Digital Commons Network^™

Drying Shrinkage Of Hardened Cement Paste And Its Relationship To The Microstructure, Xin Wang, Chaojun Wan, Xiaojing Zhang, Heng Chen

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

The aim of the present study is to relate microstructure to the drying shrinkage of hardened cement paste. Three microstructural features, calcium silicate hydrate(C-S-H), calcium hydroxide(CH) and pore structure were studied. A new method to determine the C-S-H content of hardened cement paste is presented. Drying shrinkage behavior of cement pastes were investigated by drying specimens through successive steps of RH 100% to 7% RH and re-saturating the specimens. The total shrinkage of cement paste after drying to 7% RH and irreversible shrinkage were decreased with the increasing amount of C-S-H and CH. Prolonged curing resulted in a paste with …

Electrochemical Behaviour Of Passive Layers In Weathered Reinforced Mortars, B. Díaz, B. Guitián, X.R. Nóvoa, M.C. Pérez

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

Electrochemical methods are widely employed for assessing the corrosion performance of steel rebars embedded in concrete. Corrosion potential and polarization resistance are the main parameters considered for this purpose; under the assumption that the cathodic process corresponds to oxygen reduction and the anodic process to steel corrosion. Although these assumptions are mostly true, they are not able to explain some transitions from passive to active states, as well as some corrosion potential evolutions. The present contribution is intended to provide an in depth approximation to those questions based on the study of thick passive layers formed over years in atmospheric …

Study On Accelerated Microbial Corrosion Of Concrete By Artificially Intensified Sewage, L. J. Kong, M. F. Cao, Xiangming Zhou Prof, H. R. Lu, H. Lu, G. Kastiukas

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

In this study, the artificially intensified sewage with different levels of chemical oxygen demand (COD) were prepared, and the changes in weight and strength, as well as the micro morphology, mineral compositions and pore structure of concrete specimens immersed in the artificially intensified sewage and water were investigated in comparison. In parallel, the COD, pH, H₂S and O₂ values, as well as the microbial species and contents of sewage were monitored in the corrosion process. Furthermore, the microbial structure and activities within biofilm developed on concrete surface were also analyzed. The results indicated that the increase of …

Transport Properties And Strength Development Of Blended Cement Mortars Containing Nano-Silica, Ali Akbar Ramezanianpour, Sajjad Mirvalad, Mehrdad Mortezaei

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

In the present study, the mechanical properties and durability of blended cement mortars containing nanosilica and natural pozzolans is investigated. Trass and pumice, two different Iranian natural pozzolan, are used in the experiments. For cement blends preparation, nano-silica replacement levels of 2, 3 and 4% by mass of cement was considered; each mixture contained one of the natural pozzolans with a fixed replacement percentage of 15. The Standard mortar samples were made with w/cm ratio of 0.485; the flow of all mortars ranged from 14 to 16 cm. All prepared mortars’ samples were cured in saturated limewater until the test …

Comparison Of Lithomarge And Cement-Based Mortars Performance In Aggressive Aqueous Environments, Jacek Kwasny, Timothy A. Aiken, Marios N. Soutsos, Andrew J. Mcintosh, David J. Cleland

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

The resistance of room temperature cured geopolymer mortar (GPM) against chemical attacks, i.e. sodium and magnesium sulfate solutions, and sulfuric and hydrochloric acid solutions, was evaluated. GPM was formulated using a lithomarge precursor (low-purity kaolin) to achieve 28-day characteristic compressive strength of 60 MPa. Its performance was compared with an equivalent Portland cement mortar (PCM) having the same paste volume and strength grade. 28-day old bar samples were stored in 0.352 mol/L sulfate solutions for 52 weeks whereas 28-day old cube samples were exposed for 8 weeks to acid solutions with concentration of 0.52 mol/L. GPM showed superior performance against …

Internal Curing By Sap In Ultra-High Strength Concrete With Cement-Silica Fume-Fly Ash Binder, Jianhui Liu, Caijun Shi, Xianwei Ma

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

Super-absorbed polymer (SAP) is an effective internal curing materials for reducing autogenous shrinkage and improving cracking resistance of ultra-high-strength concrete (UHSC). This study investigated the compressive strength, shrinkage properties of UHSC with cement–silica fume–fly ash binder. The composition of the binder was designed using seven-batch factorial design method. The relationships between the binder composition and the properties were expressed in contours. Results showed that, silica fume could improve the compressive strength and total shrinkage of UHSC. However fly ash reduced the compressive strength and total shrinkage of UHSC to certain extent. On the other hand, under the internal curing of …

Decoding The Scholarly Resources Marketplace, Lindsay Cronk, Rachel M. Fleming

Charleston Library Conference

Developed with input from a variety of library workers and industry representatives, this session will provide a current and concise introduction to the scholarly resource marketplace for academic libraries, highlighting the financial and functional connections between major market actors providing services and content to libraries.

