Faculty and Staff

In spring 2013, the presenters developed a survey on academic library streaming video and distributed it broadly through various discussion and mailing lists.

This is the first large-scale and most comprehensive effort to date to collect data on streaming video funding, licensing, acquisition, and hosting in academic libraries. Its results will provide benchmark data for future explorations of this rapidly expanding approach to video in academic libraries.

Streaming video is becoming a common occurrence on many campuses today. Its fast growth is due in part to the steady growth of online classes and programs. Technology has also played a role in this growth as alternatives for ingesting and accessing content have expanded. Multiple options are now available including in-house approaches, cloud storage, and third party vendors.

This survey collected data on how academic institutions address the day-to-day operations related to streaming video as well as perceived directions for future action.

Survey questions addressed selection and acquisition of video in both hard copy and streaming formats, funding for acquisitions, current and planned hosting interfaces, cataloging and access, and current practice and policy on digitization of hard copy titles for streaming. This session reviews the instrument used, and provides a preliminary look at some of the key data collected.

The World Health Organization recently proposed the inclusion of brominated congeners in addition to chlorinated congeners when computing the toxic equivalency (TEQ) of dioxin-like compounds (DLCs) in assessments of human health risks. In the present study, 12 polybrominated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans (PBDD/Fs) were analyzed by gas chromatography/high resolution mass spectrometry in the composited, archived biosolids that were collected in 32 U.S. states and the District of Columbia from 94 wastewater treatment plants by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in its 2001 national sewage sludge survey. Two PBDDs and five PBDFs were detected in the biosolids composites at varying frequencies (40–100%) with a total mean concentration of 10,000 ng/kg dry weight (range: 630–42,800), of which 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-hepta-BDF constituted about 95% by mass. Relative to commercial polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) formulations, the ratio of PBDD/Fs to PBDEs in biosolids was 55-times higher (∼0.002% vs ∼0.11%), which indicates potential PBDE transformation or possibly additional sources of PBDD/Fs in the environment. The TEQ contribution of PBDD/Fs was estimated at 162 ng/kg 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) (range: 15–672), which is equivalent to 75% (range: 12–96%) of the total TEQ in biosolids. The TEQ of DLCs released annually to U.S. soils as a result of the land application of biosolids was estimated at 720 g (range: 530–1600 g). Among all known DLCs determined in biosolids, brominated analogs contributed 370% more TEQ than did chlorinated congeners, which indicates the need to include brominated DLCs in the exposure and risk assessment of land-applied biosolids.

Widespread contamination of groundwater by chlorinated ethenes and their biological dechlorination products necessitates the reliable monitoring of liquid matrices; current methods approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) require a minimum of 5 mL of sample volume and cannot simultaneously detect all transformative products. This paper reports on the simultaneous detection of six chlorinated ethenes and ethene itself, using a liquid sample volume of 1 mL by concentrating the compounds onto an 85-µm carboxen-polydimenthylsiloxane solid-phase microextraction fiber in 5 min and subsequent chromatographic analysis in 9.15 min. Linear increases in signal response were obtained over three orders of magnitude (∼0.05 to ∼50 µM) for simultaneous analysis with coefficient of determination (R²) values of ≥ 0.99. The detection limits of the method (1.3–6 µg/L) were at or below the maximum contaminant levels specified by the EPA. Matrix spike studies with groundwater and mineral medium showed recovery rates between 79–108%. The utility of the method was demonstrated in lab-scale sediment flow-through columns assessing the bioremediation potential of chlorinated ethene-contaminated groundwater. Owing to its low sample volume requirements, good sensitivity and broad target analyte range, the method is suitable for routine compliance monitoring and is particularly attractive for interpreting the bench-scale feasibility studies that are commonly performed during the remedial design stage of groundwater cleanup projects.