School Violence Essay -- Violence Education Security Technology Essays

Over the past several years, an epidemic of school violence has overtaken our nation. From monthly shootings, to daily bomb threats around the country, violence is becoming more and more common in schools. It is typical to hear about acts of violence among our youth everyday on the news. Although more numerous in cities, this violence does not discriminate against inner city or suburban areas; it happens everywhere. When addressing this quick spread of crime, one can inquire as to its history and why it happens, myths about school violence, and how was can taper it, by the use of technology. History of School Violence The history of violence in schools has no set pattern, but statistics report back to the 1970s. In 1978, a reported 282,000 students were assaulted in high schools, and 5,200 teachers were also assaulted that year (Elliot, 1998). Between 1984 and 1994, the number of teens who were killed doubled, while the number of adult homicides decreased (Elliot, 1998). Over the years, students have felt increasingly more afraid to go to school. Along with the number of homicides increasing, lesser crimes like theft and assault have gone up as well (Elliot, 1998). An outrageous statistic from the book â€Å"Violence in American Schools,† states â€Å"nearly half (47%) of all teens believe their schools are becoming more violent, and one of every ten report a fear of being shot or hurt by classmates that carry weapons to school† (Elliot, 1998). Sadly enough, over the years, children have become afraid to go to a place, which once made them feel safe. Myth and Fact of School Violence People have many different perceptions about what school violence is, and how it is handled. There are many misconceived ideas about... ...ology. American School & University. Retrieved April 11, 2015 from www.ephost@epnet.com Garza, Katie. (2002). School Security Moves Into the Digital Age. The Journal. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from www.ephost@epnet.com. Goldberg, L. (2003). Creating Safer and More Efficient Schools with Biometric Technologies. The Journal. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from www.ephost@epnet.com. Goldberg. P A. & Conoley.J.C. (Eds.)(1997) School Violence Intervention. New York: The Guildford Press Shafii, S, M. & Shafii, S.L. (Eds.). (2001). School Violence: Assessment, Management, Prevention. Washington , DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc. Szczerba, Peter. (2000). Advances in Protection. American School & University. Retrieved April 11, 2015, from www.ephost@epnet.com. Trump. K. (1998) Practical School Security. California : Corwin Press Inc.

Napster :: essays research papers

(1) English 11 Words: 1302 12/ 20/ 00 Napster : Right or Wrong ? "As an artist, there are so many ways that we can be taken advantage of. To have yet one more way to stip an artist of making an honest living is just to much. That's why I sued." ( Levy, 51 ) - Andre Young ( Dr. Dre) Rapper/Producer There are many ways that an artist can be stripped of making an honest living, Napster, one of the many 'Mp3' services online, is the latest. An Mp3 ( short for ISO-MPEG Audio Layer 3 ) is a digital compression of a music or video file so it's easier to send to one another over the internet ( Levy, 51 ). Napster is an online music source where you can search for a song and download it absolutely free, with just one click from your fingertips. The Napster program, created by 19 year-old college drop out Shawn Fanning, is the fastest growing site in history. It recently passed the 25 million mark in less than a year since it was released (Greenfeld, 62 ). His program allows you to download copyright music, and that's why he is being sued by a number of corporations. Napster is being sued by RIAA ( the Recording Industry Association of America ), record companies ( BMG, the holder of lables like: Arista, Bad Boy, RCA, LaFace ), and artists ( Rock band Metallica and Rapper/Producer Dr.Dre). "I'm down for a parallel business even if it's parasitic. Napster is the new radio. It's the most exciting thing since rap, disco and the Beatles." said rapper Chuck D, and it did it is ( Levy, 51 ). Napster is like a radio. You can listen to music and preview it for free. Some artists are actually for Napster like Chuck D. , Neil Young, and rock group Limp Bizkit, who headlined a free tour sponsored by Napster along with Cypress Hill. Napster is like a new radio. It's been said that people use Napster because they feel so (2) ripped off that compact disc prices are so high. They would rather just download the whole album online, then burn it on to a cd spending only three dollars for a burned cd instead of the seventeen dollars spent for buying the actual album. The generalized public that use Napster are young ( teenagers and college

The Death of a Best Friend

The school hall was quiet. Everyone was silent with their heads bowed down. No one spoke,laughed, giggled or chatted. There was Just sorrow in the atmosphere. Few students could be heard sobbing while the rest Just sat stone dead in their seats. What had happened? What was the cause of this sad and eerie situation? Why did she do it? She had always been that cheerful bubbly girl that everyone loved. Her wide flashing smile could brighten up anyone's day. My thoughts were disrupted when the principal stood up at the podium to give a short speech. â€Å"Today , we all sit here in deep grief and sorrow.Our school has lost one of its brightest student. Her death was indeed shocking and unexpected. And it would be only respectful if we attended her funeral in SST Pewter's church this coming Sunday. The service starts at 9 in the morning and ends at 10. 30. We hope to see each and every one of you there. As for the school , we have made a small altar with candles and pictures of her by th e gym. Students can place flowers and cards of sympathy there. Deepest condolences from East High goes to the family' with that she stepped off the stage. The head prefect's speech brought many students to tears. My eyes felt misty and wet.We were than dismissed. As I walked along the school corridor towards the gymnasium,my thoughts traveled afar. I remembered my first day in East High. I was a newbie with no friends. People whispered when I walked pass by. The mean lads threw spitballs in my direction. No one sat with me during lunch hours. I would lock myself in the washroom cubicle with my tray of food with tears seeping from my eyes. I didn't have any friends. I always wondered what my flaws were. Was I fat? Did I have greasy hair? Or was it because I wasn't a size zero? But then one girl changed everything. She was a newbie too.I was sitting alone at the back of my Biology class. Mr. Trend was having a difficult time putting up with the students. The boys were running about an d the girls were gossiping. And there was me. The loner. It is amazing how a noisy situation changes into a sudden