Volume 71, Issue 2

Open scholarship is a major reform movement within research. This paper seeks to understand how open scholarship might address the challenges faced by research in Africa, through a study based on a participatory collaborative workshop to create a partnership with librarians in Rwanda. The literature review identifies three broad perspectives on the apparent under-performance of Rwandan research: one locating the issue in the unequal scholarly communications system, a second pointing to a country deficit and a third blaming cognitive injustices. The Rwandan librarians see researchers as challenged through the pressures on them to publish, the costs of research, poor infrastructure, lack of skills and limited access to literature. Collectively these challenges constitute a critical barrier to research. These limits fit largely the country deficit perspective. Open scholarship as conceived in the Global North is only a small part of the answer to the challenges faced by Rwandan scholars. To promote equity, notions of open scholarship need to take into account the conditions under which research is conducted in less privileged contexts such as Rwanda.

Consumption emotions are not always considered when satisfaction with library services is assessed. In this research, consumption emotions perceived by users of eight different libraries of a Mexican higher education institution are identified when using library services. Laros and Steenkamp. 2005. “Emotions in Consumer Behavior: A Hierarchical Approach.” Journal of Business Research 58: 1437–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2003.09.013 hierarchical scale was used to assess library users’ consumption emotions. The relationship between those emotions and the users’ satisfaction is then established and analyzed using both descriptive statistics analysis and an entropy-oriented machine learning approach. The first approach suggests that users feel more positive consumption emotions (contentment and happiness) than negative emotions (anger). The entropy analysis shows that the identified consumption emotions have a great prediction power over the satisfaction level that users will manifest. This research contributes to the issue of satisfaction assessment by including library users’ consumption emotions in Mexico.

Social media presents a robust stage for disseminating time-sensitive information that is needed during a public health disease of global concern such as COVID-19. This study finds out how the 23 anglophone Sub-Saharan African countries’ national health ministries and infectious disease agencies disseminated COVID-19 related information through their social media accounts within the first three months after the declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic by the World Health Organization. COVID-19 related qualitative and quantitative data types were collected from the social media accounts of the surveyed national health ministries and agencies for analysis. Over 86% of the African countries had presence on social media; Facebook was the most popular, though Twitter contained more posts. One of the credibility issues that was noticed is that most of the health ministries’ and agencies’ social media accounts were unverified and access to the social media accounts was not provided on most of their official websites. Information dissemination became more deliberate and increased significantly after the announcement of the fist cases of COVID-19 in the countries under review. Awareness creation, updates and news constituted the major categories of information that were disseminated, mostly in the form of derivative social media information before the announcement of the first COVID-19 case in the surveyed African countries. Campaigns against misinformation were barely undertaken by most of the countries. Strategies used by some countries included the employment of social media influencers and creation of content in local languages. Strategies that include development of health information content that targets different groups in African societies and the inclusion of elderly in the community and religious leaders as non-state actors in health information communication were recommended.

Identifying the factors affecting the success of academic information management and evaluation centers is one of the most important studies on how its results can increase the productivity of these centers. This research attempts to investigate the effect of five critical success factors for three centers of academic information management and evaluation in Iran as a developing country. These centers play a key role in the management and evaluation of theses, research projects, papers, and patents nationally. Semi-structured interviews, studies of literature, and providing questionnaires have been used to collect the material for the research. The research population was selected using purposive sampling and consists of managers and all the employees in the three centers who had at least a master’s degree. Their viewpoints were surveyed and the data was analyzed using ANOVA, Scheffe, and Pearson’s correlation test. The findings affirm that “management stability” makes it possible to perform long-term plans in these centers. However, “independency” acts as a factor to strike the balance between responsibilities and authorities, “manager’s speciality” improves the plans and performances in a specific and professional way, “information technology” reduces the expenses and facilitates the presentation of faster services, and finally “distance from authorities” influences the speed of reporting and providing facilities. The results show each of these five factors, not only independently but also together and as a whole, affects the success of these kinds of centers. Moreover, while confirming the correlation between these factors, it was revealed which of these factors has a greater impact on their success.

