National Library (Republic of Mauritius) : Strategic Plan

The National Library of the Republic of Mauritius was established as a body corporate under the National Library Act 1996 No. 32. The main role of the National Library of Mauritius is to build the most comprehensive collection of our national heritage by collecting, receiving and preserving all publications and productions printed and produced in Mauritius for present and future generations. The main source of its acquisition is by means of the legal deposit system as per the National Library Act 1996 which stipulates that every printer in Mauritius is required to deposit free of charge with the Director of the National Library six copies of each publication, be it a book, periodical, report, newspaper or any other printed document. The same rule applies to all the producers in Mauritius who have to deposit six copies of any non-print materials produced. To ensure that access is given to the most comprehensive collection of Mauritiana materials, the National Library has also to acquire all print and non-print materials published abroad, whose subject matter is related to Mauritius. Along with, the National Library will build a collection of foreign reference materials on different subjects of interest to Mauritius. Equally of vital importance to the National Library is the conservation of our cultural heritage – ways and means are being worked out to preserve and conserve documents for generations to come. The aim of the National Library is to become the premier library in Mauritius in the dissemination of both retrospective and current information, utilizing modern techniques and other technological advances. The National Library is at the service of the Mauritian people, for the purpose of their research, scholarship and creativity. This Strategic Plan sets out the vision, strategic management principles, goals, objectives and plan of action that will govern the National Library for the next three years

DataCite - A global registration agency for research data

Since 2005, the German National Library of Science and Technology (TIB) has offered a successful Digital Object Identifier (DOI) registration service for persistent identification of research data. In 2009, TIB, the British Library, the Library of the ETH Zurich, the French Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (INIST), the Technical Information Center of Denmark, Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) the Australian National Data Service (ANDS) and the Dutch TU Delft Library all signed a Memorandum of Understanding to improve access to research data on the internet. The goal of this cooperation is to establish a not-for-profit agency called DataCite that enables organisations to register research datasets and assign persistent identifiers to them, so that research datasets can be handled as independent, citable, unique scientific objects.Persistent Identifier, Research Data

A MODEL FOR MEASURING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SERVICE RECOVERY AND SERVICE QUALITY: A CASE STUDY AT THE PUBLIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The study aimed to investigate the critical success factors of service recovery towards service quality at the National University of Malaysia (UKM) library. The study also proposes a model of systematic complaint management which applied to academic library as a tool of service recovery. The variables included in this research are empowerment, culture and psychology, management system, compensation and speed of recovery as the independent variables and service quality as the dependent variable. A questionnaire was designed and used as the data gathering instrument based on past research. A total of 315 samples were successfully gathered from 377 questionnaires distributed among the regular users of Tun Seri Lanang Library (UKM). Based on the generated results, it’s proven that there is a positive significant relationship between service recovery and service quality (r = 0.632**, p = 0.000) at the 1 per cent significance levelService recovery, Complaint management, Service quality, Library

Alaska Resources Library and Information Services: Building Community in the 49th State

The Institute of Museum and Library Services recognized the community-building achievements of an unusual library in Anchorage, Alaska when it bestowed one of three 2001 National Awards for Library Service on the Alaska Resources Library and Information Services (ARLIS). This award, the highest in the nation, is given to libraries that “demonstrate a core commitment to public service through innovative programs and active partnerships that address the urgent and changing needs within the communities they serve.”Ye

The Impact Of Federal Legislation On Governmental And Special Libraries

It has become increasingly obvious that libraries today cannot provide adequate service under conditions of local self-sufficiency. A variety of programs are required on the national level which cannot be provided by individual libraries or combinations of libraries. Few libraries can justify or afford the massive resource development which has been a responsibility of such institutions as the Library of Congress, the National Agricultural Library and the National Library of Medicine. None can finance the very expensive and complex bibliographic services provided by these national libraries. And practically none of our non- governmental libraries are in a position to assume leadership in implementing national bibliographic programs in the years ahead. These are the general reasons why our governmental libraries and the attendant legislative authorization are so critically important to the entire scholarly community. It is not the purpose of this paper to consider the detailed development of our governmental libraries or library legislative history. It would be accurate to say that in the past this development has taken place under uncoordinated circumstances, frequently in response to ad hoc situations. There was certainly no grand design or master plan to shape the future. This does not imply that librarians were limited in their vision or lacked the capability for basic planning. It is more a reflection of the fact that, at the Federal level, there has not been sufficient political support to allow more than one step being taken at a time.published or submitted for publicatio