quiet one isn't it? Well that was what happened. Someone walked into class. A new face. She was a brunette with sparkly brown eyes. She wore simple clothing and flashed a wide grin as she walked into class. All eyes were on her as she handed Mr.. Trend a letter. â€Å"Class , we have a new student. Her name is Amanda Grey and she come all the way from Dallas , Texas.Do make her feel at home†. Amanda was given the choice to choose her seat. I noticed her eyes scanning the room and it fell on the empty seat beside me. She walked with confidence towards me and sat. â€Å"Hello , I'm Amanda. Nice to meet you† she said as she shook my hand. My mum had always taught me to greet people with proper manners so I shook her hand back and introduced myself too. All through class, I noticed many students stealing glances in our way. Some even had the nerve to walk up t o our table and tell Amanda that she had made the wrong choice by hosing me as her first friend and sitting right next to me.I had expected Amanda to agree with them and change seats but to my astonishment she stood up for me saying that it was her choice on the friends she made and no one had the right to choose for her. I had an instant liking towards Amanda. She became my new best lunch hours in the cafeteria. Amanda made new friends really fast because of her socially active character. Through her, I got to know people too and began conversing openly without being the old shy anti-social me. Amanda was my other half. I shared everything with her. She was someone I felt that I could open up to and not be afraid of being Judged.Once , she even caught me self harming and throwing up after meals. She took away my razors and made sure I stayed put after meals without going to the washroom. She told me I was beautiful in her eyes and by god's eyes. And I didn't have to be a size zero to be beautiful. She made me appreciate life and realize that there were people who actually cared for me and I wasn't alone. Not only was she great in giving advice, Amanda was a very brilliant girl. She excelled in the studies and always did well in her examinations. She helped me a lot in my studies and my grades which were failing eventually began to improve.My feet made a silent thudding sound as I turned the corner towards the gymnasium. There was quite a crowd around the altar. I stopped midway and stared ahead. My body trembled. And I realized I was alone. There wasn't a happy and Jolly Amanda beside me. The girl who changed my whole life in an instant had disappeared for good. She was never coming back. I approached the altar slowly sinking everything in. There were brightly lit candles around Manta's pictures and flowers were all over the altar. I knelt down ND stared at the pictures. The candles illuminated them with a soft glow.I looked down and pulled out a picture of m e and Amanda from my purse and laid it on the table. It was a picture of the very first time Amanda had a sleepover at my house. We watched a movie while snacking on caramel popcorn, baked cupcakes, did makeovers on each other and took loads of picture. That was the day Amanda had given me a tight hug and promised that she'll always be there for me no matter what. I tear rolled down my cheek. I wobbled slightly as I stood up. I turned away and walked out the school doors towards my home. The sky was a gloomy cast. Look , even the sky was upset about the loss.On Sunday , I remembered my mum shaking me and waking me up reminding me that it was time for the funeral. I wore one of my favorite suit which Amanda had told I looked good in. I took deep calm breaths. I wasn't prepared to see her for the last time before she went six feet under. My dad drove us to the church. There were a couple of students outside dressed in black. We alighted from the car and my mother laid a reassuring arm around my shoulders. We walked in. The place was filled with people and a part of me was happy knowing that Amanda was loved by many. We took a seat at the back.I noticed Manta's mother sitting by the coffin. Her face was blank and expressionless. I felt her. It felt as If I had lost a part of me when I heard the depressing news of Manta's sudden departure. The pastor began the ceremony by singing a few hymn's and citing reading a bible phrase. He went on with the sermon saying how God took the best people at times because he loved them more than we did. â€Å"But she took her own life† a little part of me whispered. â€Å"Why did God let her die when she had so much to live for? † My questions were left unanswered. Finally we came to the end of the ceremony.We were requested to pay our last respects. My heartbeat was racing. This was it. My one and only chance to bid farewell. I walked towards the coffin. Amanda lay in there with a peaceful look on her face. It didn' t look like someone who had committed that she would wake up laughing telling how she had franked everyone. But she didn't. I gently touched her hands. They were ice cold. I than unclasped the necklace around my neck and gently laid it in her coffin. It was my favorite necklace which Amanda really adored. â€Å"It's now yours to keep Amanda† I whispered.Goodbye and I love you† I said as I walked out the church. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was blue. It wasn't a gloomy day at all. The birds were chirping a sweet melody. I looked towards the sky and blinked back tears knowing that Amanda was in a better place. To be honest , Vie never thought of Amanda as a girl who had problems in life. She seemed happy and cheerful at all times. I guess she felt better keeping them to herself rather than burdening others with her problems. She was someone who liked to help others in life. I wish she had opened up and talked about her problems to me.It makes me feel that I wa sn't there for her when she needed me the most or when she was going through rough times. She had told me many times that death wasn't the solution for problems. Now it made me wonder why was it her solution to something. And there goes another unanswered question. A year passed. Soon the date of Manta's first death anniversary arrived. I walked on the soft cemetery grounds. Everything was peaceful and quiet. The grounds were well kept. I made my way towards Manta's grave. There it was. I knelt down beside it and stared at the tombstone. â€Å"l miss you† I said softly as I laid a hand on the cold hard tombstone.I laid the bouquet of roses I had specially made for Amanda on her grave and sat down right beside it. The memories came back. All the fun times with her. Amanda was like an angel sent by God to help me and taken away when her Job was done. I leaned back against the tomb. Some people might have found doing that plain scary. Knowing that your sitting on someone's grave and leaning on a tombstone. But what I felt was a warm feeling. I felt Manta's presence with me. Right beside me. After spending a few quiet minutes there I got up to leave. And to this day , I still don't know why she did it.