Library and Information Science (LIS) has gone through many changes over the past two decades. These changes have had an impact on the youth who want to study LIS. Lack of knowledge about LIS and its career opportunities makes it difficult for young people to consider studying towards a LIS qualification. Literature reveals that most LIS students end up in the program accidentally and without knowledge of the content. This study investigated students’ perceptions regarding LIS, the reasons for enrolling, and motivating factors that make students study LIS. The study was informed by the Circumscription and Compromise theory. To answer the research questions, a survey was conducted in three LIS schools in South Africa. A questionnaire was sent to first and final year students, and 165 responded. The findings indicate that before they enrolled, many students had a slight idea of what LIS programs were and prepared them to be. The students’ decision to study LIS was mainly influenced by information brochures, followed by relatives, teachers, friends, and parents. Most of the students decided to study LIS when they were already accepted to enroll at university but did not choose LIS as their first-choice program of study. The availability of job opportunities and a stable LIS work environment are the main factors that motivated students to continue to study LIS. Students also indicated that they were satisfied with LIS and would recommend it to others to study. The study concludes that LIS is a compromise field of study because students did not initially want to study it. Interestingly, after enrolment, they became satisfied and motivated to continue with the program. Public awareness campaigns, especially in high schools, are encouraged to sensitize people about LIS.

Using a constructivist lens, this study investigated the role of school libraries in supporting an inquiry-based approach for teaching and learning science subjects in senior secondary schools in Ekiti State, Nigeria, the challenges faced and possibilities presented. The significance of this study is based on the importance Nigeria has assigned to science education as a means to achieving national development. A mixed-methods approach was chosen for the study. The population of the study included school librarians, principals, and science teachers in public senior secondary schools as well as staff in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology concerned with supporting and managing resources for science teaching and learning. Data was collected using questionnaires, interviews, and observation. Quantitative data collected through the questionnaires were analyzed using the SPSS, while qualitative data were transcribed and thematically analyzed. The findings revealed the library resource most frequently available in school libraries for supporting science curriculum implementation is a textbook. Most of the staff in charge of the library had no librarianship qualification. Teacher-centred approaches predominated amongst teachers. The study emphasizes how school libraries are underrated as support for the curriculum. It proffers some far reaching recommendations to position school libraries for better performance.

This study examined personal information creation and storage practices in digital and print media by faculty in selected universities in Ghana. A sample survey research design guided the research and quantitative data were collected from 235 faculty members of six universities in Ghana. Qualitative data was also collected from 18 willing faculty members, and was guided by an interview schedule. Faculty reported that they created their information in an organized manner and that they created information mainly in digital formats compared with manual. The task at hand determined the information facility created and search words that are semantically related to the item are used in finding/re-finding electronic information. Faculty reported that they acquired their information literacy personally, and information literacy explained re-finding of digital information but not non-digital information. The demographic variables in the study did not explain finding/re-finding of stored information: gender ( β  = −0.113, p  = 0.280) and age ( β  = 0.038, p  = 0.545). This study establishes clearly the pattern of information literacy activities for faculty in the universities in Ghana.

Among online communities of customers there are a number of different types of group that need to be distinguished. One interesting type are virtual product user communities, i.e. company sponsored online forums where product users share usage experience and collaboratively construct new knowledge to solve technical problems. The purpose of this paper is to show that these “virtual product user communities” are a distinct type of customer group with knowledge innovation capability. The research adopts a method combining observation and content analysis of discussion threads where technical problems are solved, complemented by thematic analysis of interviews with forum members to explore its character, especially its knowledge related attributes. The paper confirms empirically that the virtual product user community is a distinct type of virtual community and can be differentiated from other virtual communities of consumers. In addition, an enhanced classification framework, extending Porter’s (2004) classic 5Ps model, is proposed to highlight knowledge-related activities in virtual communities. Of particular interest is that the findings suggest that knowledge-related activities should be considered as an important attribute in defining and classifying virtual communities. In terms of practical implications, it is recommended that the virtual product user community should be given appropriate support from top management in order to fully exploit its knowledge innovation value. Moreover, tailored facilitation strategies to promote knowledge construction activities and community development can be developed in accordance with its unique attributes. The paper precisely distinguishes one specific type of innovative virtual community consisting of product users from other online customer communities. Moreover, it outlines a revised virtual community classification framework, which can be widely applied in analysing features of online groups. Its key attribute of knowledge-related activity redirects attention to virtual communities’ knowledge innovation capabilities.