Information Flow and Democratic Governance

Information is the life-line of governance. This is particularly true with democratic political systems. Even undemocratic regimes require steady information flow to sustain their power base. Indeed, the effectiveness in the management of information flow distinguishes a functional political system from a dysfunctional one. With the emergence of new media in the information matrix, there has been a dramatic democratization of content development which had hitherto been the exclusive preserve of “experts” in the media arena. The expansion of space in content development and dissemination of information through the various internet-based mechanisms has proven to be a double-edged sword: a force for popular mobilization and participation in the governance process and a source of destabilization. Depending on the political system in question, information science and technology is exerting tremendous influence in the governance arena. This chapter examines the unfolding dynamics in Information Science and Technology and its place in the democratization of the governance process in Africa. It dwells on the changing contexts of information content development besides engaging the core conceptual issues. It also explores the nexus between the “democratization of information content development” and democratic consolidation in Africa.

The School Librarian in Rural China

This chapter examines the school librarian (SL) in rural China in terms of his/her roles as the school information specialist and reading programme catalyst. The analysis is based on case study observations from site visits and interviews over a four-year period. The analysis surfaced key obstacles faced by the librarians, including: low knowledge base and expertise, limited material resources, and a lack of understanding of their roles by stakeholders within their communities. To alleviate these impediments, the importance of the SL’s roles needs to be understood by the school’s stakeholders, enabling the school librarian to be recognized as a skilled professional with an important and unique contribution to the educational process.

Marketing Libraries

Library marketing is a relatively new concept in Librarianship in this part of the globe; therefore, this chapter looks at what librarians think about Library marketing in terms of the new terminology, such as the use of customers instead of patrons to address their user; by explaining the paradigm shift from the orthodox librarianship to the modern one. The chapter explains in detail what library marketing is all about, what the library should market, the types of marketing strategies that can be employed in the library, and finally maps out all the marketing styles that can be adopted for a successful library marketing mission.

Strategies for Marketing an Academic Library in an African Setting

Marketing of library services varies from one environment to another. This chapter discusses the kind of strategies that a librarian manning a university library in Africa needs to come up with to realize a successful marketing programme. The limited resources and an adverse working environment characteristic of the African situation are highlighted. It is observed that a successful marketer is one who has the right personal qualities, sensitive to the needs of the users, knowledgeable about the product, and promoting it with passion. The chapter also looks at issues that affect the marketing capabilities of academic libraries in Africa. It concludes that academic libraries in Africa have very tight budgets, and most cannot afford to earmark any funds towards marketing their services. The chapter is significant in that not much literature is available for marketing of academic libraries in an African setting, and it provides some solutions that can be applied without extra funding. Students in Africa rely on mobile phones and social networking sites to communicate, and it is recommended that the use of social media for marketing can be very effective in Africa today

Bibliometric Analysis of DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

This chapter presents a bibliometric analysis of the journal, DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology, for the period between 2006 and 2010. The data were downloaded from the journal’s website. The analysis covers mainly the number of articles, authorship pattern, subject, distribution of articles, average number of references per articles, forms of documents cited, year distribution of cited journals, et cetera. Findings of the studies point towards the merits and weakness of the journal which are helpful for its further development. The result showed that out of 199 articles, 116 (58.29%) articles were contributed by joint authors while the rest 83 (41.71%) articles were contributed by single author. The study reveals that most of the contributions are from India with 93.97%, and the remaining 6.03% were from foreign authors.

Social Media in Library and Information Centres

This chapter discusses social networking as a new tool in information management, using Facebook as case study. It explicates how social networking can enhance library outreach and librarians’ collaboration. It presents social networking as new tool in information management that is capable of creating future prospects, opportunities, and hope for library users, and information and library professionals. For the purpose of this work, three groups were created on Facebook. One for library users and two for Librarians: Academic Library Users, African Librarian, and Nigerian Librarians. Social networking sites could be effectively used to disseminate information and promote pleasant professional relationship among librarians and library users. It encourages academic collaboration. With Facebook group, pictures of memorable events could be shared, news could be posted, and meetings, conferences, and workshops could be announced.

