Volume 57, Issue 1

American libraries currently face a dramatic shift in how they are perceived, both by the public and by lawmakers. In order to preserve the traditional values observed by librarians, such as patron privacy and access to information, libraries must also preserve the traditional associations that have defined them. The value of libraries has been undermined by the threat of terrorism and the subsequent political pressure to find blame for the terrorist attacks. Librarians must choose whether or not to stick to the traditional library brand, or evolve and market libraries as something else. Without public support, definitions will not change easily. The American public still views the library as a place to read and find books, and this definition must prevail for libraries to retain their relevance in American life.

This qualitative study describes how Filipino grade school pupils in a private, sectarian school in Manila, Philippines identify their views and images of the librarian. Two hundred fifty-eight (258) pupils were asked to fill out a robotfoto box for illustration and to fill in a diagram. As a result of the data gathered and analyzed, two (2) faces of the librarian came into view, based on the children's doodling, the desirable and the undesirable librarian. On the one hand, the desirable librarian represents the enticing , enduring and engaging type. On the other hand, disappointing , depressing and depriving types characterize the librarian who is undesirable. The doodlings indicate that being desirable attracts library clients to visit the library and develops interest in using the library facilities more often. The undesirable qualities make students hesitate in entering the library. This study shows the need for librarians to be concerned with improving their images to develop desired qualities for the benefit of their student clientele.

Digital libraries are increasingly serving a worldwide audience. Persons of different cultural backgrounds can hold diverse perceptions of what constitutes an effective, efficient and satisfying information-seeking experience, and digital library design therefore grows more complex when its user population traverses cultural boundaries. This paper reviews the state of research on cross-cultural digital library usability and identifies reasons for lack of progress in the field. An improved framework is proposed to support the discussion and evaluation of subjective cultural factors in a deeper, more systematic fashion. The cognitive theory of Howard Gardner, multiple intelligences theory, is explored as one potential framework for exploring cross-cultural digital library usability. Each component of Gardner's theory is introduced, placed in a cultural context, and then briefly reviewed in terms of its potential application to digital libraries. Alternative frameworks, particularly the cultural dimensions theory of Geert Hofstede, are also introduced. Multiple intelligences theory is found to be helpful for understanding the nature of cultural variables, but not readily translatable into operational design principles for digital libraries. Combining multiple intelligences cognitive theory with cultural theory and global HCI design principles may prove a useful direction for future research.

A survey of 439 artisans in Botswana was carried out with a view to determining their information needs, information seeking behaviour and sources of information used for meeting their daily needs. The study reveals that about 70% of the respondents were 21–40 years old. The artisans were involved in a variety of vocations, dressmaking, welding and hair dressing being the most prominent. A significant number of the artisans (11.7%) had no formal education. The greatest job-related information needs were in finding sources for raw materials (55.6%), locating government tenders (46.2%) and improving their knowledge (44%). Health (59.9%) and sports (32.1%) were the major general areas of information needs. The artisans sought information mainly through informal conversations (65.8%) and listening to radio (62.6%). The most used information sources were radio (50.3%), colleagues (49%) and newspapers (47.4%). Only 28% of the respondents were computer literate. The paper recommends that the government of Botswana should provide continuing education programmes for the artisans, as this would improve their skills in their vocations, as well as their computer literacy competence. Also, information providers, such as libraries should be involved pro-actively in the provision of information to artisans. They should also equip the artisans with information literacy competence.

Representation and organization of knowledge in interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary domains have attracted little attention among specialists in Information Science. The lack of attention has affected the management of this kind of information in a negative way because models used for handling interdisciplinary information are based on or inspired by disciplinarity, causing problems in information retrieval. This study is part of broader research aiming to analyze an interdisciplinary domain, in this case Gender Studies, in order to identify its terminological behaviour and its conceptual dynamics for information retrieval. On the basis of a selected lexicon of 333 terms taken from a total of 5,200 terms coming from different sources, this study aims to bring to light the model followed in the representation of concepts related to the health, image and body of women, and their visualization in texts specialized in gender and in information retrieval systems, particularly in Gender thesauri. Secondary objectives are to determine if these sources suffer from gender bias and other types of prejudices of social constructions, here in regards to the body and the health of women, and to identify the research interest that these topics awaken, as reflected in the selected collection of specialized documents. To this end, a quantitative analysis of the selected terminology was done, comparing the results obtained with the selected lexicon from the indexing systems with the lexicon obtained from the primary sources, to detect coinciding terms and possible differences between the two, and so to appraise the documental warrant of the systems. Finally, the terms were grouped into categories in order to reveal the most relevant aspects for representation in the overall context of women's health, the female body and the image of women.

The German theologian Konstantin von Tischendorf discovered the oldest manuscript of the Bible in the middle of the 19th century. Thereafter its parts were dispersed and stored in famous libraries in London, Leipzig and St. Petersburg, and in St. Catherine's Monastery near Mount Sinai, its original home. An international consortium of libraries has been formed to preserve and research all the parts of this manuscript and then to unite them in digital form. This will result in a virtual Codex Sinaiticus on the Internet, though there will also be a printed version. Standards for preservation, transcription and digitisation have been established with the help of European and U.S. experts. This joint venture, supported by a number of research councils and foundations, began in 2006 and will be completed by 2010.