Brannigan Case Analysis Essay

Division has the largest soup market share in the United States at 39. 8%. They are willing to change and have the capital to do so. Weaknesses: The soup industry as a whole has been on a consistent decline over the last several years. Brannigan’s has wasted money acquiring small businesses that have done little to nothing for profits. They have also been developing different types of soup in which only 1 out of 100 is actually well received by consumers. Opportunities: They have the potential to be the leaders in healthy canned soups that are offered in a variety of trendy flavors. Brannigan Foods is already a well –established brand with many loyal followers who can regain their brand identity through less marketing than a newer or smaller business. Threats: Frozen and deli soup industries are trending and causing the market shares of shelved soups to plummet. Any quick and easy meal option from fast food to macaroni and cheese are threats to this industry and to Brannigan’s The problem presented in this case is that Mr. Bert Clark needs to make a formal budget and action plan for the CEO to address the three year downturn in profitability, market share and sales. Consumers aren’t purchasing as much soup as they have in the past. With so much variety, not only within soups, but among all food options, it’s hard to make consumers choose only your brand every time. Price plays a large role in buyer decisions when it comes to items that they plan to store in their cupboard. If the price isn’t low enough, they can just switch brands or wait until later to purchase their stock items. Brannigan’s has been steadily increasing their price to ebb the effects of the lower sales amounts. Brannigan’s hasn’t done anything to increase the value of their soups in the minds of consumers; they have only raised the price. The true problem is that customers aren’t finding enough value in Brannigan Foods Soups to rationalize spending more on them than they had before. I propose that they have a contest to develop new flavors of soups, with the winner receiving a combination price of money and a year’s supply of Brannigan Foods Soups. Buying up smaller brands of soups doesn’t sound feasible seeing as how it hasn’t worked at any time before for this company. Another option is to seasonalize the soups to allow for new flavor varieties to be introduced in spurts. Heartier (potato, noodle and cream) soups are desired in the winter, where as a gazpacho is in a higher demand in the summer. Allow consumers to take surveys to receive coupons for your products and ask them what they want in a soup. The contest concept can do wonders for creating a buzz about your product and is the best alternative. Even more importantly, you are gaining insight into exactly what the consumers want. This nation has been so overly advertised to that people tend to ignore ads all together. What they don’t ignore is the chance to win something with no risk. Lay’s â€Å"Do Us a Flavor† contest has been a great success over traditional marketing strategies. Why you ask? â€Å"The answer is simple: consumers don’t trust traditional marketing strategies anymore, and businesses are getting creative, using consumer-generated marketing—directly involving the customer in the marketing and development of products—to succeed†.

Challenges Library Management System Essay Example for Free

Challenges Library Management System Essay n 1981, UNESCO published a study prepared by Jean Lunn1 from Canada, Guidelines for Legal Deposit Legislation. His study is now 30 years old since its publication. Many countries have amended or significantly rewritten their legal deposit laws (Germany, Indonesia, and Norway in 1990; France in 1992, Sweden in 1994, Canada in 1995, South Africa in 1997, Denmark in 1998 and Japan & Finland in 2000). Others are in the process of doing so (Australia, India, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom). The forms of intellectual and artistic expressions have grown in different dimensions. New published media have been developed and electronic publications are now an integral part of many national publishing heritages. UNESCO was under pressure to bring out a revised edition of the Guideline in order to review the impact of it on other countries and to incorporate new forms of publishing, such as, electronic publications. The new revised and updated edition of the Guidelines of Legal 2 Deposit Legislation (2000, UNESCO) by Jules Lariviere is found to be a useful tool. The Indian relevant act, Delivery of Books Act 1954 (rev. 1956 to include newspapers and periodicals) has been under the scanner shortly after it was put into application and over the last five decades the National Library, Kolkata and the three other recipient regional public libraries, Connemara Pubic Library, Chennai, Central Library, Town Hall, Mumbai and Delhi Public Library, Delhi, and especially the publishing world directly involved with it, expressed concern and drew attention of the Government of India, of its limitations and ineffectiveness. The National Library, Federation of Indian Publishers (FIP) and several professional library organizations discussed its drawbacks and recommended revision or specific amendments of the act at various seminars, conferences and other forums. Ministry of Culture, the concerned agency of the government of India, set up several committees to deal with the National Library. The Recommendations of the National Knowledge Commission3 and its Working Group on Libraries (NKC-WGL, 2006) is completely silent on this and other national library related issues. It would be appropriate to draw attention to an article by 3. Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Bandopadhyay (2000) former Director of the National Library, is exhaustive enough with a complete set of plan of action for the concerned Ministry to initiate the revision process at the earliest. As a follow up, the Ministry took some steps to obtain the views, of other stakeholders, including academics, library users group and senior library professionals. Based on these suggestions / recommendations a revised draft bill on this issue was prepared that is awaiting final clearance of the Ministry since 2006. Role of Legal Deposit Act: In simple terms Legal Deposit is a statutory obligation which requires that any organization, commercial or public, and any individual producing any type of documentation in multiple copies, be obliged to deposit one or more copies with some recognised national institution/s. It is important to make sure that legal deposit legislation covers all kinds of published material, that is, material generally produced in multiple copies and â€Å"offered to the public regardless of the means of transmission. † Public distribution could mean â€Å"performance† or â€Å"display† e.g. radio or television programme could be considered as â€Å"published† for legal deposit purposes when it has been broadcast. Within the electronic publications environment, it should be noted that a â€Å"one copy item† such as, a database , stored on one server, could be subject to legal deposit requirement since it is made available to the public through a technology enabling the public to read, hear or view the material. 