Re-launch of Virtual Conductive Education Library catalogue

In 2010 I started compiling a virtual catalogue of Conductive Education items available on, and via, the Internet. These early listings of items, arranged under subject headings, can still be found  posted on a blog  at 

http://virtualcelibrary.blogspot.co.uk/

This system was not very satisfactory and problems of  arrangement and classification soon arose.

So later that year a proper catalogue was created and items were listed in a traditional library format. This was made possible with the help of Ben Foulger who set up the necessary software and web pages in November 2010 on E-Conduction's website,  www.e-conduction.org 

Since then new items have been added as, and when discovered, until entries reached over 400 in number.

Now, ready for 2014, Ben has helped produce a new look for the catalogue. The format and layout of this virtual library have been updated and can now be found at

 http://www.e-conduction.org/virtuallibrary

This version has a clearer brighter format which is much easier to read, search and consult. The help page on searching and using the catalogue has also been extended, updated and now includes examples of searches. This can be found at 

http://www.e-conduction.org/virtuallibraryhelp

Please note that as before, this catalogue includes all papers, documents, reviews, bibliographies etc discovered on the Internet that are relevant to Conductive Education. Also  note that none of the items have been evaluated for quality. That is a job for readers: it is not the role of a library. Inclusion in this catalogue indicates solely their existence on the Internet.

I will continue to add to this and welcome any suggestions, links etc for inclusion. Please also let me know what you think of the new layout and help pages.

Blast from the past and what is to come!

Recently I was sent a link to an item on the old Foundation for Conductive Education website.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010303171104/http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/html/news/library.html

When the National Library of Conductive Education was ten years old  this piece was put on the Foundation for Conductive Education's website and has a couple pictures of the library and me. The first was taken  shortly after it was established in 1991 at the old Birmingham Institute of Conductive Education  and the other in 2001 at the National Institute of Conductive Education. Shortly after this piece the library moved again into bigger premises in Cannon Hill House where it still is. I was made redundant in 2009 from the post of Librarian as part of a financial belt tightening.

I am still involved in Conductive Education, but in other projects. On thinking about this, I realised that there are, in fact,  quite a few :

     I started the virtual library of Conductive Education  at

    http://www.e-conduction.org/?page_id=115
 
    which now has over 400 items listed and nearly thirty   complete documents in its Depository.
    More to be added to both soon as time permits.

    My lists of CE centres and conductor consultancies have now been converted into a Map of Where
    Conductors Work  using the technical expertise of Ben Foulger.

    http://intelligentlove.org/institution/map

   With Andrew Sutton I have been involved in producing five titles for Conductive Education Press,

   http://www.blurb.com/user/store/cepress

   and we have plans to publish another book, a quotationary, very soon, with another to follow for
   the World Congress.


Watch this space for more details on both titles.

Not bad going! It just goes to show that you never know what the future may bring.

Librarians are always happy to help

I have just made a comment on Conductive World. Yesterday I commented on a question about CE on Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/da.otter/posts/10152479532045287

 and Andrew has blogged his thoughts on this and my response.

http://www.conductive-world.info/2013/01/hunting-hari.html

This is what I have said:

It gave me a nice warm feeling to be able to use my knowledge of CE literature, and I hope it helped. I have always got satisfaction from bringing information and people together, as  a room full of information is not always easy to access without help.

 

It is not often that Librarians are rated at all or  acknowledgement given to their expertise, so thank you for this, Andrew.

 

I am always happy to help via my blog, Conductive Education Information at www.gillian-maguire.info  if I can.

If anyone does think I can help, please ask, and then I will if I can. As well as my memory I do have a collection of resources here that I can consult,  and don't forget the virtual catalogue available at

http://www.e-conduction.org/?page_id=115

More items going in the Virtual Catalogue

I am now back to adding material to the virtual catalogue of Conductive Education which can be found at http://www.e-conduction.org/?page_id=115

It is good to get back to doing 'library' tasks again after spending much of my time on Conductive Education Press projects and dealing with other personal issues.

There are now nearly 400 items in the catalogue and I do have a list of things, built up over the past few months, which should increase that quite a bit. These consist of papers, conference reports, brochures etc. I believe that a new journal will be published in November and that will go in too if its available via the Internet.

If you are aware of anything new going up, or about to, on the Internet, please do let me know. I do regular searches for such things but may have missed something.

