Volume 73, Issue 3

The spread of fake news on Covid19 is causing public unrest and suspicion among citizens, which is a challenge for countries facing the pandemic. Countries, governments, and organizations worldwide are putting more effort into combating the infodemic along with finding an effective treatment for Covid19. To collect and summarize the strategies used for combating it and the challenges of managing the infodemic among Asian countries, this systematic review examined 42 articles matched with the inclusion and exclusion criteria by researchers. It was found that the techniques employed by governments to control the infodemic can be classified into three categories: educational activities, technical activities and tool production, and legal activities, and the most challenging way of combatting misinformation is to use social media filtering and legal action.

In Latin America, school libraries were founded based on the hopes of fostering democracy and reducing social and educational inequalities. Nevertheless, current dominant discourses relate school libraries more closely to the demand to improve academic results. In this article, we explore what we consider to be an intensification of neoliberal discourses about school libraries by studying the case of the Learning Resource Centres ( Centros de Recursos para el Aprendizaje, CRA) in Chile, a program that has been exemplary compared to other Latin American countries. With a Critical Policy Analysis (Bacchi 2009. Analysing Policy: What’s the Problem Represented to be? Australia: Pearson, 2012. Engaging with Carol Bacchi. Strategic Interventions and Exchanges . Adelaide: University of Adelaide Press, 2015. “The Turn to Problematization: Political Implications of Contrasting Interpretive and Poststructural Adaptations.” Open Journal of Political Science 5 (1): 1–12), we question the problems that the CRA produce and aim to solve and their transformations through time. We focus on four public policy documents tracing how school libraries are related to the global educational reforms of the late 1980s and the 1990s and how they are assessed in the 2010s. We read the documents sketching out three exclusions that, we argue, lay the foundation for a neoliberal intensification of the CRA program: the exclusions of pedagogical innovation, of other learning resources beyond books, and of the local community.

This study aims to provide a health information model for public access to reliable and up-to-date information resources at public libraries. The study was based on a Sequential-Exploratory Mixed Methods Design and combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Quantitative method was applied for 12 library managers in the health domain as well as officials of the institution of public libraries for whom in-depth and semi-structured interviews were applied. The third group (475 managers of the Iranian public libraries) participated in the quantitative survey. Quantitative results indicated the libraries’ space needs to be extended and the librarians require training courses about health information. Qualitative results, after coding, lead to extraction of ground theory. From the library managers’ point of view, for implementation of this model, a coherent planning and structured memorandum of understanding between public libraries and ministry of health is required. Finally, using the quantitative and qualitative results, the model of health information through public libraries in Iran has been extracted and presented. The present model includes three parts: management actions, strengthen resources, and education. It could be concluded that paying attention on information resources, especially in the field of health information, will lead to an increase in the level of awareness in the society, and consequently health status and quality of life of the people will improve. Thus, considering the variations in the referred people to the libraries, presentation of a health model in the field of health information in public libraries could be promising.

A review of the research trends in library and information science (LIS) is important as it provides insight into the research practices of scholars in the field. This study investigated the research trends in master’s and doctoral research outputs relating to LIS produced in Nigeria and South Africa between 2009 and 2015 to identify the most researched subject areas and the most neglected subject areas in LIS research in the two countries. A total of 400 master’s and doctoral research outputs produced in Nigeria and South Africa were analysed by means of a qualitative content analysis, and 15 research areas were created by means of modified subject categorisation adopted from the extant literature. The findings were that the most researched subject area in both countries was human information behavior in respect of both master’s and doctoral research outputs. The least researched areas in LIS research outputs in Nigeria were archives and records management, LIS history and developments, bibliometrics, scientometrics and informatics, knowledge and information resource management. In South Africa, bibliometrics, scientometrics and informatics were the least researched areas in respect of doctoral research outputs, and LIS education and pedagogy were the least researched areas in master’s research outputs. The positivist research paradigm was more prevalent. The implication of the findings is that LIS schools in Nigeria and South Africa need to focus more on research areas that deal with current trends and challenges confronting the profession. In today’s world of work, most services are driven by information technology and research should be directed towards addressing the implementation of recent trends in the profession. Since the sample framework used for Nigeria was low, it may not be appropriate to generalise this finding to other institutions.

This study has examined the rapidly expanding world of the Metaverse and the Metaverse services, the characteristics of the Metaverse, the Metaverse-related technologies, the Metaverse support policies released in each country, and the direction of development related to Metaverse by companies. Furthermore, based on the cases in which Metaverse has been applied to the library to date, we have tried to discuss the direction and feasibility of the Metaverse services implemented in and by the library: a library as a platform, a library as a content mecca, a library for collaborative communication, a library where digital assets are produced and distributed, a library addressing the demand of customized information in real time, and the Metaverse library with the above seven functions and roles.

The subject of future of libraries recurs regularly, whenever the future of the librarians’ profession is discussed due to the decrease in readership rates, during the reorganization and liquidation of libraries or in the technological context. The article aims to analyze in detail the global visions of libraries formulated so far. Thanks to the categorization, it was possible to identify the main similarities and differences of the analyzed visions, to list the authors and main categories of visions, and to confront new expected social roles of libraries with the sociological and praxeological theory of Pierre Bourdieu, the creator of such concepts as cultural capital or social power. To present the results, the content analysis method and content-based categorization technique were used.

This study aims to investigate community needs in order to develop the cultural learning resource of Suandok Temple, one of the most important religious monasteries in Chiang Mai, Thailand. This is where, in the Lanna kingdom, now the northern part of Thailand, Lanka Wong Theravada Buddhism was founded. The study is based on interviews, with historical procedures, Shalaginova’s concept of Heritage Interpretation, and Berlo’s SMCR Model of Communication applied to the data analysis. The findings reveal the needs of the community, which can be divided into six themes: (1) important persons to Suandok Temple; (2) outstanding arts and architecture; (3) holy landmark; (4) community center; (5) education hub and tourism; and (6) cultural learning resources. While the first five themes are the contents of the cultural learning resources, the sixth theme offers the guideline and elements, particularly target group, type, and form of presentation, that would be appropriate to cultural learning. With suitable learning resources, users could become aware of and understand the importance of cultural heritage in their community. Consequently, the community as a whole could share a sense of ownership and a determination to maintain, protect, and preserve their cultural heritage.