5 (Lariviere ). Most countries rely on a legal instrument of some sort in order to ensure the comprehensiveness of their national deposit collection. In all countries with legal deposit system, â€Å"published material† would naturally include books, periodicals, newspapers, microforms, sheet music, maps, brochures, pamphlets, etc. In some countries audio-visual material (sound recordings, films, videos, etc. ) is also subject to legal deposit and there are several countries where electronic publications are also included into the legislation, but they have done this in different way; some have excluded on-line electronic publications because of the numerous unsolved technical problems related to their acquisition and preservation problems related to ever changing technological scenarios. Legal deposit legislation serves a clear national public policy interest by ensuring comprehensive acquisition, recording, preservation and access of a nation’s published heritage. The role of a legal deposit system is to ensure the development of a national collection of published material in various formats. It should also support the compilation and publication of national bibliography in order to ensure bibliographic control over a comprehensive deposit collection. In addition, an effective legal deposit legislation guarantees to citizens and researchers within the country and abroad, access to research collection of  the national published material. Countries are developing many different models, but are clearly unable to keep pace with the massive changes and challenges related to the deposit of intangible publications. Department of National Heritage6, UK (1997) brought out a consultative paper on current legal deposit of publication issues based on a questionnaire which identified several pertinent issues and posed a number of specific questions to which sought responses from individuals and organizations. This document could also help Indian group and the government agencies in formulating the revised DB Act. Profile of Indian book publishing Before we deal with Indian Delivery of Books Act let us first look at the present trends in book publishing in India. Over the last four decades a large majority of English language publishing has concentrated in and around the capital, Delhi. The city is also a major centre of Hindi publishing industry. With the rapid growth of higher education from 1960s and the pressure built-up within the faculties due to UGC’s policy of ‘publish or perish’ resulted in the increase of publications of research monograph. India is one of the few countries where 4 4. Invited Lectures theses and dissertations submitted for Ph. D. and other similar higher postgraduate degrees in humanities and social sciences particularly, get published as a routine matter, whereas in science and technology this would be a rare phenomenon. There is no reliable source of annual book publishing data in India or any comprehensive list of Indian publishers in different languages. D. N. Malhotra7 (2010), former President of FIP and an established publisher in English and Hindi claimed of having 15,000 20,000 publishing houses, mostly run by individuals or as single family business. According to Vinutha Mallay8 Senior Editor of Mapin Publishing, India is the sixth largest publishing industry in the world with annual growth of 15-20%; third largest publishers of books in English, around 90,000 to 100,000 books are published annually, there are about 19,000 publishers in the country; in addition sixty per cent of global publishing outsourcing is based in India. This growth trend is noticeable only from the 70s onwards when book trade turnover increased gradually due to numerical growth of educational and research institutions at every level. As we look back a few decades, the demand of English books grew fast in libraries of newly established universities, research institutions and other academic centres. Individual buyers of books constitute only a small percentage. Bulk of the titles was imported from the English speaking countries, mostly from the UK and USA based publishing houses. This book import business is largely handled by a few Delhi based book importers and distributors. To accelerate the book supply process from the shelves and warehouses the importers / distributers devised a practice of sending books on credit to academic staff and libraries, through local vendors or jobbers (newcomers in book trade to supply books ‘on approval’ basis). They were allowed to take back books â€Å"not selected† within a credit limit of six months only. Within a few years these jobbers turned into legitimate vendors with book stock of their own which could not be returned to the wholesalers within the stipulated six months credit limit. They start bookshops with the ‘dead stock’ of their own and continue to supply books to the institutions on prevailing terms and conditions. These vendors, having direct contacts with the researchers and faculty members on day to day basis, being the actual selectors in all educational institutions, get offers to publish research monographs of academics. Many of them grabbed these offers on their own terms thereby joining the exclusive club of publishers. We now find several of these vendors are retail bookshop owners, library suppliers and also publishers, all in one. Perhaps it would not be out of place to add a few words of Iain Stevenson9 on the recent trends in British publishing keeping in mind that India is claimed to be the third largest English language publishing country. ‘Since the beginning of this century, there have been strong trends in British publishing in the increase in concentration of publishing and book selling ownership balanced by healthy specialization and the second is an increasing awareness and impact of electronic media and delivery across sectors that have created a large impact across the book trade. In 2004 over 161,000 individual book titles were published in the U.K. as compared to 119,000 in 2001 and over 2. 5 times the number in 1990. Consumers spending on books reach 2436 m. sterling pounds (in 2000 it was 2000 million) out of which 30% was from the export sales. Individual buyers comprised the largest market share, about 70% of total book sale and 20% to academic institutions and corporate bodies’. Indian Legal Deposit Legislation or Delivery of Books Act 1954 and its aftermath The act, commonly referred to as DB Act10 was amended in 1956 to include newspapers and serials under its purview. Annual publishing of books in India during 1950s was small 5. Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) and below 30,000 titles, whereas by 2010 it is claimed to have exceeded 100,000 [estimated figure obtained from FIP in the absence of any official data from any reliable source] with substantial increase in the coverage of subjects, such as, science and technology. In a recent 11 Annual Report of the Ministry of Culture the National Library claimed to have received 29,875 publications under the DB Act which happens to be only 30% of the estimated total publications as indicated by senior executives of the Library in several professional forums. It was also being pointed out in such gatherings that the other three recipient libraries under this Act, in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai received even less during the same period. It is worth noting that this was claimed to be the highest figure ever reached by the library ‘due to a special drive’12Intellectual resource (NACONAL 2006). UNESCO Statistical Yearbook is silent on the number of books published annually or the number of libraries in India over the last several decades, although India is one of the major contributors and active member of this international body. This sad state of affaire obviously reached, and continue to be, due to simple negligence of all concern. In most other countries annual publication figures were being provided by organizations declared as recipient/s under the legal deposit or copyright legislation of the country. There must be several reasons for the Library to reach in such a state and to argue, we guess, the limitations of DB Act cannot be the primary cause of it. Rigid administrative and fiscal rules and regulations adopted by the Library to operate under the guidance of the Ministry, is surely to my mind, a major factor but not the main one. The crux of the matter is National Library never received a large number of recent Indian publications under the DB Act. We do not know who all are claimed to be Indian publishers. A sizable number of them are ignorant of DB Act obligations. It is also a fact that number of ‘one time authorpublishers’ is also very high (15% – 20%) especially in vernacular languages. The National Library together with the Central Reference Library committed to bring out Indian National Bibliography(INB) based on the books received under the DB Act, similar in format of the British National Bibliography (BNB). However, neither the British Library (formerly British Museum Library) nor the Indian National Library is in any obligation under their respective legal deposit acts to bring out national bibliographies of books thus received under their respective legal deposit acts. . Bandhopadhyay13 points out,’rules and policy adopted are working smoothly for the British Library but similar regulations unexpectedly, failed to work in our case. One has to keep in mind the fact that default in U. K. is an exception rather than general rule unlike in India’. The provision of penalty for default in DB Act of Rs. 50. 00 sounds just notional. Either revise it to a figure e. g. , Rs. 1000. 00 or 4-5 times of the actual market price of single copy, whichever is higher or just make it voluntary, and hope for the best. The reason of suggesting the latter provision is to avoid the highly cumbersome and built-in procedural delay within our legal system. Since 1958 National Library did not take any legal action against one single defaulter till date. In UK and USA penalty clause is not mentioned as the legal deposit provision is covered under the country’s copyright acts. It is because of this factor legal deposit provision is genuinely more effective and acceptable to authors and publishers of these countries. It would be more realistic to suggest that National Library shall receive one copy of every Indian ‘publication’ and the three other regional repository libraries in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai shall have the right to claim any current publication in their respective regional languages only, delivered free of cost under the revised provisions of the DB Act. The current practice of demanding four copies of every publication to be delivered free of cost to each of 6. Invited Lectures these four libraries (including National Library) failed to meet our expectations. This is in addition to what publishers have to comply with the demands of different state central libraries under the Press and Book Registration Act of 1867. Moreover, a large volume of these books and other publications, thus received, especially language publications that are not so commonly used in some regions are usually being ‘dumped’ or just temporarily stored as these are of ‘no use’ to the library. This is a colossal wastage of national resource. On the other hand it would not be cost effective to make these so to say, ‘unused books’ (four copies of each) routinely processed, provide costly storage space as well as maintaining them for the posterity in four regional libraries. The National Library shall receive one copy for preservation and access only; create bibliographic records for the benefit of all stakeholders. There are several categories of publications e. g. in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU) languages shall find users in other three regional libraries. Let us accept the real time scenario in terms of availability and accessibility for application of information and communication technologies (ICT) within library systems. Bibliographic data of publications received by the National Library under legal deposit legislation will be accessible to others from INB and National Library catalogue / database online. These three libraries shall buy one copy of all selected books in EHSU languages, from any local vendor / publishers. Additional fund annually spend by three libraries on this account shall be reimbursed from a special annual central government grant. The proposed module is based on the British legal deposit act where the British Library, London receives one copy of every book / publication and the other five libraries (Wales National Library, Aberystwyth, Scottish National Library, Edinburgh, Oxford University, Cambridge University and Trinity College, Dublin) obtain direct from the publishers, one copy of every book of their choice, selected from the weekly list of books received in the British Library under the legal deposit act. We made an attempt to get some estimation of the annual cost of books published under these four (EHSU) ‘common languages’ from INB and the National library that would give an idea of the total fund required for the three regional libraries under the revised provision of the Act. All the three libraries receive some annual grant from the central government. The revised provision in the act will also bring some savings in terms of time and resources, as lesser number of books are to be dealt with by the libraries. Sooner than later, it  will be a reality (within a decade or so) of making available a digital copy of an Indian publication by the National Library online, that was not originally selected or received earlier to a library or an individual from its own stock within or outside the country. The technology is already in experimental stage at various levels. Slowly and gradually a large part of Indian publications will be brought out in e-format only, which will also change our current perception of borrowing or consulting a ‘book’ from a conventional library. Till we reach that stage in India and the transitional period of overlap (20 years? ) we shall carry on with both the systems as we are now have both bullock carts as well as a BMW 7e series cars on our roads for transportation. Indian library systems shall take a longer path and time to switch over to reach this goal. Moreover, any change in our library ‘modernization’ programme shall be fully dependent on application of technological innovations resulting in inevitable 14 acceptance of a never ending process. Thomas Abhram in a recent article expressed, â€Å"ebooks will be hugely cheaper with the removal of paper and inventory costs†¦. All things taken into account, books in print format are not certainly going away ever from circulation. And e-books, from a publishing point of view, are a ‘consummation devoutly to be wished’. We in India, specially the National Library are to continue dealing with print copies of books for several decades together with information resources available in e-books and or in any other format. 