The Library as an Inspiring Space for Learning and Innovation

Managing the modern library means seizing upon this technological and cultural shift, and transforming these challenges into positive opportunities. The success of this evolution will be contingent on the creation of inspiring and attractive services for libraries’ collections, activities, and spaces. Thus, this study seeks to investigate these new inspiring services and non-traditional activities through the web portals of libraries from different countries all around the world. The research follows the documentary approach based on subject-related studies, and navigating libraries’ web portals, to determine their activities. The study focused on many concepts related to innovative services, sustainable information development and societal integration. Hence, the study presents the experiences of a selection of libraries around the world where these services and activities have been successfully implemented. The researcher, having gathered and analyzed the documents, made a set of recommendations to library workers including: a) constructing a broad public vision for the transition of community libraries from their traditional role providing information to a more comprehensive role in serving societies educationally and culturally, b) promoting sustainable information development strategies for all groups within society without marginalizing any category, c) understanding the local dynamics of communities by collecting necessary data on population, demographic categories, types of cultures, standard of living, and refugee movement to build studies that accurately identify community needs, d) bridging the knowledge gap and digital divide by enhancing partnership among individuals and institutions, and e) establishing partnerships with governmental and non-governmental organizations with a view to launching volunteer programs, grants, and training workshops to overcome barriers of cultural isolation or culture shock

Pupils’ Bulling Behaviors in Jordan: School Managers and Teachers’ Perspectives

The study aims at identifying students’ bullying behaviors from Schools managers and teachers’ perspectives. To achieve the study objective, a questionnaire was designed to collect data, pilot-tested and peer-reviewed. The study sample was chosen randomly and consisted of (125) respondents from different cities in Jordan. The results of the study showed that the common bullying behaviors were as follows: verbal bullying (M=4.051, SD= 1.118), physical bullying (M=3.97, SD=1.197), cyber bullying (M=3.742, SD=1.208), and gender bullying (M=3.65, SD=1.235). In addition, results revealed factors of bullying as schools managers and teachers indicated: the bad companions (M=4.90, SD=1.051), parent’s educational and cultural background (M= 4.82, SD=1.135), family disintegration) (M= .784, SD=1.223), the inadequate parental treatment (M=3.37, SD=1.262), and other reasons (M=3.742, SD= 1.207). Keywords: Bulling behaviors, physical bulling, gender bulling, schools pupils, Jordan DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-5-09 Publication date: February 28th 2021

Cyberbullying across youths in Jordan Community: Perspectives of the Faculty of Education students in Al-Hussein bin Talal University

This study aimed at identifying cyberbullying among youths in Jordan community from students’ perspectives at the Faculty of Education in Al-Hussein bin Talal University. In order to achieve the study objectives, the quantitative approach was deployed. A questionnaire was developed for data collection. The study sample was randomly selected. There were (185) respondents. The results revealed that the most common types of cyberbullying among youths in the Jordanian community were respectively as follows: ridicule and discredit (M=4.02, SD= 0.89), slander, cursing and contempt (M=4.01, SD= 1.01), publishing misleading messages, images and news about others (M=4.00, SD= 0.85), and publishing jokes that violate general manners (M=3.60, SD= 0.99). The average for the responses of the study sample individuals towards the level of cyberbullying among youth from the perspective of the study sample individuals was high with a mean of (3.81) and the standard deviation value was (0.97). In addition, the results revealed that the most common effects of cyberbullying among youths in the Jordanian community were respectively: The increased levels of violence and individual and group quarrels (M=4.00, SD= 0.88), the low level of manners and the system of social values (M=3.99, SD= 1.33), then the loss of cultural identity and substituting it with the global culture (M=3.97, SD= 0.91), and finally low skills of personal interaction (M=3.60, SD= 0.99). In the light of the results, the study recommended the necessity of activating the role of media and educational institutions in educating youths about the risks of practicing cyberbullying as well as activating sanctions and taking the necessary legal measures against those practicing cyber bullying. Keywords: Cyberbullying, social platforms, youths, penal law, Jordan community. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-15-09 Publication date:May 31st 202

Emerging services for the visually impaired in academic libraries

This study sought to investigate access services that are presented to visually impaired users in academic libraries. There is a clear lack of digital resources and assistive technology in serving disabled/blind users in both libraries. Based on Mann-Whitney U-test results and p-value, there were similarities in website and databases accessibility and significant differences in providing some types of digital materials to visually impaired users. It is recommended that libraries have to continually adapt to the constantly turning cycles of technology in terms of major technology trends such as open-source software, mobile technology, and voice-activated technology. The world needs to see libraries deploying the latest phase of change because users increasingly engaged with services through voice-activated technologies like Alexa, Google Home, Cortana, etc. in addition to the current larger-scale technology that is essentially relevant to the libraries, like integrated library systems (ILS), library services platforms (LSP), customers discovery services (CDS), and e-book lending technologies

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