การวจยเชงคณภาพ เปนเครองมอสำคญอยางหนงสำหรบทำความเขาใจสงคมและพฤตกรรมมนษย การวจยแบบการสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล กเปนหนงในหลายระเบยบวธการวจยเชงคณภาพทกำลงไดรบความสนใจ และเปนทนยมเพมสงขนเรอยๆ จากนกวชาการ และนกวจยในสาขาสงคมศาสตร และศาสตรอนๆ เชน พฤตกรรมศาสตร สงคมวทยา สาธารณสขศาสตร พยาบาลศาสตร จตวทยาสงคม ศกษาศาสตร รฐศาสตร และสารสนเทศศกษา ดงนน หนงสอเรอง “ConstructingGrounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis” หรอ “การสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล:แนวทางการปฏบตผานการวเคราะหเชงคณภาพ” จะชวยใหผอานมความรความเขาใจถงพฒนาการของปฏบตการวจยแบบสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล ตลอดจนแนวทาง และกระบวนการปฏบตการวจยอยางเปนระบบ จงเปนหนงสอทควรคาแกการอานโดยเฉพาะนกวจยรนใหม เพอเปนแนวทางในการนำความรความเขาใจไประยกตในงานวจยของตน อกทงนกวจยผเชยวชาญสามารถอานเพอขยายมโนทศนดานวจยใหกวางขวางขน

Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis

Men and Women of the Corporation

Death is the new sex, last great taboo in Western society and Western medicine, as Richard Smith discusses in his editorial (p 129). In the trinity of births, marriages, and deaths, only death does not have glossy magazines devoted to stylish consumption at the attendant ceremonies. On the web, of course, …

Death and dying

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century Thomas L. Friedman Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005 Thomas Friedman is a widely-acclaimed journalist, foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, and author of four best-selling books that include From Beirut to Jerusalem (1989). His eminence as a journalist is clearly demonstrated in the way he prepared for The World is Flat. He traveled throughout the world, interviewing in depth the political and business leaders who have the most direct, hands-on knowledge of the truly incredible developments occurring in the business structures and technology of globalization. Only a journalist who moves freely at the highest levels could interview the likes of Sir John Rose, the chief executive of Rolls-Royce; Nobuyuki Idei, the chairman of Sony; Richard Koo, the chief economist for the Nomura Research Institute; Bill Gates of Microsoft; Wee Theng Tan, the president of Intel China; David Baltimore, president of Caltech; Howard Schultz, founder and chairman of Starbucks; Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Infosys in Bangalore - and many others, each of whom gave him the inside story of how, specifically, the barriers of time and space separating economies, workforces, sources of capital, and technical abilities are crumbling. The result of this unfolding story, already far along but with much farther to go, according to Friedman, is that "the world is flat." With some notable exceptions in sub-Saharan Africa and the Islamic swathe, everything is connected with everything else on a horizontal basis, with distance and erstwhile time-lags no longer mattering. Friedman describes in detail the galloping globalization that has unfolded in even so limited a time as the past five years. Under the impetus of a worldwide network of interconnectivity, the world economy is much-changed from what it was at the turn of the century a mere half-decade ago. Friedman quotes the CEO of India's Infosys: "What happened over the last [few] years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables," while (Friedman paraphrases him) "computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of software - e-mail, search engines like Google, and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore, and one part to Beijing...." Microprocessors today have 410 million transistors compared to the 2800 they had in 1971. And now, "wireless is what will allow you to take everything that has been digitized, made virtual and personal, and do it from anywhere." The effect on productivity is revolutionary: "It now takes Boeing eleven days to build a 737, down from twenty-eight days just a few years ago. Boeing will build the next generation of planes in three days, because all the parts are computer-designed for assembly." The most strikingly informative aspect of this book, however, is not about technology. Most especially, Friedman explores the rapidly evolving global business systems, each constantly regenerating itself to keep ahead of the others. These are systems that span the continents seeking the lowest-cost providers of everything from expert scientific and engineering work to the lowliest grunt work. Friedman points out that India produces 70,000 accounting graduates each year - and that they are willing to start at $100 a month. It is no wonder that Boeing employs 800 Russian scientists and engineers for passenger-plane design when "a U.S. aeronautical engineer costs $120 per design hour, a Russian costs about one-third of that." Friedman describes a call center in India where outbound callers sell "everything from credit cards to phone minutes," while operators taking inbound calls do "everything from tracing lost luggage for U.S. and European airline passengers to solving computer problems for confused American consumers. …

