The Zapatistas, in 1994, forced the world and certainly people within Mexico to pay attention to longstanding problems in land inequities and dissatisfaction with the December 1991 modifications to the agrarian reform codes embodied in Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution. To facilitate the proposed changes in landholdings in Mexico’s approximately 29,000 ejidos and indigenous communities, a new government office was created, the Procuraduría Agraria. This paper begins by first discussing the creation and functioning of the Procuraduría Agraria, the steps communities go through in the certification process, and the agrarian history of the three field sites chosen. It then focuses on how generational and gender differences have affected the reception of the certification program in the three field sites and ends by suggesting some possible long-term outcomes of the certification process and their meaning for men and women in the communities studied.

At the University of California, Irvine, Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, students begin formal training in their junior year. One of the first courses, “Frameworks for Professional Nursing Practice,” focuses on “the scope and standards of professional nursing practice.” Students must complete a paper on a chosen clinical and ethical issue in the nursing profession. Successful completion of this project requires the ability to search the published nursing and medical literature and retrieve relevant information.

 Since 2007, in cooperation with the course instructor, the Research Librarian for Nursing Science has prepared an assignment for students consisting of a literature search in PubMed and CINAHL for their topic. This assignment followed an in-class instruction session.

 The goal is twofold: to help prepare students for the work needed to complete the main course assignment, and to familiarize them with the databases and literature search process. Submitted worksheets are reviewed by the librarian who provides feedback to each student.