Among the public libraries of Japan, in 2011, 208 libraries provided a variety of business support services. Recent investigations have clarified the perspective of the services, but the impact of the business services offered by libraries on users has not been inspected. In this study, I examine the case of a public library that provides consultation for entrepreneurs with the cooperation of the Registered Smaller Enterprise Consultant as the outside expert. Consultation record surveys, mail-back surveys after the consultation, and interviews with persons who have started small businesses were conducted to clarify the effect of the services that the librarian and the expert offered to an individual user. User's knowledge was classified and business images were formed through the reference services of the librarian and the advice and ideas offered by the Registered Smaller Enterprise Consultant. The study revealed the effectiveness of the public library services offered with the cooperation of the expert through the creation of "Model of Building a Business Image by Business Support Service of Library."

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the journal policies for research data sharing across a wide range of disciplines. The authors selected 22 subject areas and reviewed "Guidelines for authors" in 10 journals in each of these areas. We focused on two types of data sharing policies: (1) repository policy, where researchers deposit their data to repositories and indicate the indicate the identifier in their article, and (2) supplemental materials policy. We classified the policies into four ransk based on their strengths. In most of the subject areas in the Biological and Medical Sciences, journals tend to have a high ratio of and strong repository policies, and they recommend the same data repositories. However, only seven jounals in Agricultural Sciences, six in Pharmacology & Toxicology, and two in Psychiatry/Psychology have a repository policy. Although Geosciences, Space Science, and Social Sciences are the leading areas in data sharing, just seven, six and four jounals, respectively, have a repository policy. Only 0-2 journals have a repository policy in six other disciplines, such as Engineering. Of the 220 selected journals, 59.5% have a repository policy, whereas 89.5% have a supplemental materials policy. Journals having a description of research ethics or a disclosure for conflict of interest (COI), or published by commercial publishers tend to have a high ratio of and stronger policies. These results suggest that data sharing policies in scholarly journals are associated with scientific misconduct.

View full abstract

The growth process of a terminological network has been analyzed to reveal the developmental process of knowledge in four high school science textbooks (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Earth Science). Knowledge is considered a conceptual structure, and we construct terminological networks that reflect the conceptual structure of science, with vertices representing terms and edges representing co-occurrence of terms in a paragraph. Our primary results are some sections. (2) New concepts are connected to other concepts consistently, and they are integrated into the largest part of the conceptual structure. (3) The average number of concepts that are directly connected to a concept is increasing. Concepts are indirectly connected through two or three concepts on average, and are strongly connected in partial conceptual groups. (4) The degree of centralization (i.e., few concepts are connected to many concepts directly or facilitate indirect connection between concepts) is deteriorating. These results differ from the results obtained when terms appear randomly in the textbooks. Some characteristics of each subject are also observed.

View full abstract