Modernization of a Traditional Library

Maulana Azad Library is considered one of the major libraries of the world, with a glorious past and promising future. It was established with the foundation of Madarsatul-Uloom Musalmanan at Aligarh in 1875, which became Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College in 1877 and became full-fledged Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1920. The Maulana Azad Library came into existence with the donation of personal collection of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University in 1877. The library has very rich collection consisting of oriental and occidental printed and non-printed records. Various formats exist, such as: books, journals, manuscripts, government publications, Rrot graphs, audio-visual materials, phonodiscs, phonorecords, microfiche, pre-recorded cassettes, microfilms, compact discs, floppies, et cetera. Autographed letters, edicts of the kings and queens of the Mughal period, portraits of important personalities, coins, theses, dissertations, braille books, pamphlets, maps, charts, paintings etc. are available. The documents cover almost every discipline of knowledge with special reference to Islamic theology, history, literature, et cetera. A very good collection of books in oriental languages is also available in the Library. The library has started the automation process selecting Libsys software that is quite popular in central universities of India. The present chapter examines the automation process in different sections of the library.

Information Services Provision to Persons with Visual Impairment in Nigeria

A good understanding of the issues surrounding information services provision to persons with visual impairment in Nigeria will assist providers and producers of information materials in alternative format and other stakeholders to come to terms with the gap between what exists and the expectations. This chapter delves into the critical issues involved in the provision of information services to persons with visual impairment in Nigeria. It highlights the situation of the visually impaired information users in Nigeria as well as the providers of information services to them. It also focuses on the availability and use of information materials in alternative formats while the impact of technology on information provision to persons with visual impairment was discussed. The chapter concludes that stakeholders should collaborate and increase transcription activities and that information materials should be provided to meet the reading interest of the visually impaired.

Demystifying Digital Scholarship

The subject of digital scholarship has attracted attention from the scientific community, publishing industry, and libraries, not only as a subject of study or methodology, but also as a tool that aims at addressing how new digital media and technologies can be leveraged to transform teaching, learning, and research. Digital scholarship provides an opportunity to develop cyber-infrastructure, facilitate large scale collaborative projects, and share research data as well as methodologies across disciplines. It enables scholars to develop research questions at appropriate level of sophistication and abstraction in order to allow large scale collaboration that cuts across disciplines, borders, and methodologies. Digital scholarship intersects many academic fields including but not limited to computational linguistics, cloud computing, human computer interaction, content management, cyber-infrastructure, e-publishing, computer modelling, cross language information retrieval, automated language processing, information visualisation, and social networks. Despite its increased pervasiveness, digital scholarship as a discipline of study or as a tool and technology for enhanced learning and research is yet to be widely understood. Besides, literature on the subject is limited. Digital scholarship is therefore a legitimate scholarly endeavour that needs research for clear understanding. This chapter therefore strives to demystify the concept of digital scholarship, its scope, tools for its study and application, what it aims to achieve, why it is important, and any challenges of implementing, it especially in scholarly environments.

The Future of Readership Development

Libraries play an important role in development of human kind, especially in the development of readership among the users. In particular, the development of ICTs has opened up new horizons for the creation, storage, access, distribution, and presentation that has significantly imparted and dramatically changed the fabric of the library user habits. It remains a challenge, however, to most of the libraries regarding which acquisitions models would be adequate for the user’s needs. This chapter attempts to analyse the changing user habits and library acquisition trends and their contribution to the readership development within the ICT environments in developing countries. The chapter attempts to assess how academic libraries, with examples of Makerere University Library, have applied the library acquisition models to address the changing user habits and their implications. The chapter gives strategies for readership development to meet the socio-economic demands of the society.