Curtailing Harmful Widowhood Practices in Nigeria: The Librarian's Information Tool as a Veritable Strategy

This study examined the librarian and use of information as a tool in curtailing various harmful widowhood practices· in Nigeria. Prominent among these practices are sitting and sleeping on the floor, shaving of hair, drinking the water used in washing corpse, sleeping with corpse and jumping over corpse among others. Widows adhere to these practices to preserve tradition, as a proof of innocence and to attract love from dead husband and relations. Effects on widows range from psychological to health challenges, poverty and death. The paper further discusses information as a tool that the librarian can implore to bring such harm fit! practices to the fur, inform widows about their rights, including various non-governmental organizations interested in their affairs and to educate the perpetrators on the evil effects of such practices. It concludes by advising the Ministry of Women Affairs to encourage the formation of Widows' Association as a way of creating widows' visibility. The Government is also enjoined to use its position to protect Nigerian widows from molestation in the name oftraditional practice

Marketing of Library Services for Enhanced Accessibility in National Open University of Nigeria: Challenges and Strategies for Intervention

This study is a descriptive survey on challenges and enhancement strategies for the marketing of library services for improved accessibility to students of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). Three specific objectives, three research question and one null hypothesis guided the study. Population for the study consists of 15 librarians from the six study centres libraries in the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The study used a questionnaire and interview to collect data from 15 librarians in the six study centre libraries in the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. The data collected were analysed using mean and standard deviation and hypotheses were tested using ANOVA statistics at a 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that there is no significant difference in the mean responses of librarians on strategies and methods employed in the various study centre libraries of NOUN for improved accessibility of the library services to their students. The results identified some of the challenges in the marketing of library services for improved access for students in the libraries studied to include; inadequate funding, lack of marketing plan, unavailability of online public access catalogue and negative attitude of librarians and library staff towards marketing. The enhancement strategies for marketing of library services for improved accessibility to these students include carrying out marketing research to determine the needs of Users; allowing library management control over students library fees, organizing workshops and training for librarians and library staff on marketing principles and procedures

Capital Fixity and Mobility in Response to the 2008-09 Crisis: Variegated Neoliberalism in Mexico and Turkey

The article examines the 2008-9 crisis responses in Mexico and Turkey as examples of variegated neoliberalism. The simultaneous interests of corporations and banks relative to the national fixing of capital and their mobility in the form of global investment heavily influenced each state authority’s policy responses to the crisis at the expense of the interests of the poor, workers, and peasantry. Rather than pitching this as either evidence of persistent national differentiation or some Keynesian state resurgence, we argue from a historical materialist geographical framework that the responses of capital and state authorities in Mexico and Turkey actively constitute and reconstitute the global parameters of market regulatory design and neoliberal class rule through each state’s distinct domestic policy formation and crisis management processes. While differing in specific content the form of Mexico and Turkey’s state responses to the crisis ensured continuity in their foregoing neoliberal strategies of development and capital accumulation, most notably in the continued oppression of workers. That is, the prevailing strategy of accumulation continues to be variegated neoliberalism

The Australian Charter of Employment Rights: The missing dimensions

Just prior to the 2007 General Election, a group of labour lawyers and economists, broadly sympathetic to the Labor Party, produced a Charter of Employment Rights. This article examines the Charter's proposals and its underlying framework, and suggests significant aspects of work and labour have been omitted. It contends that the Charter would have been improved if it had not retained an artificially stretched definition of workers as employees, in which the only relationship worthy of inclusion in a Charter is that between the direct employer and employee. The framework and language of the Charter convey a paternalistic approach and an outdated focus on industrial labour, while ignoring aspects of the emerging global system of work linked to the concept of occupation

The 21st Century Library and Information Services as a Veritable Strategy for the Enhancement of Teacher Education

This chapter discusses 21st century Library and Information Service as a veritable strategy for the enhancement of teacher education. The work started by highlighting the place of teachers in every society. Teachers are builders of destiny. They teach the leaders of tomorrow. It is important to ensure that they receive worthwhile education which depends to a very large extent on a robust library platform brought by 21st century libraries. The chapter further discusses the services provided by 21st century libraries such as Online Reference Services, Selective Dissemination of Information, Current Awareness Services, and Online Public Access Catalogue. The opportunities of 21st century libraries are highlighted; these include multi –user access to resources, improvement of internal operations, round- the-clock access, etc. The chapter also highlights the challenges to successful implementation of 21st century libraries, prominent among which are incessant power outage, insufficient fund, Information and Communication Technologies illiteracy among others. This chapter recommends adequate provision of funds and intensification of user education programme. It concludes that 21st century libraries are sine qua non to the enhancement of teacher education and should therefore not be trivialized

