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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

National Data Sets And Calculating Percentile Ranks: A Guide For Benchmarking Library Collection Spending, Christine Mcevilly Jul 2022

National Data Sets And Calculating Percentile Ranks: A Guide For Benchmarking Library Collection Spending, Christine Mcevilly

Publications and Research

National data sets can be used by a librarian to compare library collection (materials) spending to that of similar schools, even if the librarian has little or no experience in statistics or database management tools. Percentile rank is a simple descriptive statistic that provides a way to present data with maximum impact on faculty and administrators who make funding decisions. Librarians must combine knowledge of their local circumstances with a basic understanding of the structure of the datasets. The article will focus on step-by-step methodologies, illustrated as they were used at the College of Staten Island, City University of New …


Rationalism In Normative Budget Theory, Dan Williams Mar 1997

Rationalism In Normative Budget Theory, Dan Williams

Publications and Research

This paper concerns epistemological rationalism and the norms used by governments to instruct their officers to perform their duties. The particular duty I discuss here is preparation of and action on the budget. In this paper I use "rationalism" as the opposite of "empiricism." This rationalism does not refer to "'economic rationality," it refers to the method of attaining knowledge associated with introspection, logic, and a priori knowledge. It is opposed to the method of attaining knowledge associated with observation, experiment, and evidence. By "norms, “normative," and other related terms, I mean action guiding language. Four senses of normative are …