Digital Library Consortia in the 21st Century: The Hong Kong JULAC Case

The article outlines the initiatives of the local consortia of the eight academic institutions funded by the University Grants Committee (UGC) of the Hong Kong SAR Government. The role and services that this consortium provides for its members, especially with respect to consortial electronic purchasing agreements and joint licensing, are examined. The paper addresses many of the problems, difficulties, and challenges within consortia when coping with their internal needs, facing the need to both cooperate and compete with other consortial members, and making individual and consortial decisions in an environment of increasing budgetary constraints and technological advances. Case studies are used to illustrate each of the challenges mentioned above.postprin

HKALL and ILLIAD: The Search for Improved Interlibrary Loan

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HK institutional repository and open access action principles

published_or_final_versionJULAC, eIFL.net, SpringerLink, HUCOM, Hong Kong Library Associatio

Saving money through collaboration in OCLC

postprintThe Inaugural Meeting of the OCLC Asia Pacific Regional Council, Beijing, China, 7-8 September 2009

Genetic diversity in pigeonpea [Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.] Landraces as revealed by simple sequence repeat markers

Genetic relationships among 88 pigeonpea accessions from a presumed centre of origin and diversity, India and a presumed secondary centre of diversity in East Africa were evaluated using six microsatellite markers. Forty-seven (47) alleles were detected in the populations studied, with a mean of eight alleles per locus. Populations were defined by region (India and East Africa) and sub-populations by country in the case of East Africa and State in the case of India. Substantial differentiation among regions was evident from Roger’s modified distance and Wright’s F statistic. Greatest genetic diversity in terms of number of alleles, number of rare alleles and Nei’s unbiased estimate of gene diversity (H) was found in India as opposed to East Africa. This supports the hypothesis that India is the centre of diversity and East Africa is a secondary centre of diversity. Within East Africa, germplasm from Tanzania had the highest diversity according to Nei’s unbiased estimate of gene diversity, followed byKenya and Uganda. Germplasm from Kenya and Tanzania were more closely related than that of Uganda according to Roger’s modified distance. Within India, results did not indicate a clear centre of diversity. Values of genetic distance indicated that genetic relationships followed geographicalproximity

Strategic planning for research libraries

Topic 2postprintThe 8th Annual Library Leadership Institute: Library Leadership for Today: New Challenges, New Opportunities, Beijing, China, 23-27 April 2010

Usage Statistics at Hong Kong University : From Fun to Fundamental in Just a Few Years

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Planning in a dynamic library

published_or_final_versio

Sichuan 512 catastrophe: rebuilding libraries after the earthquake

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Basket Cases and Breadbaskets: Sacred Rice and Agricultural Development in Postcolonial Africa

Author's final manuscript.Based on ethnographic research among rural Diola in Guinea-Bissau, I provide a broad view of the history and interpenetration of rice in social, political, religious, and ecological domains, while chronicling the current difficulties of residents in this region who are no longer able to grown enough of it. These farmers’ experiences are unfolding at a time of revitalized attention to agricultural development in Africa, particularly under the auspices of the New Green Revolution for Africa. I examine the premises that constitute the resuscitated effort to address the plight of African farmers. I argue that the totalizing quality of rice in Diola and other rice-cultivating societies requires a development approach that takes into account dimensions of agrarian life not encapsulated by the high- modernist and anti-political orientation of the New Green Revolution for Africa