7 Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Table 1: Books in Indian Languages Received in National Library LANGUAGE 2007 08 Assamese Bengali English Gujarati Hindi Kannada Malayalam Marathi Oriya Punjabi Sanskrit Tamil Telugu Urdu Total 97 991 5756 127 2370 687 1500 1400 2661 602 112 3685 248 521 20757 NL/DB Act 2008 – 09 35 1463 5385 348 1722 600 1200 1351 52 576 287 2526 145 304 15994 337 2189 5530 476 1237 877 866 1341 750 000 111 1186 406 292 15598 300 350 450 830 INB (2010) AVERAGE COST. The figures quoted above (Table-1) under Books received by the National Library under DB Act during 2007-08 and 2008-09 and those listed in INB for 2010 (CRL) were obtained from the respective libraries on personal requests. In a paper presented at the NACONAL 2006 by Mandal & Syed Abuzar15 (2006) indicated National Library received about 20,000 books annually during 1990 2002. They claimed the Library received about 30,000 during 2005-06 due to some special drive and about similar number of volumes during 2010-11as recorded in the Annual Report of the Ministry of Culture. Unfortunately we could not get breakdown of figures under each language of 29,875 books received during 2005-06 nor of INB listed figures for 2009 and 2011. The significant gap of Oriya books received during 2007-08 and 2008-09 was due to some special efforts put by the concerned language specialist during 2007. [Note:Average cost of recently published books in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU) languages has been worked out from a sample of books procured by University of Delhi, Central Library, Central Secretariat Library and the U. S. Library of Congress, Book Procurement Centre in Delhi. We made here an estimation of annual additional grant amount to be provided by central government to support the three regional libraries (in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai) under the proposed revised legal deposit legislation. The National Library shall receive one copy only of every Indian publication free of cost delivered by the publishers, and the three regional public libraries are to purchase one copy of any book (in EHSU languages) selected by a library from open market. The three libraries are entitled, under the law, to receive free of cost, one copy of a book published in respective regional languages. It is estimated that each library shall selectively acquire per year about 30,000 new Indian publications (10,000 EHSU + 20,000 in respective regional languages) out of about 90,000 books published annually. It means, central government shall reimburse annually the cost of 30,000 books in EHSU languages where average cost of a set of four EHSU books is Rs. 2000 or Rs. 60 million (30,000 x2000 = 60,000,000). In addition, another 10m (Rs. 10,000,000) would be required to cover annual subscription cost of EHSU periodicals and newspapers. Thus we reach an estimated figure of Rs. 70m or 7crore (add another 10% 8 Invited Lectures annually for inflation). These figures are being presented to get some idea of the extra cost we propose to pass on to the central government exchequer. ] If this revised guidelines are adopted in our legal deposit act (now under revision) by taking over the extra burden of book fund of the three regional libraries by the central exchequer then we could surely expect of getting better cooperation from the publishing fraternity in fulfilling their responsibilities towards the provisions of the revised act. Group of publishers bringing out EHSU language publications are to supply only TWO free copies, like all other publishers, one to the National Library and the other to Parliament Library. The only sensible expectation of the publishers from the CRL / National Library is to bring out a comprehensive, up to date online INB, listing all currently published titles thus received under the act and provide facilities of easy access to the readers within a reasonable time frame. Under the revised provision of the act, there is a strong opinion that Chennai based Connemara Public Library shall receive one copy free of cost, of every publication in Dravidian languages (e. g. Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu). Similarly Central Library, Mumbai shall receive books in all western Indian languages, such as Marathi, Konkani, Gujarati, etc. , and Delhi Public Library shall get publications in Punjabi, Kashmiri, etc. as commonly spoken in the three respective regions. National Library is to receive one copy of all the publications. In addition to the respective regional languages publications these three libraries shall purchase one copy of publications of their choice, in English, Hindi, Sanskrit and Urdu (EHSU), from publishers / local vendors. Total annual cost of this category of publications shall be reimbursed from central exchequer. With the introduction of advanced network technologies, libraries shall be benefitted for not to process (Catalogue / classify highest cost factor) these books as relevant data can be downloaded from INB. The second alternative is to incorporate legal deposit provision within the revised copyright legislation as done in the USA and UK. It is possible to reduce the number of defaulting Indian publishers to bare minimum. Only very recently the National Library claimed to have increased intake of publications under the Act by extensive promotional work through the media and sending direct appeal to publishers that have helped it in bringing more and more publishers within the DB Act net. Secondly, if the total number of copies of each title (an average of seven copies) under both PR and DB Acts could be drastically reduced to minimum two only, there is a hope of getting full support and cooperation of Indian publishers to go by the rule book. Third and the most important factor is to make INB up to date and bring it out at regular frequency (monthly! ) with the target of putting it online within a scheduled time frame. What we need is determination and political will to make the India’s National Library the effective hub of Indian library systems. Similarly, there are several other issues, listed below, which also require attention by both the National Library and appropriate government agencies that shall help in making India proud of its National Library. Central Reference Library (CRL): In 1971 administration of the CRL was separated from the National Library by making it a subordinate office under the Department of Culture. This was an ideal opportunity we missed, for shifting the CRL to Delhi. In the middle of 1970s Central Government created a new wing of the Central Secretariat