Discussions of vendor relations in libraries have often focused on the interpersonal collaboration of library workers and vendor representatives. In the process, they have overlooked or neglected the connections between publishers and vendors, their parent corporations and subsidiary companies.

Decoding requires a focus on vocabulary and building shared understanding of the marketplace for scholarly resources. …

(Un)Structuring For The Next Generation: New Possibilities For Library Data With Nosql, Matthew D. Harrington, Dennis B. Christman

Charleston Library Conference

For many years, libraries have relied upon relational databases (RDBMS) to store, manipulate, and query various types of data, and this database model works extremely well when data are highly structured. As the data become more complex, however, the relational database model strains under the burden of maintaining complex joins, which can decrease a database's performance and limit its functionality. Furthermore, data are not always best represented in the RDBMS's flat, tabular format. Library data often require flexibility and extensibility to accommodate the increasing volume and variety of library resources and metadata. To address these issues, transforming the underlying structure …

Open Letter(S) On Open Access, Ingrid D. Becker, John G. Dove

Charleston Library Conference

It is well known that one major obstacle to achieving open access (OA) is misunderstanding among stakeholders; some say it is the biggest problem of all. Throughout the supply-chain of producing and consuming scholarly literature, many participants—especially authors—understand the broader objectives of OA but not the practical steps they can take to help increase the accessibility of research. The purpose of “Open Letter(s) on Open Access” (OLOA) is to provide initial examples of communications that illustrate such steps. We do so by examining sets of well-regarded academic sources and evaluating the various paths that authors choose as a means of …

Access For All: How Libraries, Publishers, And Vendors Can Collaborate On Accessible Products, Katherine Purple, Bill Kasdorf, Emma Dipasquale

Charleston Library Conference

According to the 2016 Disability Statistics Annual Report, “The overall rate of people with disabilities in the US population in 2015 was 12.6%.” This means tens of millions of people in the United States alone, but making work accessible serves a far larger population even than that. As has often been noted, most of us, if we live long enough, will experience a disability at some point. Many of the steps taken to create accessible texts makes them better, more reader-friendly, and more usable to everyone—those with or without impairments. This session’s focus on accessibility will consider how libraries, publishers, …

Library-Supported Scholarship: Increasing Faculty Scholarly Reach With Author Services, Russell Michalak, Monica Rysavy

Charleston Library Conference

The researchers’ primary goal when working with faculty on the research and publication process is to empower them to independently write literature reviews, deploy surveys, collect data, analyze data, and submit manuscripts to peer-review journals and edited book collections. The authors coach faculty in doing so in a variety of ways, from one-on-one trainings to small group workshops. For faculty who have recently earned their PhD, librarians have worked with them to narrow their dissertation topic into a publishable product. As part of the publishing process, the authors have shown them how to select potential publication outlets by reviewing the …

Short Books: Context And Case, Steven Weiland, Matthew Ismail

Charleston Library Conference

The digital transformation of higher education invites rethinking of all elements of academic work. That now includes the form of the scholarly book, including the appearance of short ones, seen by authors and publishers as opportunities for altering expectations and practices. Writing about short books reveals their intentions and utility. And experience with a new series of short books displays their timeliness, if with problems of professional recognition.

The Tome Initiative: Year One, Sarah Mckee

Charleston Library Conference

This stopwatch session provided an update on the first year's implementation of the TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem) initiative, a collaboration of the Association of American Universities, the Association of Research Libraries, and the Association of University Presses. The initiative is a five-year experiment in an institutional funding model for open access monographs.

The Future Of Research Information: Open, Connected, Seamless, Annette Thomas

Charleston Library Conference

We live in the age of the web. For information professionals in particular, this has been the defining fact of the last 25 years. It has enabled ever greater quantities of research to be published, expanded the range of media we can use, and offered new possibilities for recognizing and rewarding research contributions. But such opportunities also bring challenges and pitfalls. If we do the right things, this could be a golden age for research, but to make the most of it we must embrace the original principles that made the web itself such a powerful force.

When The Wind Blows: Changing Roles For Changing Times, Mira Waller, Shelby J. Hallman

Charleston Library Conference

Subject liaisons have traditionally focused on providing domain-specific services and collections. Recently, however, their roles have shifted from a support model to actively engaging and collaborating with scholars throughout the academic life cycle and research enterprise. At the same time, users increasingly require functional information support (e.g., for GIS, data visualization, or data mining) in place of or in addition to domain-specific services. As the liaison role continues to evolve, finding the right balance between the roles of generalist, subject specialist, and functional expert will provide both challenges and opportunities.