Examination of the Nexus Between Academic Libraries and Accreditation: Lessons from Nigeria

The article investigated the nexus between academic libraries and accreditation in the higher institutions with special focus on the Nigerian experience. It showed that all accreditation agencies place a high premium on library provisions as a major component of requisite benchmarks in determining the status of the program or institutions being assessed. Academic libraries help to enrich formal classroom curricular and act as a broadening influence on lecturers and students as well as nurture in them the virtue of independent inquiry. State-of-the-art academic libraries confer prestige on the institutions and have tremendous impact on student retention, rankings, and high profiling of parent institution during accreditation. The article noted that there exists strong intrinsic and sometimes imperceptible relationship between academic libraries and higher education. It recommended institutionalization of global and regional ranking of academic libraries, among others

Value of formalisation for women entrepreneurs in developing contexts: a review and research agenda

Formalisation is constantly being proposed as of great benefit to business expansion and success. This claim however has not been previously tested through a review of the empirical evidence, especially in relation to the large number of women in the developing world that operate in the informal economy. Therefore, our aim in this review is to systematise the current empirical evidence on gender, the informal economy and formalisation using a narrative synthesis of 76 papers. The papers were analysed along three main analytical themes – identity, institutions and, constraints and preferences, highlighting their conceptualisation in studies of different academic disciplines – economics, sociology, entrepreneurship and development. The review calls for more accurate accounts of formalisation decisions by widening the lens through which formalisations decisions are conceptualised. These should take account of the rich contextual and temporal dimensions central to these decisions, and recognise that gender alone is not a sufficient factor in explaining women’s choices in the informal economy. The review also highlights limitations in relation to the limited conceptual and empirical evidence on which development priorities such as formalisation are set. We propose a research agenda that centres on the need for conceptual frameworks that are more sensitive towards the multi-dimensional contexts of women’s choices

Lower job satisfaction among workers migrating within Europe: A gender paradox

Intra-European migrants reported lower job satisfaction levels than native workers, in three rounds of the European Social Survey. This deficit was also experienced by their descendants (the second generation), despite the latter generation achieving native levels of household income. At least some part of these lower levels of job satisfaction was associated with a clustering into lower-productivity industries. There are striking gender differences in experiences: among men the first generation is just as likely to be satisfied with their jobs as the ‘native’ population, whilst it is the second generation who are less likely to achieve job satisfaction. For women, both generations experienced a deficit in job satisfaction. This may reflect changing expectations of work among men, and integration for women, across generations, and contrasts with the convergence in earnings over time. The country of origin, within Europe, did not seem to be associated with levels of job satisfaction

The Entrapment of Unfree Labor: Theory and Examples from India

In this article we explore some aspects of contemporary unfree labor in rural south India. We draw on 130 case studies and (informally) extensive field research. We do so in order to make the central point that the conditions of unfreedom are variable and subject to change but that the basic vulnerabilities are significant. Being unfree in a labor relationship is a contingent effect of a set of factors. We stress the role of (a) entrapment of laborers, (b) immiseration within bondage, and (c) barriers to exit from the labor contract. In explanations, structural factors are also important. The article forms a basis for further empirical research in a variety of global settings even beyond India

Cross-national Deployment of "Graduate Jobs": Analysis Using a New Indicator Based on High Skills Use

Utilising work task data drawn from the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills of 2011/2012 and 2014/2015, we derive a new skills-based indicator of graduate jobs, termed ISCO(HE)2008, for thirty-one countries. The indicator generates a plausible distribution of graduate occupations and explains graduates' wages and job satisfaction better than hitherto existing indicators. Unlike with the traditional classifier, several jobs in major group 3 “Technicians and Associate Professionals" require higher education in many countries. Altogether, almost a third of labour is deployed in graduate jobs in the 31 countries, but with large cross-national differences. Industry and establishment-size composition can account for some of the variation. In addition, two indicators of the relative quality of the higher education system also contribute to the variation in the prevalence of graduate jobs across countries