Delay in civil proceedings: problems and solutions / Farah Shuhadah Razali ...[et al.]

As one of the three main branches of the government, the judiciary plays a pivotal role in maintaining the balance of power between the organs of the government as well as being the medium through which justice is sought and served. The importance of maintaining the integrity of the body and faith of the people is profound, as doubt and lack of assurance in any way towards the judiciary would undoubtedly mar the system thus leading to a bigger conflict. Many a times, reports on the causes of delay is attributed to the lawyers and judges. However, this is not entirely accurate as there are also other causes that contribute to the backlog of cases. This research is conducted in our pursuit to discover the reasons behind the delay in civil proceedings (particularly in the High Courts) and the probable solutions by looking at the practices of countries such as Singapore and United Kingdom. By conducting this research, new steps or procedures can be proposed to rectify the current system of justice so as to accommodate to the changes surrounding us. It is hoped that those who read it would have a deeper understanding on the crux of the problem concerning the delay and that the public would pay more attention to the happenings in the current system of justice as the repercussions may affect us at one point or another

PREPARING LIS PROFESSIONALS FOR GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE PROCESS OUTSOURCING

Introduction. Globalization due to the growth of the Internet and global communication infrastructure has made it possible for many services to be provided from remote locations, independent of the location of service providers. A large number of organizations have started outsourcing high-end knowledge-intensive services to external agencies and professionals, in a practice called knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). There is a shortage of talent able to provide the breadth of KPO services, particularly professionals trained to find and process information efficiently. This paper explores the issues and challenges involved for LIS professionals to break into the KPO market, and the strategies that LIS associations and LIS schools can take to facilitate this. Method. Two faculty members of an I-school, a special librarian at a private business school and a knowledge management specialist at a law firm in Singapore collaborated to deliberate on the extent and potential of the KPO market, the kind of services and skills that will be in demand for KPO, and the issues and barriers to address. Conclusion. LIS professionals are expected to do well in KPO in areas involving searching for information, packaging information, combining information from multiple sources, carrying out data collection and analysis, preparing research reports, providing information-related services, carrying out information and knowledge audits, constructing taxonomies and metadata, designing digital libraries and institutional repositories, and providing training. Challenges expected to be faced include mindset of librarians, personal work issues, and librarian's lack of certain soft skills, domain/industry knowledge, experience of the corporate environment, and an understanding of ethical and information security issues. A collaborative effort between LIS schools across the region, LIS associations and industry partners seems to be a good strategy to address the issues and realize the potential of KPO