This proceeding focuses on a case study of two librarians …

Future And Value: The Library As Strategic Partner, Antje Mays

Charleston Library Conference

Broader economic trends spawn budget pressures for education and libraries, prompting a plethora of studies on the value and relevance of libraries. Numerous reports on economic decline in libraries and studies with mixed pronouncements on the value of libraries have led to a negative self-image within the library profession. Yet libraries’ leadership in connecting learners to knowledge is at the heart of producing many of the key skills sorely needed in robust societies and economies. Librarianship has many untapped opportunities for positioning itself as a prominent strategic partner. This paper outlines current research on the economic and societal context for …

Reimagining Research Services’ Outreach To Faculty And Students: A Tale Of Two Research Departments (University Of Central Florida And Florida Gulf Coast University), Barbara G. Tierney, Linda K. Colding

Charleston Library Conference

Two academic library research managers discuss innovative outreach strategies that they coordinate in their respective libraries (University of Central Florida serves 68,000+ students; Florida Gulf Coast University serves 15,000+ students) to support faculty and student success for teaching, learning, and research. A poster1 was created to illustrate these strategies.

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Buy, Subscribe, Or Borrow? Consumers’ Use Preferences For Information Products, Xiaohua Zhu, Moonhee Cho

Charleston Library Conference

The information industry has been exploring business models for digital information products, but it was not until recent years that the new access model, especially subscription-based services, became popular. Thanks to the advancement of streaming technology, online advertisement, and DRM technology, information providers were able to design various pricing schemes and provide various services for users with different needs. Consumers seem to favor these services increasingly, but some questions remain: Is there a significant shift in users’ general preferences for all media content? Do they prefer any particular models under specific circumstances? What factors are related to users’ preferences? This …

Data Curation Workshop: Tips And Tools For Today, Matthew M. Benzing

Charleston Library Conference

The current state of research data is like a disorganized photo collection: a mix of formats scattered across different media without a lot of authority control. That is changing as the need to make data available to researchers across the world is becoming recognized. Researchers know that their data needs to be maintained and made accessible, but often they do not have the time or the inclination to get involved in all of the details. This provides an excellent opportunity for librarians. Data curation is the process of preparing data to be made available in a repository with the goal …

What Makes Us Do It? The Legalities And Demand That Necessitate A Library Video Streaming Service, Corinne Forstot-Burke, Lea Currie

Charleston Library Conference

There are many differing interpretations of copyright law when it comes to digitizing and providing streaming video as a library service. Librarians at the University of Kansas (KU) have long been interested in providing a streaming video service for pedagogical purposes, but KU general counsel always took a conservative stance on this practice and would not allow it. When KU Libraries hired a new dean, who was also a copyright attorney, general counsel became amenable to the fair use arguments the dean provided, and after working through workflow and technical issues, a new streaming service was introduced to KU faculty …

“Scrumming” The Library Materials Budget: A Serendipitous Application Of An Agile Project Management Framework, Raimonda Margjoni, Michelle Mcclure

Charleston Library Conference

Maintaining a sustainable materials budget in academic libraries remains a challenging task, as it’s not only affected by constant pressures of flat funding and increasing annual costs but is also subject to timely invoicing and accurate documentation of budget allocations and expenditures. At George A. Smathers Libraries at University of Florida (UF), developing the annual materials budget allocation is an extensive process that begins in November/December with a rough estimate derived from prior-year final expenditure figures. As the year progresses and expenditure commitments increase, the allocations estimate becomes more precise, and it culminates in August/September after a successful completion of …

Textbooks Are Expensive, But Oer Can Be Challenging: Providing E-Textbook Access Through The Library, Brian W. Boling, Karen Kohn

Charleston Library Conference

Research has shown that textbook costs are rising. Open educational resources (OER), though increasingly popular, are not available for all courses and can be difficult to adopt, particularly for contingent faculty. In response to the textbook crisis and the limitations of OER, Temple University has sought alternative ways to provide textbook access to students. We have promoted OER through a grant program since 2011 and offer a website to expose assigned readings that the Libraries own in e-book format. In 2018, the Libraries also began purchasing e-textbooks. The campus bookstore sends a list of assigned books each semester. We review …

Budgets On My Mind: Changing Budget Allocations To Meet Teaching And Research Needs: University Of Washington Case Study, Corey Murata, Denise Pan