Recent articles on Conductive Education in journals

Today on Facebook I saw a note by Andrew Sutton that a new article on Conductive Education had been published in an academic journal so I followed the link given and it is now in the Virtual Library's catalogue on  Conduction's website. (see below)

Andrew also asked when there had last been an article on Conductive Education published in a journal.

 Recent Advances in Conductive Education which aimed to encourage reports of developments worldwide and  spread information about the practice of Conductive Education ceased publication in 2008 and no other journal devoted to the subject exists.

There have been numerous ephemeral reports in newspapers and magazines recently but those in academic journals that I am aware of are:

 one in 2008, by Brittle and others on adults in Clinical Rehabilitation
http://cre.sagepub.com/content/22/4.toc

and three in 2010 :
The first in Physiothrapy and Practice by Effgen and Chan on children and gross motor behaviors
at http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/09593980802664760?journalCode=ptp

and another in the Israeli Journal of Occupational Therapy. a comparative study by Schenker and others   http://www.isot.org.il/emall/shopDepartment.asp?sc=1872&id=58974&fid=18142

and an evaluation by Tuersley-Dixon and Frederiskson  in Educational Psychology and Practice at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/educational-psychology/resources/Conductive%20Education%20-%20Tuersley-Dixon.pdf

Now we have the first for 2012 by Lotan and others in Developmental Neurorehabilitation  at
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17518423.2011.629374

All these items are entered in the Virtual library catalogue. Not many, but more than I thought. If I have missed any, please let me know.

Articles often come from academic institutions where there is encouragement to publish, or as a result of research, and I wonder how many such projects are yet to be written up and published. If you know of any, again, please let me know.

Conductive Education: do we want to save the history and knowledge?

This morning on the Today programme, BBC Radio 4, there was an item on archives and preservation of knowledge. This was prompted by the news that the poet,Wendy Pope, had sold her archive to the British Library and led to a wider discussion about preserving documents in the electronic age, the difficulties thereof due to sheer volume, and how important librarians and archivists were to the organisation and management of such collections in today's 'digital abundance'.

Naturally it made me think of Conductive Education and what was being done to save its history, development and practice. The National Library aimed to fufill this role as far as it was possible whilst I was Librarian, collecting centre brochures, reports, press cuttings, reports etc, but I would think maintaining the collection in this way will have been very difficult if not impossible during the past two years.

Maintaining this blog, reporting and recording events, answering enquiries is my small contribution to establishing a record, a history, the facts of what is happening in the CE world. Another resource is the virtual library, the virtual catalogue which includes items on the Internet which are available to those who want to investigate, analyse and discuss. Unfortunately one disadvantage of the Internet is the 'disappearance' of items due to broken links, deletion or being moved to new locations as has happened with some of the items I have found for the Virtual Catalogue, but with limited resources it is not possible to track everything down.

 I do my best.

One question you may ask is does anyone really care? Other than me, of course. If Conductive Education is to have a future surely it must have a recorded past to learn from and build on?

I would like to offer everyone the chance to present their papers, documents, writings to me for inclusion in the Repository on http://www.e-conduction.org/  or to keep with other material I am collecting here in my 'office'.

Let's do our best to save and preserve knowledge for those who will follow us in the years to come.

Update re the Virtual Catalogue and Repository

A few months ago I started moving the virtual catalogue on my blog at http://www.virtualcelibrary.blogspot.com/    

 to a new page on Conduction's website at

 http://www.e-conduction.org/ 

and now  253 items have been added  with more still waiting, but please note that this task will be never ending as I discover more items on the Internet.

I hope to be able to post a selection of items recently added regularly to give you an idea of the types and numbers of material available via the catalogue.

A Repository has also been set up. This will include the full text of documents which have not been published and are unavailable elsewhere. Items will be listed in the searchable catalogue -  a fine resource for those wishing to read more about Conductive Education. 

I have several waiting to be included and last week Andrew Sutton alerted me to the possibility of another, a paper being delivered to a conference in the US. :-

   DeCleene, K, DePoy, L. Can Occupational Therapists Enhance a Conductive Education Program with Sensory Integration for Children with Cerebral Palsy? 24th Annual Dean's Occupational Therapy Research Conference. Saint Louis, MO, March 2011.

