Volume 67, Issue 2 -

Information Literacy (IL) is fundamental for lifelong learning, especially for the teaching profession, where information is critical for imparting knowledge to students who are expected to be creative, critical thinkers and lifelong learners. The study investigates the search strategy, self-concept and metacognitive skills of secondary school teachers in selected cities in Nigeria and South Africa. The study adopted a post-positivist research paradigm combining both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies largely through a multi- case study research design. Data were gathered through questionnaires, interviews, observation and document analysis that included a literature review. The target population was secondary school teachers in Lagos and Durban. The sample for the research was drawn from teachers in government secondary schools in Lagos and Durban. A multi-stage sampling technique was used in the first stage to purposively select samples from the two cities of Lagos and Durban in order to make comparisons. The second stage involved stratified random sampling, and the third stage applied simple random sampling. Literature analysis and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) were used to inform the study. The study revealed the following: (i) teachers in Durban had a higher level of perception of the need for information literacy than their counterparts in Lagos; (ii) electronic information resources were infrequently used by the teachers; (iii) younger teachers tended to possess a higher level of information literacy than their older colleagues, which proves why in-service training is imperative; (iv) female teachers were significantly more information literate than their male counterparts; (v) many of the school libraries seem to have been afterthoughts, and the specifications for library building and planning were not observed as itemized by IFLA library building guidelines; and (vi) interaction and collaboration between teachers and librarians was limited. Recommendations have been made regarding how the issues and challenges could be addressed and solved with IL policy and work shopping of teachers for IL.

Based on the premises of Social Exchange theory, we set out to explore the nature of the relationships between users’ privacy behaviors and social capital on Facebook to determine whether decreasing user privacy contributes to achieving more social capital and, if so, how that mechanism of exchange works. The research was conducted with 140 Israeli Facebook users via questionnaires. A quantitative analysis employing the statistical package SPSS was carried out. Four privacy behaviors were measured, reflecting users’ privacy “investments”: friend selectivity, number of friends, privacy control settings and personal information exposure. User benefit from the network was assessed using two variables: bonding and bridging social capital. Privacy was found to be associated with social capital in a complex way which includes mediation effects, supporting the concept of balance and regulation between privacy behaviors. Privacy has some sway over the creation of social capital in online social networks, as part of a complex model of balance and adjustment. This study’s results suggest possible future applications by online social network designers and users.

For international students who need to settle down to new environments, the information they use in their everyday life plays an important role. This study is aimed at understanding international students’ information needs and information-seeking behaviours within their campus and everyday life, throughout the settlement stages. An interview survey, which asked about international students’ information behaviours for critical incidents during three settlement stages, was conducted. At the pre-arrival and settlement stages, most of the international students’ information needs were related to their daily rather than their academic or campus life, and people (relatives/friends) in the United States and the Internet were their main sources of information. As they began to settle down, their information needs and sources of information became diverse; social media use was especially noticeable after they settled down. At the pre-arrival stage, their information needs were broad, and their satisfaction with Internet search experiences was relatively low. However, as they settled down in the United States, their information needs became specific, and they felt more confident with search experiences. In order to support international students’ success in meeting academic goals, it seems that it is necessary to provide them with everyday life information that could help them settle down and adjust to a new country.

This paper explores the ethical, legal, and moral Issues arising from the Boston College Belfast Oral Project initiated in 2001 across scholarly and non-scholarly sources. The researchers of the project entered into an understanding of confidentiality with the college for the project and the participants. An international subpoena request was served between the UK to the US government in 2011 requesting the project records. Bray (2011. “The Whole Story Behind the Boston College Subpoenas.” Chronicle of Higher Education 57 (41):B4–B5. http://chronicle.com/), Geoghegan (2012. “If Trust is lost, Future Promises Naught but Troubles for Research.” Times Higher Education 2033:28–9. https://www.timeshighereducation.com), King (2014. “‘Say Nothing’: Silenced Records and the Boston College Subpoenas.” Archives & Records 35 (1):28–42. doi:10.1080/23257962.2013.859573), Lowman and Palys (2012. “Defending Research Confidentiality ‘To the Extent the Law Allows:’ Lessons From the Boston College Subpoenas.” Journal of Academic Ethics 10 (4):271–97. doi:10.1007/s10805-012-9172–5), McMutrie (2014. “Secrets from Belfast.” Chronicle of Higher Education 60 (20):1–1. http://chronicle.com) and Neuenschwander (2014. Major Legal Challenges Facing Oral History in the Digital Age.” In Oral History in the Digital Age , edited by D. Boyd, S. Cohen, B. Rakerd, and D. Rehberger. Institute of Library and Museum Services. http://ohda.matrix.msu.edu/2012/06/major-le), discuss the continuing issues surrendering the interview tapes from the project. The issues are presented viewed through Mason’s (1986. “Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age.” MIS Quarterly 10 (1):5–12. doi:10.2307/248873) model of the four ethical issues of the information age: Privacy, Accuracy, Property and Accessibility (PARA). The issues are viewed within framework of PARA, with lessons learned, the impact to future oral history academic research and a discussion on possible future research.

British Pathé is considered to be the finest newsreel archive in existence, a treasure trove unrivalled in historical and cultural significance, containing 85,000 short film clips totalling 3,500 hours of footage (predominately shot in grainy black and white with later works in colour) of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and culture, and is particularly strong in its coverage of the First and Second World Wars. In 2002, the process began to convert the film negatives into high-resolution digital files and upload them onto a computer database. A digital asset management system was utilized to host the archive and provide search abilities. One of the initial problems when converting the film negatives to digital files was a lack of detailed information. To combat this, the adoption of a better descriptive metadata scheme, using clearer, simpler keywords would make the site more user-friendly and easier to access. By comparing, sorting and categorizing a limited number of archival footage files from World War II on the British Pathé website, specifically “D-Day: 70th Anniversary Collection,” to create a statistical analysis of current descriptive metadata, a picture will emerge as to the user-friendly environment of the website. By using graphs, diagrams and stills, a deduction can be made as to whether the current keywords are well served or need improvement.ss

This paper assessed the sustainability of Zimbabwe’s Parliamentary Constituency Information Centres (PCICs) as one of many parliamentary constituency projects through examining support from development partners and central government. With the advent of constituency development funds (CDFs) it was expected that PCICs would become increasingly important as centres for disseminating parliamentary information, as an interface between parliament and constituents as well as a communication and coordination hub for constituency activities. These aspects have the effect of improving the Member of Parliament’s (MP) work within the constituency, consequently having a positive impact on the constituency as well as improving MPs’ contribution in parliament. The study was based on theoretical assumptions of interpretive paradigm leading to the belief that respondents are subjected to the external world, with a mixed method approach (Ngulube 2010, “Mapping Mixed Methods Research in Library and Information Science Journals in Sub-Saharan Africa.” The International Information & Library Review 42:252–261) used to allow for convergence of both quantitative and qualitative data. It sampled 25 MPs and 25 office assistants from 25 constituencies, the administration of parliament and development partners, using questionnaires and interview schedules as instruments of data collection. Findings of the study showed that PCICs are poorly resourced due to a lack of funding which has led to the failure to sustain a promising and widely accepted PCIC project, among other drawbacks. It is expected that the findings of this study will contribute to an understanding of the need to plan and properly manage limited resources when addressing the issue of developing constituency projects.