title: Power to the people: end-user building of digital library collections

authors: Witten, Ian H.

subjects: computer science

abstract: Naturally, digital library systems focus principally on the reader: th e consumer of the material that constitutes the library. In contrast, this paper describes an interface that makes it easy for people to build their own library collections. Collections may be built and served locally from the user's own web server, or (given appropriate permissions) remotely on a shared digital library host. End users can easily build new collections styled after existing ones from material on the Web or from their local files-or both, and collections can be updated and new ones brought on-line at any time. The interface, which is intended for non-professional end users, is modeled after widely used commercial software installation packages. Lest one quail at the prospect of end users building their own collections on a shared system, we also describe an interface for the administrative user who is responsible for maintaining a digital library installation.

text: Power to the people: end-user building of digital library collections Naturally, digital library systems focus principally on the reader: th e consumer of the material that constitutes the library. In contrast, this paper describes an interface that makes it easy for people to build their own library collections. Collections may be built and served locally from the user's own web server, or (given appropriate permissions) remotely on a shared digital library host. End users can easily build new collections styled after existing ones from material on the Web or from their local files-or both, and collections can be updated and new ones brought on-line at any time. The interface, which is intended for non-professional end users, is modeled after widely used commercial software installation packages. Lest one quail at the prospect of end users building their own collections on a shared system, we also describe an interface for the administrative user who is responsible for maintaining a digital library installation.

year: 2001

title: Curst Shrews and Venomous Scolds: The Societal and Legal Reactive Processes to Dangerous and Unideal Female Speech in Early Modern England

authors: Rhodes, Athena

subjects: Early Modern England

abstract: This thesis argues that in seventeenth century England, the tongue, or more specifically the female tongue, was understood as a fleshy weapon wielded to inflict misery and chaos on men. In response, early modern society reacted strenuously when faced with this form of living danger. The two primary processes were containment and correction.

Female verbal expression was often framed or contained in artifices created through rhetorical texts, for example, satirical, judicial, or moralistic texts. These texts were made to disempower and dismiss female verbal expression categorised as dangerous, or abnormal. Two of the main constructs used in texts were the ‘cursed shrew’ and the ‘common scold’, both of which were created to vilify and dismiss verbal rebellion by presenting them in negative narratives. The shrew was defined through satire. The common scold was defined through a mixture of legal definitions, and community intervention. First, this dissertation investigates these two female constructs of Early Modern England, which emerged from verbal disorder observed by external parties. The second element of this dissertation explores the ‘correction’ of the female verbal rebel: the formal mechanisms that were employed for public justice, and also the informal rites or actions carried out in the neighbourhood or household. 

Framed in chapters which resemble the sequence of a stage play, I begin my thesis with a comedic opening act about the cursed shrew and her illustrious satirical career. The arrival of the common scold heralds the dramatic second act. This act ends in a spectacle, as the shrew and scold are delivered their deserved punishment; the shrew ‘tamed’ and the scold ‘crowned’. The shrew was a warning, while the common scold was defined in relationship to the community, or through personal hardship. While taming narratives eked a good wife out of a shrew,  the punishment of the common scold was a of combination communal rite and formalised legal legislation. 

The study of past female crime and punishment is a crowded domain of history; the witch and the whore jostling for the ‘most historical research dedicated to her person’ award. This thesis contribution is centred on verbal female characters and punishment, a topic which has received far less attention. The shrew and the common scold are often mentioned as a means of comparison to other female criminals, to draw similarities and divergences in behaviour and punishment, but they have rarely achieved protagonist status. This is what my thesis accomplishes, through an assemblage of ideas about the binary of unwanted female speech and English society.

text: Curst Shrews and Venomous Scolds: The Societal and Legal Reactive Processes to Dangerous and Unideal Female Speech in Early Modern England This thesis argues that in seventeenth century England, the tongue, or more specifically the female tongue, was understood as a fleshy weapon wielded to inflict misery and chaos on men. In response, early modern society reacted strenuously when faced with this form of living danger. The two primary processes were containment and correction.

