Article offering an analysis of major topics at the American Society for Indexing Conferences from 1997 through 2011.

Article discussing the End of Term Web Archive, a collaborative project of the Library of Congress, the Internet Archive, the University of North Texas, the California Digital Library, and the United States Government Printing Office.

Article discussing new directions for academic video game collections and strategies for acquiring, supporting, and managing online materials.

This article discusses Resource Description and Access (RDA) and new catalogers' errors in Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd ed. (AACR2).

This articles discusses why ones work as a librarian begins long before their graduate program.

Article on an American Anti-Slavery Society periodical, the 'Slave's Friend,' which ran from 1836 to 1839. The author describes the abolitionist sentiment and the animal metaphor.

Article discussing research on biography reviews and indexes.

This article discusses changes in music cataloguing systems.

Article discussing Constitution Day outreach to campuses and communities.

Article on the American Society for Indexing (ASI) conference presentations. This article identifies major topics discussed at ASI conferences from 1997 through 2012 and explores how topics have changed over time.

Article discussing sexual misconduct with congregants or parishioners and crafting a model statute.

This article discusses a bellwether regarding a nation's electronic information infrastructure, the legal regulations that govern the infrastructure, the resulting citizen-trust in its government and its e-readiness in seven countries.

Article on integrating image-based research datasets into an existing digital repository infrastructure.

Article on a Food for Fines program at the University of North Texas (UNT) Libraries. The Food for Fines drive offers a way for the library to help students take care of their library fines and help the local community as well.

Article on the removal of download access to Grateful Dead soundboards from the Live Music Archive.

This article discusses moving toward a workable controlled vocabulary for music.

Abstract: Research has revealed that following a near-death experience (NDE) a majority of experiencers (NDEers) change fundamentally in values, religious/spiritual beliefs, and relationship to paranormal phenomena. Much less is known about the relationship between aftereffects of one spouse's NDE and subsequent marital adjustment and stability. In this preliminary retrospective study, we addressed this question quantitatively with supplementary narrative data. Using the framework of John Gottman's (1999) Sound Marital House, we analyzed self-reported adjustment in and stability of the marriages of 26 NDEers before and after a self-identified life-changing event (LCE) unrelated to NDEs. Results indicated a significant reduction in marital meaning (p = .008), adjustment (p = .007), and stability (p = .005) in NDE compared to LCE couples, with a majority of NDE (65%) but only a minority of LCE (35%) couples' marriages ending in divorce. Implications for health professionals are discussed.

Abstract: This article provides a summary of current literature regarding the nature of spiritual development, types of potentially spiritually transformative experiences (pSTEs), and both short- and long-term aftereffects of pSTEs— biological, psychological, spiritual, and social. The author concludes that in the aftermath of pSTEs, experiencers, their intimates and associates, and their healthcare providers should be prepared to experience integration that can be manageable or be deeply challenging and that can be relatively brief or can last for years.

Obituary of Dr. Harold A. Widdison, a researcher in the field of near-death studies for over 30 years. The article discusses Dr. Widdison's background, career, family, and contributions to the study of near-death experiences.

Abstract: Some NDE researchers have suggested that because some users of psychedelic drugs have experiences purportedly similar to near-death experiences (NDEs), neural receptors and neurotransmitters affected by a particular drug may underlie out-of-body experiences and NDEs. One of the most recent psychedelic candidates that allegedly causes NDE-like experiences is N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a natural substance that the body produces in small amounts. If DMT experiences are phenomenologically similar to NDEs, then it is possible that the human body in extremis may produce larger amounts of DMT that reach psychedelic experience-causing levels in the blood. In this paper, I explore the issue of whether DMT might play a causal role in the production of NDEs. The first section summarizes basic information of about NDEs, focusing on their phenomenological aspects. The second section classifies theories of NDEs to place the DMT theory in some context of the history of the debate over the cause of NDEs. The following section discusses DMT's chemical composition, physical effects, and psychological effects. The final section explores whether NDE and DMT experiences have a sufficient degree of phenomenological similarity to justify a causal role for DMT in the production of NDEs and concludes that such similarity is lacking.

Abstract: In this paper, I describe the research method and key near-death experience (NDE) aftereffects- and integration-related findings of my dissertation research study (Gordon, 2007), the first published near-death studies research project to use the ethnographic method. I compare my findings with those of a comparable sociological study (Sutherland, 1995), with emphasis on NDE aftereffects and integration issues related to what I identified as a previously unrecognized pattern of unmet, NDE-integration-related health-education and counseling needs. Finally, I explore the cultural implications of near-death and similarly transformative experiences and posit that actualizing the potential social-wellness value of these experiences to those who have had them and to their societies requires research and practice that adequately addresses experiencers' health-education and counseling needs.

Abstract: Although the category "Religious or Spiritual Problem" (Code V62.89) was incorporated into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental health professional in 1994, it has taken until 2012 for a conference or training to take place designed to help therapists and social workers understand how best to address such issues. In this article I describe my personal experience and my professional experience as a psychotherapist with religious and spiritual phenomena. I offer my view of what it means to be spiritual, including the role of worldviews and my conceptualization of a three-stage path of spiritual development.

Abstract: Scientific research into after-death communication began at the end of the 19th century. During this early period, psychical researcher James Hyslop and theologian Rudolph Otto wrote about the resurrection of Jesus as a visionary / spiritual experience -- as opposed to a physical, "bodily" resurrection. More recently, liberal theologians and religious experience researchers have also favored this view. The purpose of this article is to: (a) underscore the fact that the resurrection of Jesus as an after-death communication is solidly based in the only first-hand account of Paul and the verified secondary accounts of Peter and James (I Cor 15:5-8) in the New Testament, and (b) demonstrate that, although a physical resurrection is implied by the Gospel writers because of the empty tomb, the appearance stories of Jesus are more in accord with the phenomenology of modern after-death communications by Jesus, other divine figures, and ordinary people.

Abstract: Jesus' resurrection appearances would in some sense comprise after-death messages. But this designation does not necessarily identify them as the sort of after-death communications (ADCs) that are well-known to readers of the Journal. More generally, to hold that the resurrection appearances were ADCs, at least as Ken Vincent has argued, seems to commit a logical fallacy, so that the form of the argument itself cannot sustain the weight of the conclusion. The most that the argument can indicate is that there are some similarities, not that they are necessarily the same class of events. More specifically, there are at least six crucial considerations that dispute Jesus' resurrection appearances being ADCs in the usual sense of these events.