I have been in touch with Kate DeCleene and she has agreed to send me a copy when the final draft is complete. This is wonderful and made me wonder if there are any more such papers, presentations that could also go into the Repository. If you know of any, or have papers of your own, please do let me know.

Naturally it will take time to get  everything up, but I am working at it as time is what I have plenty of at the moment!

Please do let me know what you think of this project and how useful it is for you.

Feedback of any kind is very welcome.

New home and format for Virtual Library of Conductive Education

At long last I can announce that the Virtual Library of Conductive Education now has a new format -  and a new home, thanks to Ben Foulger.

Ben has spent a lot of his own time in the past few months creating  a searchable database for the Virtual Library  and in the process been very patient with my requests for all sorts of features, changes, yet more changes and further additions - he has managed them all. Wonderful. 

Ben, I salute you!

The  catalogue can now be found on the website of Conduction, the new UK charity for Conductive Education  at http://www.e-conduction.org/virtuallibrary

The contents of the Library currently at http://www.virtualcelibrary.blogspot.com/ will gradually be included along with new items and the same criterium  applies for those, that is availablility on the Internet. Some are free to acess and some require a subscription, password or payment for an individual article. So far items included are written e.g. articles, conference papers, documents, presentations. Films and videos may be added later.

I have added over 100 items to the catalogue so far, but as you can appreciate transferring the material from the blog to the database takes time. I will add any new finds straight into the new format - in fact I have added some already - whilst continuing to 'move' the old items across.

 The blog will remain and not be deleted until this process is completed.

Some people may be unused to searching a catalogue online, so there is a link to a help page containing some basic instructions and guidance.

This catalogue, like all 'live' library catalogues, will never be 'finished' as more new material becomes available and is recorded. I welcome any help you can offer in finding such material.

You will see that there is also a link to a Depository on the same page. It is hoped to put complete documents, unpublished papers, articles etc not available elsewhere into this starting very soon. At present it is empty.

As always, if you have any queries, suggestions for improving the new set-up or suggestions for inclusion, please do let me know.

Conductive Education books available on the Internet

 I was reminded the other day during a conversation with Andrew Sutton that Foundation for Conductive Education publications had been sent to Google for inclusion in Google Books with permissions to include some content.

I have now checked on this and found not only FCE titles with a large chunk of the text up on the Internet but another one that has some too. These will be included with full references and URLs in the Virtual Conductive Education Library as soon as I can get them up.

The FCE titles are

 Ákos, K. and Ákos, M. (1991) Dina. Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education AND Ulm: Alabander Verlag.


Cottam, P. and Sutton, A., ed. (1986) Conductive Education; a system for overcoming motor disorder. London: Croom Helm.
 
Read, J. (1991) Conductive Education 1987-1992; the transitional years. Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education.


Sutton, A. (1998) Last year in Jerusalem; four presentations to an international conference. Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education.


Read, J. (1991 ) Come wind come weather; a study of the difficulties faced by parents taking their children to the Peto Institute in Budapest. Birmingham: Foundation for Conductive Education.
 
The other book is :
 
Brown, M. and Mikula-Toth, A. (1997) Adult Conductive Education : a practical guide. Cheltenham: Stanley Thornes.


If you wish to read the available content of these, go to Google Books and do a search for Conductive Education. The books themselves are all available from the Foundation for Conductive Education at library@conductive-education.org.uk

New source of information on Conductive Education launched today

Today has seen the launch of a new charity in Conductive Education. The aim of this charity is as follows.

Conduction creates a think tank for the world of Conductive Education. It begins its public-service role by bringing together online resource bases for those who use or seek to understand Conductive Education, those who work in it or help provide it, and anybody ‘outside’ who just wants to know

more information can be found on its website at http://www.e-conduction.org/

I intend to move the Virtual Library catalogue to this website and am receiving help to do this from Ben Foulger, who is building a database for me. This will have  a search facility using author, title, keyword, date of publication etc, and include all known bibliographic details, just like a 'proper' online library catalogue. The blog I set up was only intended to be temporary until I could find a way of recording and giving access the information properly, and the opportunity to make this improvement has come quicker than I had hoped.

Naturally it will take a little while to complete the technical specifications and then a little longer for me to transfer all the items from the blog to the new catalogue.  When it reaches the stage where it can be accessed  productively I will announce its transfer on this blog.