Information Development

Can a federation of library associations improve LIS education and training in developing countries? How should national library associations engage their governments, and the library schools? The pros and cons are weighed briefly.

Although it is generally agreed that information plays a critical role in development, no sure-success way of applying information for sustainable development has been worked out so far. This article gives an overview of the roles information could play in various socio-politico-economic sectors in the rural areas of Bangladesh. Against a backdrop of the enactment of a Right to Information Act and the government’s recent efforts towards establishing a Digital Bangladesh by the year 2021, the country has been witnessing a revival of information-focused activities in its rural and far-flung areas. Covering diverse areas including agriculture, health, human rights, education, employment, market and finance and disaster management, the article indicates how an informed and knowledge-empowered rural people could carry their way forward towards ensuring socio-economic advancement of the country and thereby recognizing the role of information for sustainable rural development.

This article addresses the extent to which Web 2.0 technologies may be used to make the liberation struggle heritage available to the public in archival institutions in the East and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA). The advent of web technologies provides a window of opportunity for archival institutions within ESARBICA to improve their public image. While social media technologies can have a transformative influence, they have to be the right technology for the right place and the right people. In addition, archivists need to find innovative strategies to use these technologies depending on what is affordable on their part and for users.

This study investigates information utilization for policy decision making by assembly members in Ghana’s local government system. The survey method using questionnaires was used to collect data from 200 respondents drawn from a sample of 278 (72 percent response). The study revealed that the information needs of assembly members were related to their legislative and policy-making tasks within the assembly. It was found that policy makers in the assembly system of Ghana had little access to relevant and reliable information when making decisions about policies, programmes and policy implementation. Decisions were therefore often made based on what could be remembered. The study made a number of recommendations, including: the presentation of information sources in appropriate formats for assembly members; enhancing the capability of assembly members through training; the establishment of district assembly libraries and information centres; the provision of adequate funding by assemblies to support subscription to relevant information sources; and the effective dissemination of information by ministries, departments and agencies to the district assemblies.

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of knowledge sharing to survive and remain competitive. Current knowledge sharing models have been found to be lacking as they only focus on the relationships between factors that influence knowledge sharing. An integrated approach that is capable of a simultaneous investigation of the various factors that affect knowledge sharing initiatives, quality of knowledge management and its impact on organizational performance has not been widely attempted. This study aims to develop a holistic knowledge sharing model for the public sector in Malaysia that is based on an integrated approach, which combines factors that influence knowledge management (input), knowledge sharing quality (process) and workers’ performance as well as service delivery (output) that encompasses the individual, organization and technology. This study will firstly present a review of the literature of current models in knowledge sharing, which will then form the take-off point for the development of the proposed holistic model. Such a holistic model is deemed appropriate and necessary to steer knowledge sharing initiatives in tandem with forming the base for policy-making of such initiatives.

This study examines the current state of institutional repositories in Zimbabwe and the challenges and enablers for institutional growth, whilst evaluating the operational issues that might be affecting the setting up of institutional repositories. The qualitative research involved interviews with university librarians and personnel from the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). The University of Zimbabwe currently houses the only repository in the country listed on the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR). The research concludes that the current state of repositories has largely been influenced by the political and economic situation in the country. Partnerships forged between the libraries and INASP are playing a significant role in supporting research and setting up of the repositories. The issue of repositories in Zimbabwe requires much attention and financial assistance from the government and from the universities themselves.

We propose a new application for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) – community radio. We argue how MANETS help overcome important limitations in how community radio is currently operationalized. We identify critical design elements for a MANET based community radio service and propose a broad architecture for the same. We then investigate a most critical issue – the choice of the network wide broadcast protocol for the audio content. We identify desired characteristics of a community radio broadcasting service. We choose and evaluate eight popular broadcasting protocols on these characteristics, to find the protocols most suited for our application.