Advanced Specialized Jordanian Libraries Services by Social Media Sites: Facebook

This study dealt with Jordanian specialized libraries’ presentation of their services through the social media website Facebook. The aims were to identify how Jordanian specialized libraries use social media sites, to describe their services and characteristics and to analyze comments on the advertisement boards of their social media websites. Data were collected from four libraries pages on Facebook. One of the most important findings of the study is that the four libraries had added the social media icon to their Internet pages. Three libraries specified their opening hours and holiday closing, Amman Chamber of Commerce library, the library of Zarqa branch of the Jordanian Engineers’ Association and the library of the Shmaisani branch of the Jordanian Engineers’ Association. All these libraries used Arabic on their Facebook pages. Keywords: Specialized libraries-Jordan-social media sites- Facebook. DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-3-01 Publication date:March 31st 201

The Role of Digital Library in Bridging the Language Divide: Comparison Study of Arabic and Other Languages

Developing countries are often said to suffer the disadvantages created by a ‘digital divide’ – the gap between the digitally advantaged and the digitally disadvantaged. Much of the attention given to the digital divide had focussed on the most severely disadvantaged countries (particularly in Africa and parts of Asia). This study was examined the phenomenon in the context of developing Arab countries, with a particular focus on the capacity of digital libraries to bridge the ‘divide’ as it applies to research and scholarly communication. This will entail a case study of University of Jordan.A particular focus of the study will be on assessing the particular challenges and frustrations facing Arabic-speaking researchers in their use of networked information services. That is, while the term digital divide is often used as a means of expressing the technology gap between developed and developing countries, it may well be that a further divide is created because of the domination of the languages and content of the developed world in the networked environment.The research will investigate the potential for digital library services to better serve Arabic-speaking scholars, in particular though the increased access to scholarly publishing in Arabic. It will also explore the policy initiatives and constraints that may impact upon the future development and implementation of digital library services for the benefit of Arabic-speaking scholars. There are no current published studies that deal with the capacity of digital libraries to address the digital divide in the developing Arab World. The findings of this research will provide important recommendations aimed at improving the capacity for digital libraries in Jordan and the wider Arab World to promote Arabic scholarship. Keyword: Digital Libraries, Arab world, Arabic languag

Information Discovery and Scholar Networking as Modes of Scholarly Communication: A Comparative Study

This study sought to investigate information discovery and scholar networking as modes of scholarly communication across researchers in the Arab region. An online survey was distributed in December 2020 using the Google form. The questionnaire also includes the following elements: (a) what are the researchers’ purposes of using electronic resources; (b) how do researchers look for and access scholarly material and (c) what methods of networking are mostly used for scholar connection. The findings revealed no significant differences across the groups, even when it comes to gender and respondents’ discipline, it is clear that ResearchGate is the most popular among them all. Researchers holding degrees in Humanities and educational sciences like to use research platforms (M=4.37) more than social media (M=3.87). Moreover, the popularity of using Google Scholar and Google in the scholarly field are confirmed in line with previous evidences. There are highly significant differences across researchers regarding their behaviours in accessing scholarly material. Results suggest that respondents don’t consider researcher platforms like ResearchGate & Academia.edu as social media. It might be explained by the fact that research platforms like ResearchGate and Academia.edu are organized and designed for research purposes in a way that Facebook, Twitter, and Instgram are not