89,476 research outputs found

    LIS Education in the Digital Age for an African Agenda

    Get PDF
    To provide an exposĂ© of digital-age library and information science (LIS) education for an African agenda, this paper adopts an emergent qualitative research design by drawing on the literature on LIS education in Africa. It also draws on data gleaned from a survey of heads of schools of LIS in South Africa, and from content analyses of LIS school websites in South Africa and selected parts of the continent. The paper locates its narrative within Abbott’s chaos of disciplines theory and concludes that the LIS discipline’s “interstitial nature,” its “fractal distinctions in time,” and the resulting chaos of disciplines should not be seen as a crisis for LIS education in Africa and globally, but as an opportunity for a paradigm shift to broaden the LIS disciplinary domain and to stake an intellectual claim on this extended domain—and so contribute to the growth and development of LIS services in Africa within the context of an African development agenda

    Managing access to the internet in public libraries in the UK: the findings of the MAIPLE project

    Get PDF
    One of the key purposes of the public library is to provide access to information (UNESCO, 1994). In the UK, information is provided in printed formats and for the last decade via public access Internet workstations installed as part of the People’s Network initiative. Recent figures reveal that UK public libraries provide approximately 40,000 computer terminals offering users around 80,000 hours across more than 4,000 service points (CIPFA, 2012). In addition, increasing numbers of public libraries allow users to connect devices such as tablets or smart phones to the Internet via a wireless network access point (Wi-Fi). How do public library staff manage this? What about users viewing harmful or illegal content? And what are the implications for a profession committed to freedom of access to information and opposition to censorship? MAIPLE, a two-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council has been investigating this issue as little was known about how UK public libraries manage Internet content control including illegal material. MAIPLE has drawn on an extensive review of the literature, an online survey to which all UK public library services were invited to participate (39 per cent response rate) and case studies with five services (two in England, one in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland) to examine the ways these issues are managed and their implications for staff. This presentation will explore the prevalence of tools such as filtering software, Acceptable Use Policies, user authentication, booking software and visual monitoring by staff and consider their efficacy and desirability in the provision of public Internet access. It will consider the professional dilemmas inherent within managing content and access. Finally, it will highlight some of the more important themes emerging from the findings and their implications for practitioners and policy makers

    The Development and Usage of the Greenstone Digital Library Software

    Get PDF
    The Greenstone software has helped spread the practical impact of digital library technology throughout the world-particularly in developing countries. This article reviews the project’s origins, usage, and the development of support mechanisms for Greenstone users. We begin with a brief summary of salient aspects of this open source software package and its user population. Next we describe how its international, humanitarian focus arose. We then review the special requirements imposed by the conditions that prevail in developing courtiers. Finally we discuss efforts to establish regional support organizations for Greenstone in India and Africa

    Globalization and Legal Information Management

    Get PDF
    Draft of Chapter 2 of the IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management by Jules Winterton, Associate Director and Librarian, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London. This chapter is a relatively brief survey of what globalization means in the field of legal information management and what effect it has had and will have on a range of activities and policy areas relevant to the practice of legal information management. There are firstly some comments towards a definition of globalization for the purposes of this chapter and then a survey of the following in the light of that definition: legal systems, information consumers, legal information needs, information and management, legal publishing, digitization, intellectual property rights, lobbying and advocacy on policy issues (the politics of law librarianship), international networking, and legal information managers and law librarians of the future

    CILA News: Change is Coming / Shooting the Big 5 in Africa

    Full text link

    Supporting Research in Area Studies: a guide for academic libraries

    Get PDF
    The study of other countries or regions of the world often crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries in the humanities and social sciences. Supporting Research in Area Studies is a comprehensive guide for academic libraries supporting these communities of researchers. This book explores the specialist requirements of these researchers in information resources, resource discovery tools, and information skills, and the challenges of working with materials in multiple languages. It makes the case that by adapting their systems and procedures to meet these needs, academic libraries find themselves better placed to support their institution'sïżœïżœ international agenda more widely. The first four chapters cover the academic landscape and its history, area studies librarianship and acquisitions. Subsequent chapters discuss collections management, digital products, and the digital humanities, and their role in academic projects. The final chapter explores information skills and the various disciplinary skills that facilitate the needs of researchers during their careers

    The Use of Academic Library Resources and Services by Undergraduate in Ibadan North Local Government of Nigeria

    Get PDF
    Libraries provide resources for knowledge acquisition, recreation, personal interests and inter-personal relationships for all categories of users. It enables the individual to obtain spiritual, inspirational, and recreational activities through reading, and therefore the opportunity of interacting with the society’s wealth and accumulated knowledge. This study examined the undergraduate students’ use of University library services and resources. It was affirmed the undergraduate utilized the University Libraries as learning centre. This was shown by the massive turn out to patronize the library services and resources weekly

    Understanding the digital divide: A literature survey and ways forward

    Get PDF
    The term digital divide was introduced in the mid-1990s and defined as the gap separating those who have access to new forms of information technology from those who do not. The digital divide remains an important public policy debate that encompasses social, economic and political issues. This paper presents a literature review and classification scheme for digital divide research. The review covers journal articles published between 2001 and 2010 in three types of journals: (1) Information technology & information systems, (2) Economics and business & management and (3) Social science. A classification of digital divide literature and a comprehensive list of references are provided. The results show that the digital divide is a multifaceted phenomenon, due to the many dimensions of determinant factors. Recent studies have included socio-economic, institutional and physiological factors in order to gain a greater understanding of the digital divide. Among other findings, they show that technological determinism is not sufficient to explain the emergence of the digital divide. Moreover, several types of technologies were investigated, both from empirical and conceptual standpoints. The Internet is the most commonly studied technology. The divide in access and usage are discussed at the global, social and democratic levels by employing a quantitative method, either a survey or data analysis, as the main method. However, there is less discussion in developing countries and at the level of the organization (i.e. SMEs, the private sector and the public sector). The qualitative research method could be seen as a complementary method to fill the gap in the current research. The choice of policies which have been recommended to the policy maker and national regulatory agency (NRA) are also presented and discussed at the end of this paper. Several initiatives made at the country and regional levels and by international organizations have also attempted to create a combined policy. This may suggest that the combined policy is the current trend among digital divide policies. Therefore, there is a need for future research to examine these determinants through the context of global, social and democratic divides. The results would provide some insight into how diverse people in different areas adopt ICTs. --Digital divide,Literature review,Future research
    • 

    corecore