Library (CSL) and named it as Tulsi Sadan Library to collect and provide access exclusively to all Indian language (excluding English) publications, to commemorate the 400th year of Tulsidasa (of Ramcharitmanas fame). CSL could have been merged with CRL and allowed it to operate from some temporary location till a permanent ‘home’ could be found or built at the proposed site opposite to the National Museum on 9 Challenges in Library Management System (CLMS 2012) Janpath, originally proposed by Edwin Lutyens. CRL would have been the natural choice of declaring it as the fourth recipient public library in Delhi, under the DBAct (instead of making the Delhi Public Library with reluctance, during the 1970s). Ministry of Culture is now under heavy pressure for shifting the Central Secretariat Library out of Shastri Bhavan complex due to severe space crunch and security issues. It is a fact that CSL has lost its original objective of serving information needs of all central secretariat units. Today all the ministries are having their own libraries with specialized collections to cater their respective information needs. It now serves as a general reading room for Shastri Bhavan employees. Reading for pleasure is not so common with the government employees. Central Secretariat Library is administratively a subordinate office of the Ministry of Culture. A large section of its regular visitors, viz. postgraduate students and research scholars have stopped visiting the library due to overwhelming security checks involved in getting through Shastri Bhavan. Recently several thousand volumes of its rich older collections were being disposed under executive orders to make room for babus of the Ministry. It could have been easier to find a suitable location for CRL (incorporating CSL) in Delhi during 1970s. Attempts were also being made during the 1970s and 1980s to merge the CRL with the National Library but these were also stalled by staff associations of the two libraries. During this period, management of the National Library was weak as a result, library service also suffered considerably. Central government in Delhi continued to be indecisive in taking appropriate steps while local library administration in Kolkata failed to deal with the day to day issues in any effective manner. It was more of a failure of the management both at the operational as well as policy making levels. The government allowed the National Library to drift away in the absence of any suitable action plan in place to overcome the crisis. Nor there was any move or pressure from any other corner – library professionals, media or library users’ group. This long drawn uncertainty and lack of effective management control within the National Library campus directly affected services and administration of Central Reference Library thereby putting publication of INB also on the back burner. Indian National Bibliography (INB): It started in 1958 following the British National Bibliography (BNB) format. To overcome the complexity of multi-script languages it adopted Romanization of all scripts with the descriptive part of each entry in English. This has created problems for many who are not familiar with Roman script or English language. The job of printing INB monthly issues was given exclusively to the Government of India Press in Kolkata that failed to realise, from the beginning, the importance of maintaining the production and delivery schedule. After years of persuasion by CRL the Ministry allowed printing of INB through private press. Cataloguing of every title, received by the National Library under BD Act, is first to be acknowledged by the Library then sent to CRL on record, where it will be catalogued once according to INB practices and then books shall be sent back to the National Library for re-cataloguing according to its own specified rules followed by due processing for storage. This long drawn administrative procedural factors and duplication of cataloguing  process have claimed to be a major cause of delay from the date of receipt of the publication to the time its record is found in INB followed by making it available to readers of National Library This delay factor has also indirectly discouraged publishers to follow the DB Act guidelines strictly on the pretext of not finding INB to be a regular and up to date periodical either as a reliable check list of current Indian publications or a selection tool for libraries and other stakeholders; nor their publications are found in any bibliographic record of the National Library on time. National Library takes its own time, sometime nearly two years, to allow access to the books received under the DB Act. Importance of promotion and marketing of INB did never get much support from the concerned authorities. Adoption of appropriate technologies at 10 Invited Lectures different levels of administration and access to resources has been continuously lagged behind. Most national libraries of the world are having full responsibilities of preserving and allowing access to their collections by providing adequate indexing and other access tools, e.  g. national bibliographies, subject bibliographies, annotated catalogues of special collections, many of these are now accessible online on their respective websites. We must allow the National Library for setting up National Bibliographic Division with full control of bringing out INB and to provide other bibliographic services covering pan-India in appropriate standardized formats, as required from time to time. By taking full advantage of technological advances supported by a group of committed well qualified staff the Library would be able to help in both improving and widening the scope of services to individuals as well as to provide back-up services to a large number of academic and public libraries in and outside the country. For example, the day Indian libraries in general adopt the same processing format for all new titles listed in INB,India can claim to have won half the battle in modernizing our library services and systems. Without going into details one can only highlight the fact of centralized processing initiated and applied in most national libraries which have directly and indirectly helped respective library systems of these countries. We are well aware of the fact that both the CRL and INB are as if, linked with the DB Act by an umbilical cord that needs to be focused and dealt with separately for a drastic revision. Proposals l l Title of the revised act may be â€Å"Delivery of Publications (National Library) Act. Definition of Publications shall include – all printed documents, such as, books, periodicals, serials, newspapers, e-publications including audio books, CD books, DVDs and digital online publications and /or any other reformatted or original document produced for commercial distribution, e. g. microform documents. Only one copy of all publications shall be delivered free of charge, direct to the National Library of India (or at an address specified by the Library). The act shall also make adequate provision for the three regional libraries based in Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai to receive on. Challenges Library Management System. (2016, Oct 11).

