Bibliotecas públicas rurales: espacios de colaboración para la acción comunitaria. Revisión sistematizada

Since its inception, library science has had a close relationship with society and especially with the community it serves. This relationship is based on the commitment acquired by the library and the professionals who work in it to support and promote well-being and a better quality of life for both its users and the entire community. Rural libraries are not exempt from this situation, which are inserted in regions with adverse conditions from a territorial and socioeconomic point of view. Their communities live in an environment of material precariousness and have difficulties in accessing education and work and the main problem is the inexistence of economic sustenance and access to the satisfaction of basic needs. This systematized review aims to identify the initiatives promoted by rural and / or community public libraries to contribute to economic development in depressed and excluded sectors such as rural areas; in addition to know the impact that these practices produce in the communities where they are implemented. The information search was carried out in: Web of Science, Scopus, SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis, Oxford, JSTOR, Science Direct, Dialnet, E-LIS, LA Reference, Latin American Repositories and Scielo. The results showed various practices implemented by the libraries, which were grouped into five categories. On the other hand, it was possible to conclude that most of the practices are not standardized, their impact is not evaluated and are carried out through self-manageme

The Internet Access and Use in Public Libraries in Limpopo Province, South Africa

Please access the full-text of the article on the publisher's website using the DOI link at the top of this record.Citizens, including those living in poor and developing countries, need equitable access to information daily to satisfy their diverse and multiple information needs. In this information age and information economy era, easy and instant access to information and knowledge, which are inevitabilities for socio-economic development, cannot be overemphasised. With rolling out of public libraries even in disadvantaged rural communities due to the library conditional grant in South Africa, the study is aimed at investigating factors influencing the Internet access and use in public libraries in Limpopo. The study adopted a qualitative research approach. The twenty four users of three rural, semi-rural and urban public libraries were selected through convenience sampling. A well-placed government official of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture was purposively selected. All informants were interviewed face to face to collect data. The study found that, although public libraries studied have networked computers for the Internet access and use, there are many challenges. The officials of the relevant department need to study the recommendations of this study to ensure that the people have digital access in public libraries to mitigate the diverse socio-economic challenges they are facing to improve their lives.Information Scienc

Creating learning spaces for the 21st century learning in rural secondary schools: a leadership perspective.

This study focuses on the practices of school leadership in two rural secondary schools as they create learning spaces that support the 21st century learning. The study adopted a qualitative multiple-sites case study design that was underpinned by interpretivist paradigm. Data was generated from 13 participants who were purposively selected, through the use of semi-structured interviews and documents reviews. Transformational Leadership Theory by Bass and Riggio and Instructional Leadership Model by Hallinger and Murphy were adopted as a theoretical framework for this study. The data that was generated through the two techniques (interviews and documents reviews) was analysed through the complementary use of content analysis and inductive analyses. The findings showed that school leadership embracing collaborative school climate that enabled the intrinsically motivated and technology savvy teachers to reconfigure the traditional classroom conceptualisation into learning spaces for the 21st century learning. Such teachers infused the technological theories in teaching and learning and adopted a learner-centric pedagogy that prioritises the 21st century skills. The study contributes in different ways, including the destabilisation of the notion that transformational leadership is only exercised by people in formal position of leadership. The power of bottom-up influence came to the fore in this thesis