Innovations of subject service in National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the implications

Looking at the development of subject librarians and subject services in Chinese libraries during the past decade, this paper highlights the innovative concepts and practices of subject librarians in National Science Library (NSL), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). After a two-year trial period, NSL, CAS, with 39 full-time subject librarians, has begun to provide personalized, subject-speci.c, and knowledge-based services to the end-users since 2006. Such a practice manifests that subject librarians and subject services should be embedded into the research process and working environment. And, the subject service should be made available to the users beyond the space restriction and time limit, and .nally create a congenial environment for users. Librarians should develop new expertise to offer the user-oriented service, changing the role from book keepers to research instructors, advisors, even chief information officer (CIO) or chief knowledge officer (CKO).</p

UK digital library licences and authentication systems : national versus local approaches

To examine the system of electronic library service licences and authentication in the UK, and highlight its hybrid local - national approach

Collection Development in the Digital Age: Changing Roles of the National Library of China

With the development of the National Digital Library Project, the National Library of China will collect more digital publications and promote the dissemination of Chinese publications to the world. The collection development policy will be revised in regular basis to reflect the latest development of librarianship in China. However, the general principle will not be changed: to preserve our cultural heritage and to provide service to the users

Evaluation of options for a UK electronic thesis service: study report

The British Library (BL), JISC, UK HE institutions and CURL have funded an 18-month project to develop a national framework for the provision, preservation and open access to electronic theses produced in UK HE institutions. The project, called EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) was developed in response to a competitive tender invitation released by the JISC and proposes a service set up and run by the British Library. The British Library’s current service, the British Thesis Service, offers access to around 180,000 doctoral theses, predominantly from 1970 onwards, though it is estimated that overall some half million theses dating from the 1600s are in existence in the UK. Around 80% of requests are for theses published within the last 13 years and almost all of these exist only in hardcopy. Through this service, theses are acquired ‘on demand’ and delivered on microfilm at a cost of just over £60 to the user (and at this price the service runs at a loss). Whilst this service, coupled with the Index to Theses (Expert Information), enables the location of and access to relatively recent British theses by the determined seeker, no one could argue that the process is optimised. As a result, usage of theses is much lower than it might be and much research is going unnoticed and unused as a result. Conversely, it has been shown that when theses are easy to locate and access, usage is high: at Virginia Tech, a pioneer site in the provision of a formal, systematised ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) service, downloads have been shown to increase over 30-fold when a thesis is available free online and easily located. A national service for the UK that provides discovery and access to theses in electronic form via the Web will increase the utility of doctoral scholarship. A single interface that directs users to theses wherever they are held, and which addresses the issues of intellectual property, permissions, royalties, preservation, discovery, and other matters associated with the public provision of theses in electronic form, will be of great benefit to the scholarly community in the UK and across the world. The EThOS project (Electronic Theses Online Service) was commissioned to develop a model for a workable, sustainable and acceptable national service for the provision of open access to electronic doctoral theses. The EThOS project team have completed the task and UCL Library Services in partnership with Key Perspectives Ltd have been asked to undertake a consultative study to assess the acceptability of the proposed model to the UK higher education community in the context of other potential models. This document reports the results of this consultative study, including a set of recommendations to JISC and other stakeholders for setting up a UK national e-theses service. The stakeholders other than JISC are: The British Library University administrators (registrars) Graduate students and recent PhDs Librarians Institutional repository managers Other e-theses services including: DART-Europe DiVA DissOnline Australasian Digital Theses Theses Canada Networked Digital Library for Theses and Dissertations The EThOS tea

Recent Changes to Reference Services in Academic Libraries and Their Relationship to Perceived Quality: Results of a National Survey

A national survey of academic librarians was conducted to examine relationships among reference service staffing changes, reference service innovations, adoption of reference technology, library type and size, and service quality. Analysis of the 606 response sets reveals trends toward reduced use of librarians and increased use of student staff at in-person service points, widespread increases in appointment-based and self-service reference, intensive efforts to reduce demand for reference by improving library instruction, and general improvements in reference service quality. Factors strongly associated with decreases or increases in quality are discussed in detail and implications for reference managers are provided.Citation: Jason Coleman, Melissa N. Mallon & Leo Lo (2015): Recent Changes to Reference Services in Academic Libraries and Their Relationship to Perceived Quality: Results of a National Survey, Journal of Library Administration, DOI: 10.1080/01930826.2015.110987