VoFR, VoIP and ATM Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

VoFR, VoIP and ATM - Essay Example This need of companies has resulted in the development of packet switching technologies. The integrated networks came to be known as 'Voice over Frame Relay' (VoFR), 'Voice over IP' (VoIP) and 'Voice over ATM' (VoATM). As the technology improves, it becomes cheaper. Due to this not only big corporates but small business houses and even schools and colleges will adopt these technologies in the near future. In 'Frame Relay' and IP the data is represented in the form of variable sized packets or frames. In ATM data is chopped into small cells which results in increased switching rate of data through the network. Unlike circuit switching where different time intervals are allocated to different links, the packet switching dynamically allots bandwidth to various links based on their transmission activity. ATM has been designed to reduce delays whereas the other two, FR and IP, have the disadvantage of having delays over circuit switching technologies. However the use of access devices such as routers that use sophisticated schemes enables to overcome this limitation. These schemes include 'Prioritization', 'Fragmentation', 'Silence Suppression' and 'Voice Compression'. The network developers of both service providers and en... Similarly for enterprise network developers the main attraction towards these technologies is the cost savings associated with toll bypass and tandem switching. Besides the cost of development, the maintenance cost is also les. Also, more efficient network control and management is achieved. 'Finally, packet based voice systems offer access to newly enhanced services such as unified messaging and application control. These, in turn, promise to increase the productivity of users and differentiate services' (cisco.com, 2005). The voice-data integration technologies have improved rapidly in recent years due to the eagerness shown by both developers and customers. The demand has increased as the customers are much more interested in investing in these technologies to enjoy integrated voice applications. The network developers have been fortunate enough in this case as there has been advancement in the areas such standards, technology and network performance. Overview of the technologies A general background of these technologies and the basic principles and features are given one by one in this section below:- Voice over Frame Relay (VoFR) Definition VoFR uses a router to carry voice traffic like telephone calls and faxes over a frame relay network. Deployment The most used packet voice technology in networks is VoFR generally used in corporates. Prioritization Frame relays use access devices which put 'Tags' on different applications setting priority to all of them depending on the sensitivity they show towards delay. The higher priority voice packets are allowed to move first and till that time the others are kept waiting. Fragmentation The data packets in this case are divided into small fragments which results

Managerial Decision in Economics Research Paper

Managerial Decision in Economics - Research Paper Example The study tries to unearth some of the aspects of managerial economics towards the decision of hiring by evaluating the various micro economic factors relevant to the case so as to formulate a set of plausible recommendation on this crucial aspect of managerial decision making. Definition Hiring of workers largely depends on the dynamics of the demand and supply aspects of the economy and the market. In a perfectly competitive market the hiring of labor is largely determined by the intersection point of the demand and supply curve of labor. The wages of these employees are also determined by the intersection of demand and supply for labor in a market. The demand for labor is numerically equal to the marginal revenue labor product. The marginal revenue product refers to the total increase in the firm’s revenues that occurs due to the aspects of hiring a new labor or other resource that is largely variable in nature. The demand for labor is largely determined by the consumer dem and for gods and services for a firm. This constitutes the derived aspects of determinant of the demand for labor. The labor supply curve shows the number of laborers that are willing towards working at specified rates. A firm operating in perfect market conditions hires workers until a point when the wage rate of laborers becomes equal to the marginal revenue product (Tucker, 2008, p.191). In order to tide over situations of increase in demand in the market firms normally resort to hiring of temporary workers to tide over the need for increased supply of workers to meet the equilibrium. However this does not appear be a formidable solution as the demand of products is likely to stabilize and that the company would need extra laborers to satisfy the customers. Hence it would be better to hire new permanent workers that would be beneficial in the long run. Factors or Costs Costs form the most important aspect for companies while undertaking a hiring decision. Most often business orga nizations take up a cost benefit analysis of the marginal cost of hiring a labor with the marginal benefits being offered by the hiring of a new additional worker. The main aim of a business organization is to make profits to satisfy its shareholders. Hence analyzing cost becomes important while undertaking a decision to hire a new worker. Firms undertake a hiring decision when the marginal benefit becomes greater than the marginal cost. Employing an additional resource in the organization would lead to the generation of an additional unit of output. However firms must realize that profit comes from marginal revenue and not marginal output. This calls for a delicate balance between marginal benefit and marginal cost. Only under conditions of the marginal revenue increasing a firm takes a decision to hire a new worker. In other words the marginal revenue product must be equal to the value marginal product (Gwartney, Sobel & Macpherson, 2006, p.537-539). Figure 1: Demand Curve for New Resource (Source: Gwartney, Sobel & Macpherson, 2006, p.539) The figure above shows the labor demand curve as a function of the cost of hiring a resource. The curve provides an idea about the marginal revenue product of a particular resource employed by an organization. The graph takes a downward movement as the marginal product would fall as the resource is used