IFLA Journal

Describes the origins and development of the Advancement of Development through Libraries (ALP), launched as a core programme of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) in 1984 and funded mainly from sources in the Nordic countries. Outlines the ALP philosophy, based on a belief in grassroots development, and its grassroots framework, expressed in terms of its Strategic Plan. Since 1991, 181 projects, including inservice trainings, training in ICT and information literacy, and travel grants, have been carried out at a total cost of more than USD 3 million. Projects are initiated from within the developing regions and carried out by professionals in the regions. These activities support the three pillars of IFLA: The Profession; Society; and the Membership. Identifies the characteristics of a good project and briefly describes examples of good training workshop projects on the Preservation of African Photographic Collections, Managing Digital Libraries and Information Literacy. Concludes that ALP is very important to library development and the visibility of IFLA in developing countries, but that the financial support base needs to be broadened.

In developing China, groups of people are facing social exclusion. They are citizens unemployed or with ill health, laborers with poor skills, teenagers in prisons, residents suffering a disaster, and peasants in remote country-side. Library service is crucial for these vulnerable groups. The Sun Yat-sen Library has been active in providing services to these vulnerable groups, creating 56 branch libraries countrywide. The paper describes innovative services provided to residents of a special community for families with financial difficulties, to prisoners — especially juveniles and prisoner students — to a library devastated by flooding, and to two remote mountain communities in Tibet.

The purpose of this article is to reveal the nature and extent of the official English language websites of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the motivating factors for this practice. The main reasons for the relatively large number of English language sites are considered to be the promotion of tourism, a desire for international scientific cooperation, and increased financial dealings. The paper provides information on the English language content of the main Iranian government websites, identifies some of the obstacles to effective access to this content, and argues for improvements in Iranian website design, so that the Iranian government can fully achieve its goals.

The purpose of this paper is to identify best practices in order to improve the quality of services in Portuguese academic libraries. This article describes an ongoing project to assess the performance of library services, resulting from a partnership of six Portuguese higher education libraries. The study has three main steps: (1) selection of criteria to be evaluated and selection of their corresponding performance indicators; (2) data collection and analysis; (3) identification of best practices. The selection of the criteria to be evaluated is based on a mixed model combining the Common Assessment Framework and the Balanced Scorecard. The associated performance indicators are in accordance with International Standards ISO 11620:1998 and ISO 2789:2006.

The Reflective Online Searching Skills (ROSS) Environment is an e-learning tool that fosters the development of student skill and knowledge in online searching. It was developed with the support of Faculty of Information Technology and the Teaching and Learning Support Services at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). In 2007 ROSS is being developed for use within the first year curriculum of other faculties within QUT. This paper will provide a demonstration of the ROSS environment and how it was embedded within the curriculum of two contrasting disciplines: IT and Science. Many online information literacy tools are static, modular, linear and heavily text based, and have failed to incorporate an interactive approach to the learning process. This paper will demonstrate that ROSS pushes the boundary of online information literacy programs by guiding learners to know, reflect, and practice information literacy concepts through the use of case studies or problem based learning.

Personalization of library resources is projected as a viable alternative to tide over the information explosion and to conserve the time of users for more productive intellectual tasks. Personalization needs sufficient electronic content at one's site as well as suitable mechanisms to identify the user through his or her profile, selectively search the content that matches the user profile, and arrange and present it to the user in an appealing fashion. The different components of a content personalization system include: `Content Serving System' to host electronic content beyond a critical mass, `User Interest Management System' to manage dynamic user profiles, `Search Engine' to automatically match content with profiles and `Personalized Content Delivery' mechanisms for delivering matched results to the user. Technological advancements made by web enabled computing coupled with continued user interest to gather information resources available on the web led many popular portals to bring in the concept of content personalization suiting varied user interests. A few such initiatives are explained. Library personalization projects like MyLibrary in different university libraries in advanced countries are discussed. To explore the efficacy of library personalization systems in a developing country, the SAI personalization prototype developed in the Central Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur is described in detail.

The aim of this paper is to raise awareness in the IFLA community regarding the situation of blind people in Africa. There are nearly 7 million blind people in Africa; in most African countries, less than 10 percent of blind children receive schooling. This paper is based on information gathered from African delegates to the IFLA Libraries for the Blind Section Conference in Grahamstown, South Africa, in August 2007. No information was available about the Francophone or Lusophone countries of sub-Saharan Africa. The paper briefly outlines the situation of library services for the blind in South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia, and goes on to discuss issues of literacy and education, scarcity of services, standards and expectations, and the technological divide. The author concludes that what we do in the field of education, and what we do about education in each and every country, will change the future prospects of blind people.

Describes the history and development of the National Library of Pakistan, which was founded in 1949, merged with the Liquat Memorial Library in 1954 and separated again in 1968. The Library moved to its own building at Islamabad in 1988, and opened to the public in 1993. The Library is administered by the Department of Libraries of the Directorate of Libraries and Archives in the Ministry of Education. The prime function of the National Library of Pakistan is to receive, preserve, and maintain the literary heritage of the country under copyright provisions. The annual Pakistan National Bibliography is based on copyright receipts, mainly books. The National Library receives about 66 percent of serial publications and 50—55 percent of books published in the country. Electronic publications are not yet covered by the copyright laws. The Library assigns ISBNs to nearly half of all books published. Library membership and daily readership are very low and services to users very limited. The development of staff and services need immediate attention.