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

The internet has tremendous potential to achieve greater social equity and empowerment and improve everyday life for those on the margins of society. This article presents the findings from three digital divide studies, each of which represents a different group of marginalized society members. Low-income families, sexual minorities and African-American women are represented in the three studies that employ different research approaches towards a common aim of contextualizing internet use in the everyday social practice of society’s ‘have-nots’. The aim is to step outside simple digital divide categories to understand how marginalized members of society incorporate computers and the internet into their daily lives in ways that are meaningful to them. An important goal is also to learn about how internet researchers can contribute to closing the digital divide in ways that converge with the goals, meanings and practices of people living on society’s margins.

The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users

In the shadow of a uniquely American struggle for racial equality, who were we historically in the library and information science (LIS) professions and how has it shaped who we are in the ...

An “Owning Up” of White-IST Trends in LIS to Further Real Transformations

Summary There is minimal research on the cross-cultural needs, priorities, and behaviors of international participants immersed in contemporary culturally alien information environments. Through a quantitative analysis of Internet use patterns of international teaching assistants (ITA) studying in graduate school at a representative university in the United States, the authors discover communication-information convergences in ITAs’ use of the Internet as a “glocal” network, connecting the “global” and “local” dimensions in their everyday lives. The paper identifies dual functions of the Internet considered meaningful to the ITAs in the diaspora, namely: (1) to engage in various communication activities with friends and family in their home countries (the “global”), thereby providing psychological comfort and overcoming social isolation; and (2) to conduct information gathering activities that establish coping mechanisms for ITAs in their new homes in the United States (the “local”). The paper presents empirical data highlighting correlations between communication and information intersections in ITAs’ use of the Internet. Findings extend past Internet research and user studies in traditional communication and information research, which only alluded to these communication-information convergence processes, to better understand how international people use the Internet in present-day cross-cultural contexts of interaction.

''Glocal'' patterns of communication-information convergences in Internet use: Cross-cultural behavior of international teaching assistants in a culturally alien information environment

Based on qualitative analysis of data gathered during in-depth narrative interviews and informal discussions about “queer” youth experiences with twenty-one “queer” individuals, this paper presents a “queer” manifesto of library interventions in support of “queer” youth during various phases of the coming out process. Important characteristics of coming out are discussed, especially as a life-long process for “queer” individuals to acknowledge their sexuality and share that awareness with others. Significant concerns and challenges faced by “queer” youth during different phases in their coming out experiences provide a context for the identification of library interventions that reflect (and require) extending traditional library functions of information provision as well as fulfilling non-traditional expectations that include proactive social justice efforts for libraries to come out of the closet in support of “queer” youth.

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A “queer” manifesto of interventions for libraries to “come out” of the closet! A study of “queer” youth experiences during the coming out process

This entry presents an overview of social justice vocabularies, conceptualizations, and philosophies as they are represented in the history of library and information science (LIS) practice and research. Emphasis is placed on theoretical descriptions of both justice and social justice, and how these constructs are historically related to past and emerging trends in the LIS professions, with a main focus on social justice in regard to public library philosophy and practice in the United States. The entry also includes a discussion of information science research as it relates to the needs of disadvantaged populations

Bharat Mehra

Papers

The internet for empowerment of minority and marginalized users

An “Owning Up” of White-IST Trends in LIS to Further Real Transformations

''Glocal'' patterns of communication-information convergences in Internet use: Cross-cultural behavior of international teaching assistants in a culturally alien information environment

A “queer” manifesto of interventions for libraries to “come out” of the closet! A study of “queer” youth experiences during the coming out process

Social Justice in Library and Information Science