Female verbal expression was often framed or contained in artifices created through rhetorical texts, for example, satirical, judicial, or moralistic texts. These texts were made to disempower and dismiss female verbal expression categorised as dangerous, or abnormal. Two of the main constructs used in texts were the ‘cursed shrew’ and the ‘common scold’, both of which were created to vilify and dismiss verbal rebellion by presenting them in negative narratives. The shrew was defined through satire. The common scold was defined through a mixture of legal definitions, and community intervention. First, this dissertation investigates these two female constructs of Early Modern England, which emerged from verbal disorder observed by external parties. The second element of this dissertation explores the ‘correction’ of the female verbal rebel: the formal mechanisms that were employed for public justice, and also the informal rites or actions carried out in the neighbourhood or household. 

Framed in chapters which resemble the sequence of a stage play, I begin my thesis with a comedic opening act about the cursed shrew and her illustrious satirical career. The arrival of the common scold heralds the dramatic second act. This act ends in a spectacle, as the shrew and scold are delivered their deserved punishment; the shrew ‘tamed’ and the scold ‘crowned’. The shrew was a warning, while the common scold was defined in relationship to the community, or through personal hardship. While taming narratives eked a good wife out of a shrew,  the punishment of the common scold was a of combination communal rite and formalised legal legislation. 

The study of past female crime and punishment is a crowded domain of history; the witch and the whore jostling for the ‘most historical research dedicated to her person’ award. This thesis contribution is centred on verbal female characters and punishment, a topic which has received far less attention. The shrew and the common scold are often mentioned as a means of comparison to other female criminals, to draw similarities and divergences in behaviour and punishment, but they have rarely achieved protagonist status. This is what my thesis accomplishes, through an assemblage of ideas about the binary of unwanted female speech and English society.

year: 2016

title: The contribution of family literacy programmes to the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities

authors: Furness, Jane Amanda

subjects: Adult Literacy Strategy

abstract: Approaches to literacy education named as ‘family literacy programmes’ first emerged in Aotearoa New Zealand in the early 2000s amidst considerable enthusiasm. Such approaches involve adults, children, or both in literacy learning in the contexts of home and family life. They are part of a wider field, established internationally, of academic and practical endeavour encompassing studies of the literacy practices of family members, studies of parents’ support of children’s literacy development, and studies of programmes aimed at enhancing family members’ literacy abilities, and the evaluations of such programmes. It is a contentious field, with divergent views of what constitutes both literacy and family, leading to differing expectations of what programmes are for and what they might achieve. From a moral perspective, hopes for such approaches, which hold much intuitive and culturally-located appeal, must be set against the concerning disparities in wellbeing between different groups, evident and growing in New Zealand as elsewhere. 

The study set out to explore the effects of a range of family-focused approaches in New Zealand, and their characteristics that seemed important in achieving relevant and meaningful outcomes for participants and their families. An important aim of the study was to encourage the essential conversation concerning the ideological and research-informed basis on which policies and practices should be developed to best suit our contexts, and that have people’s overall wellbeing, as well as their literacy development, in mind. The study traced the experiences of nineteen mainly Māori, Pacific and Pākehā adult participants in four varying family-focused literacy programmes located in different kinds of communities, drawing on Kaupapa Māori methodologies in its approach. Conversational interviews with the adult participants, programme staff and others who knew the participants well, repeated over 18 months, as well as participant observations of programme sessions and programme documentation, formed an extensive data set for latent theoretical thematic analysis. I identified literacy and other changes in the participants’ lives; synergistic links between factors influencing the programme effects, ‘flow on’ of effects to wider aspects of the participants’ lives and to their families and communities, and links to the personal, relational and collective wellbeing of individuals, families and communities.

