St. Louis Childfree Meet up group -- thanks Adam! I've explained a little here rather than just linking as all this was in an excel file (much easier to read on the web). I also thought about providing a synopsis for each, but I've got adequate on my plate as it is (perhaps down the way...)

I am excited that the child-free lifestyle has engrossed serious attention from such a wide range of scientific communities -- sorry I can't link directly to the journals, but you'll have to find them at your local library or sign up for online research access through a university.

Breaking Through Traditional Barriers

Gender, Internalization Of Expressive Traits, And Expectations Of Parenting -- Sex Roles (2007)
Defending The Voluntarily Childless Decision -- Dissertation Abstracts Intl. (2006)
Understanding The Gender Identity Of Voluntarily Childless Women -- Gender And Society (2003)
Stigma Management Among The Voluntarily Childless -- Sociological Perspectives (2002)
Perceptions Of Parenthood Among Young Adults -- American Journal Of Family Therapy (2001)
Childless By Choice? Ambivalence And The Female Identity -- Feminism And Psychology (2000)
Unwomanly Conduct: The Challenges Of Intentional Childlessness -- Dissertation Abstracts Intl. (1990)

Can Librarians Rely on Zotero Syncing
[info]cavlec
For the cause that I know a number of my academic-library colleagues lecture Zotero classes, and a rather larger number of my academic-library colleagues become concerned on the subject of piracy of academic materials, I thought I’d offer a quick elaboration-and-clarification of the Zotero sync feature, now in beta.

Firstly, it’s significant to note that Zotero syncing is totally optional, and it is off by default. Would-be adopters need not worry that Zotero will instantly and involuntarily scatter their personal libraries all over the Internet; Zotero just doesn’t work that way.

There are, in fact, two Zotero sync features. One feature syncs between your local Zotero datastore and zotero.org, and it copies only metadata, not files. Collections on zotero.org can be public (in which case they are viewable at zotero.org  or private, and the default is private. This means that one can use zotero.org as a backup for one’s library without random other people viewing it; however, doing so places trust in zotero.org not to be hacked or to inadvertently or intentionally reveal private user data. (I trust them, don’t get me wrong, but it’s good to put these things out on the table.)

The other feature syncs between your local Zotero datastore and a directory available through the WebDAV protocol. This syncs files at least; I assume the metadata goes as well, but I haven’t checked and don’t know how it works.

The gotcha here is that any user of this sync feature is responsible for ensuring that the resulting datastore is secure, because a WebDAV folder is web-accessible. Again, talk to your IT shop about this, before you become an inadvertent piracy enabler! The sync features are independent of each other; you can use none, one, or both as you see fit.

I would also welcome some intelligent assessment of items present in different libraries for purposes of data cleanup, but I accept that that’s a very hard problem. Otherwise, I’m very happy with these features, and believe they have been intelligently and responsibly implemented; three cheers for Zotero!

The wonderful Bamboo Project
[info]cavlec
I’ve been longing to post about this for quite some time, but it wasn’t general knowledge. Now it is, and I want to call interest to it.

Bamboo is a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and inter-organizational attempt to bring together researchers in arts and humanities, computer and information scientists, librarians, and campus information technologists to cooperatively tackle the question: How can we improve arts and humanities research through the improvement of shared technology services?

It’s a scholarship project that they’re asking Mellon to fund, and Mellon would be fools and madmen not to. But yet it is a condensed brilliance for anyone who’s interested in research computing, humanities research, digital humanities, or (yes) repository services. You should read it. You simply must. I can’t talk about how brilliant it is without jabbering absurdly and everyone else I know who’s read it has been excited at its wonderfulness.

Any study project of this nature faces two main hurdles: have you fully and clearly understood the problem, and have you had a workable and practical solution to it? IRs clear the first bar, but fall all above themselves at the second. This proposal fly’s high over both bars. I couldn’t be more impressed.

This is just my effort to get a little buzz happening around it.

A Quick Question for Academic Librarians
[info]cavlec
Why should we go through so much effort and suffering to coach undergraduate students to use library-provided subscription databases when the greater part of them will in no way all over again have access to those databases once they graduate?

The Childless by Choice Survey
[info]cavlec
Why do people adopt the idea to remain childfree?
There are various factors which tend to make a person think and choose the option to live childfree. A survey was conducted on this and they found several motivating factors which encourage childless theory. People had the choice to add the motivating factors too in addition with rating them.

Some of the motivating factors are:

• My lifestyle/career is contrary with raising children.
• I would like to be independent and enjoy freedom.
• I can better serve the society by not having children.
• I can better provide myself by not having children.
• I have no wish to have a child, no maternal/paternal instinct.
• I don't think I would be a good parent.
• I am worried about the physical risks of childbirth and recovery.
• I have seen or experienced first hand the effects of bad or unintentional parenting,
  and I don't want to risk the chance that I might bring about that situation.
• I love our life, our relationship as it is, and having a child won't improve it.
• I delayed having children and eventually decided I wanted to remain childfree.
• I want to focus my time and energy on my own interests, needs or goals.
• I do not want to take on the responsibility of raising a child.
• People I know have not realized the rewards they expected as a parent.
• I want to accomplish/experience things in life that would be difficult to do if I was a parent.


The top 4 motives are:

• I love our life, our relationship, as it is, and having a child won't enhance it.
• I value freedom and independence.
• I do not want to take on the responsibility of raising a child.
• I want to accomplish/experience things in life that would be difficult to do if I
   were a parent.

The least rated motives or compelling statements are:

“I delayed having children and eventually decided I wanted to remain childless.” Only 21 percent of women and 22 percent of men gave this statement a rating of 4 or 5.

“I am fretful about the physical risks of childbirth and recovery.” Only 24 percent of the women rated this statement a 4 or 5. However it is remarkable that 12 percent of the men surveyed rated this statement a 4 or a 5 representing that some men are worried about the risks of childbirth and recovery, too.

However, it shows that most of the people are going Childfree with lack of compelling factors which makes the motive factors strong to go for childfree.



Living Child-Free!!! Is it sounding something new???
[info]cavlec
As we travel the country, folks generally ask if we have children (it's the next question, right after "What do you do for a living?) I always reply that we are "child-free" -- most people have no clue what that means, so I give an explanation that we don't have kids and don't want to have. This is an entirely strange concept to the majority of Americans -- some are mesmerized by the potentials of life without kids, but others can't even begin to understand why you would make such a weird life choice. Fortunately, the second group is relatively small.


Living Child Free




 
• Why We Decided Not To Have Children Back in the day, you were expected to reproduce -- and if you couldn't for biological reasons, you were labeled "barren" and pitied by your neighbors. But God bless Depo Provera (also known as DMPA or Depot Medroxyprogesterone Acetate is a hormone injection that lasts for 3 months to prevent pregnancy.) and the Supreme Court for offering me a choice -- because welcoming a child into my home is not anything I ever wanted to be involved in...

• It’s "Child-Free", Not "Childless" Childfree is another expression for childless-by-choice. It represents people who have made their choice not to have children, usually permanently. The alternate term is important to differentiate from the term childless, which means that the person wants, but does not have, children.

• We Don't Hate Parents -- We Hate Irresponsible Parents It is commonly assumed that, if you don't want to have children, you ought to hate kids and the people who gave birth to them. Certainly not true -- some of my best friends are parents! We enjoy being with kids and their parents -- as long as both are reasonably well-behaved...

• No -- Childlessness Is Not Selfish (Probably, The Reverse) I am always astonished when I hear someone express the opinion that not having children is selfish -- it doesn't happen very often (unless you spend a lot of time listening to Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura).



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