Volume 56, Issue 1

A World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was first proposed by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations (UN) body, in 1998. The summit was formally endorsed by the UN General Assembly in December 2001. A series of regional planning meetings were held in 2002 and 2003 in several countries around the world. A “Preparatory Committee” process (PrepCom) began in July 2002 with an inaugural meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. Unlike many other UN summit processes, WSIS was planned in two phases. The first phase was held in Geneva 10–12 December 2003 and the second phase held in Tunis 16–18 November 2005. The perspectives of the global library, museum and archive communities are discussed along with summit purposes, outcomes, unresolved issues (Internet governance and funding mechanisms) and a look at the implementation of the Plan of Action by governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the private sector in the coming years.

This article presents the Open Access publishing experience of researchers in an academic research institution, in a developing country, Trinidad and Tobago, namely at the University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Campus. It considers UWI researchers' knowledge of Open Access, their access to the scholarly literature, Open Access Archives/Repositories at UWI and related issues of Research and Library funding and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Infrastructure/Internet connectivity. The article concludes that whilst Open Access publishing yields some obvious and well-documented benefits for developing country researchers, including free access to research articles and increased impact and visibility of “published” Open Access articles, there are some disincentives that militate against developing country researchers fully contributing to the global body of knowledge via Open Access. It finds that Open Access Journals are beneficial for scholars who consume information but are of little benefit for developing country scholars wanting to publish in these journals because of the high cost of page charges. Inadequate and unreliable ICT infrastructure and Internet connectivity also often limit access to information. It concludes that because of technical, financial, human and infrastructural limitations, Open Access via the Green Road of self-archiving is also often not an option for developing country researchers. These researchers are therefore unable to reap the real benefits, of making their research Open Access, that of increased impact and visibility.This study is to develop and evaluate methods and instruments for assessing the usability of digital libraries. It discusses the dimensions of usability, what methods have been applied in evaluating usability of digital libraries, their applicability, and criteria. It is found in the study that there exists an interlocking relationship among effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. It provides operational criteria for effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, and learnability. It discovers users' criteria on ”ease of use,” ”organization of information,” ”terminology and labeling,” ”visual attractiveness,” and ”mistake recovery.” Common causes of ”user lostness” were found. ”Click cost” was examined.

Norway currently has 362 academic, research and special libraries, most of which have developed websites to provide a variety of online services to users, including a growing number of part-time and distance education users. While most websites and services are provided in Norwegian only, forces of globalization are pushing institutions to provide an increasing range of services also in English. Based on an analysis of all 362 library websites, including a typical case sampling of three case studies, the article argues that an increasing amount of information will be made available in English on library websites, but that the process will stop short of full bilingual provision.

This paper presents a test that examined the linguistic capabilities of English and Hungarian search engines. Three English-language search engines were tested: Google, AltaVista and AlltheWeb. For comparison, five significant Hungarian search engines were considered: Heuréka, Origo-Vizsla, Kurzor, Góliát and Altavizsla. The analysis was based on the following aspects: stemming, handling of stopwords and diacritics, truncation and searching for synonyms. The results indicate that while the Hungarian search engines are motivated to take into consideration the specific characteristics of the Hungarian language, on the whole the English-language search engines ignore the special characteristics of the Hungarian language. In the cases examined none of the general search engines handled diacritics well; that caused their resulting weaknesses in finding information relevant for Hungarian users.

This study examines if public libraries in a province in South Africa are ready to assume an enhanced responsibility for information literacy education, specifically that of students, and, if so, what inhibiting and facilitating factors might exist. The public libraries in the rural province of Mpumalanga provide the case site. “Readiness”, at one level, refers to physical capacity and, on a second level, to more subjective attributes such as staff attitudes and beliefs. The paper reports on the first phase of the study – in which both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of a questionnaire/interview survey of 57 public librarians in 46 sites. The study finds that Mpumalanga public libraries are indeed heavily engaged in serving school learners. Shortcomings in certain physical facilities, such as the lack of space and absence of retrieval tools, are inhibiting factors with the heritage of apartheid still impacting on the availability of and quality of service. The low level of professional education of public library staff is found to impede innovation in library programming. The prevailing information literacy education model largely comprises one-to-one support, although there is a fair amount of source-based group library orientation. Moving towards information literacy education will depend on a shift in conceptions of the educational role of public libraries. In the absence of recognition of their curricular role by public library authorities and educators, many public librarians are not sure that their services to school learners are legitimate. There is, however, dawning recognition that present approaches are not meeting the needs of school learners and that more effective communication with educators is required. This recognition comes from public librarians' frustrating encounters with learners rather than from insight into information literacy education theory and experience. The fundamental conclusion is that sustainable information literacy education in public libraries will depend on more dynamic leadership and on a vision of a new model of public library.

Knowledge is fast becoming a source of competitive advantage that makes a difference between success and failure for both profit and non-profit organisations. The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) is a non-profit organisation which has initiated a knowledge management programme recently. This study looks at how knowledge is generated in ILRI, how it is shared, how it is transferred and how it is integrated into the day-to-day operations of the Institute. It also looks at how the Institute encourages its employees to acquire new knowledge as well as share knowledge with others within and outside the Institute. Some of the challenges that the ILRI faces in managing knowledge are identified, and solutions which cannot always rely on information technology are discussed.