The findings demonstrate that there are complex influences on programmes such that effects are highly individualised, but that there is nevertheless a tangible, discernable process in play as people journey from participation to wellbeing, in which literacy enhancement, familiarity with new literacies, and new uses of literacies, are involved. The study suggests a disjuncture between current literacy education policy and the hopes, aspirations and real lives of many people for whom the programmes are intended and who wish to contribute to their families and communities despite their complex and often fraught lives. It also demonstrates that a deep level of care and holistic concern is possible in a programme which also achieves literacy skill development. Recognition of people’s whole selves including their problems and their existing abilities in programme content and approach demonstrated the ‘respectful relevance’ that appears crucial to the involvement and the positive (useful and meaningful) outcomes that were observed. It demonstrated that a broad and inclusive evaluative lens offers the best hope for full appreciation of the contribution of programmes such as these, when the overall wellbeing of families, communities and society as a whole is placed at the centre of literacy work. 

The study offers new and urgently-needed ecological systems-based models within a wellbeing orientation to family literacy theory. These have implications for the future development of programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand and provide frameworks against which programmes internationally may consider their work afresh. The study calls for greater community relevance in family literacy based on local values and aspirations.

text: The contribution of family literacy programmes to the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities Approaches to literacy education named as ‘family literacy programmes’ first emerged in Aotearoa New Zealand in the early 2000s amidst considerable enthusiasm. Such approaches involve adults, children, or both in literacy learning in the contexts of home and family life. They are part of a wider field, established internationally, of academic and practical endeavour encompassing studies of the literacy practices of family members, studies of parents’ support of children’s literacy development, and studies of programmes aimed at enhancing family members’ literacy abilities, and the evaluations of such programmes. It is a contentious field, with divergent views of what constitutes both literacy and family, leading to differing expectations of what programmes are for and what they might achieve. From a moral perspective, hopes for such approaches, which hold much intuitive and culturally-located appeal, must be set against the concerning disparities in wellbeing between different groups, evident and growing in New Zealand as elsewhere. 

The study set out to explore the effects of a range of family-focused approaches in New Zealand, and their characteristics that seemed important in achieving relevant and meaningful outcomes for participants and their families. An important aim of the study was to encourage the essential conversation concerning the ideological and research-informed basis on which policies and practices should be developed to best suit our contexts, and that have people’s overall wellbeing, as well as their literacy development, in mind. The study traced the experiences of nineteen mainly Māori, Pacific and Pākehā adult participants in four varying family-focused literacy programmes located in different kinds of communities, drawing on Kaupapa Māori methodologies in its approach. Conversational interviews with the adult participants, programme staff and others who knew the participants well, repeated over 18 months, as well as participant observations of programme sessions and programme documentation, formed an extensive data set for latent theoretical thematic analysis. I identified literacy and other changes in the participants’ lives; synergistic links between factors influencing the programme effects, ‘flow on’ of effects to wider aspects of the participants’ lives and to their families and communities, and links to the personal, relational and collective wellbeing of individuals, families and communities.

The findings demonstrate that there are complex influences on programmes such that effects are highly individualised, but that there is nevertheless a tangible, discernable process in play as people journey from participation to wellbeing, in which literacy enhancement, familiarity with new literacies, and new uses of literacies, are involved. The study suggests a disjuncture between current literacy education policy and the hopes, aspirations and real lives of many people for whom the programmes are intended and who wish to contribute to their families and communities despite their complex and often fraught lives. It also demonstrates that a deep level of care and holistic concern is possible in a programme which also achieves literacy skill development. Recognition of people’s whole selves including their problems and their existing abilities in programme content and approach demonstrated the ‘respectful relevance’ that appears crucial to the involvement and the positive (useful and meaningful) outcomes that were observed. It demonstrated that a broad and inclusive evaluative lens offers the best hope for full appreciation of the contribution of programmes such as these, when the overall wellbeing of families, communities and society as a whole is placed at the centre of literacy work. 

The study offers new and urgently-needed ecological systems-based models within a wellbeing orientation to family literacy theory. These have implications for the future development of programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand and provide frameworks against which programmes internationally may consider their work afresh. The study calls for greater community relevance in family literacy based on local values and aspirations.

year: 2012