Charleston Library Conference

In fall 2017, the University of Washington (UW) Libraries began a multiyear process to examine and update the resources budget structure and allocation model. The budget structure and allocation model at UW Libraries remained fundamentally the same for over 20 years. In that time there has been a shift toward more interdisciplinary research as well as significant changes in scholarly publishing and the acquisition environment for academic libraries. Recognizing that our budget structure and allocation model are no longer aligned with the changes in our environment, UW initiated a process with the goal of developing a model that is better …

Popular Reading Collections In Academic Libraries: Goals, Parameters, And Campus Reactions, Carol Cramer, Hilary Davis, Suchi Mohanty, Lynn Whittenberger

Charleston Library Conference

Popular reading collections are just one of myriad ways that academic libraries contribute to the cultural, recreational, and community endeavors of our campus populations. Based on the perspectives from three libraries (one private medium-sized university, one large public STEM-focused, one large public comprehensive university), this paper discusses opportunities and challenges of popular reading collections as well as collection/acquisition strategies, target audiences, promotion of the collection, use of the collection, content types (including graphic novels), and perceived impact of the popular reading collection on campus.

On The Winds Of Change: Repositories, Researchers And Technologies: The 18th Health Sciences Lively Lunch Discussion, Jean Gudenas, Ramune K. Kubilius, Anthony Watkinson, John Felts

Charleston Library Conference

This year’s sponsored but no holds barred health sciences lively lunchtime gathering again was open to all. Moderator Jean Gudenas introduced this year’s three presentations: a report on a survey, a report on a research study, and a technology update. Ramune Kubilius provided a brief annual traditional update on developments in the health sciences publishing world. She then segued to highlighting some findings from a survey she and two co-authors conducted in December 2017-January 2018 of AAHSL (Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries) members on medical school institutional repositories (IRs). She focused on responses to questions about IR collections and …

Budgets On My Mind: Changing Budget Allocations To Meet Teaching And Research Needs, Denise D. Novak

Charleston Library Conference

The shifting landscape of academic programs, scholarly communication, acquisition environment, and staffing patterns in academic libraries necessitates changes in resources budget structure and allocation models to align with and be responsive to this new landscape. This presentation includes case studies from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Washington. We will share changes made to our budget structure and allocation, and we would like to invite you to discuss your thoughts on budget allocation models in libraries.

Streaming Video Pda: Brace Yourself, Usage Is Coming, Marianne Foley

Charleston Library Conference

Low usage statistics for library resources are a big concern for the librarians at the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo State, so we were unprepared for the popularity of a new streaming video patron-driven acquisitions (PDA) program. Though it was slow to take off, when it did, usage increased suddenly and dramatically. After depleting the initial budget for the resource, we allocated more funds and then quickly depleted those additional funds. At that point, we changed to a mediated model to help control the costs, but that greatly increased work for our Acquisitions Department and raised collection development …

Spring Forward: Collaborating To Build And Assess A Collection Of Learning Objects, Stephanie A. Jacobs, Audrey Powers

Charleston Library Conference

Delivering innovative information literacy instruction to an ever-growing student population requires some resetting of previous practices and ideas. Collaboratively developed interactive learning activities that address library skills and the research process presented in a flipped-classroom style may represent a useful innovation in this area. This paper addresses the ongoing project at the University of South Florida (USF) Tampa Library in which interactive digital learning objects are developed, embedded into all sections of a university course via the online learning management system, assessed, and reworked.

African American Studies Collections And The American Season Of Redemption, Courtney Becks

Charleston Library Conference

In a Journal of Academic Librarianship article that appeared in 2000, Susan A. Vega García writes about the “dearth of empirical research that has examined multicultural diversity in terms of actual collecting patterns of academic and research libraries [...].” (Vega García, 2000) This article, nearly 20 years old, is one of the few that actually address the topic of African American Studies collections specifically in the LIS literature. Though there is, in fact, a literature of “diversity” in library collections, it lumps together an array of groups whose only commonality is having been labelled Other in the U.S. This lumping …

Sso’S Utopian Promise Is Based On Flawed Assumptions, Heather N. Shipman

Charleston Library Conference

Single-sign-on authentication (SSO) for licensed library e-resources is growing in popularity, touted as a valuable tool supporting the personalization of user experiences while maintaining user privacy. Such proposals, however, are based on assumptions that are not well supported by evidence. This paper addresses three such flawed assumptions: that SSO assures privacy; that all authorized patrons have SSO credentials; and that personalization is desirable to libraries and their patrons. In reality, privacy is merely one possible SSO configuration, not a guarantee; walk-in library patrons do not have SSO credentials; and there is a growing body of evidence that existing personalization algorithms, …