This article establishes the level of skills and experience in preservation and conservation management using a case study methodological approach conducted in the 3 university libraries at the University of Zambia. The findings revealed that 20 (57%) of the library staff had not received formal training in preservation and conservation of library…

In recent years public libraries have experimented with user-generated or community-contributed content through the interactive tools of Web 2.0. For some commentators this not just establishes a new relationship between libraries and their publics, but signals the end of information hegemony and an "expert paradigm". Such claims need to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the state of development of Polish digital libraries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper describes the establishment of the first digital library in Poland, the creation of the Wielkopolska Digital Library and other regional digital libraries. The organisational and technological solutions used…

This article presents the narrative accounts of the beginnings of digital library programs in five European national libraries: Biblioteca nacional de Portugal, Bibliotheque nationale de France, Die Deutsche Bibliothek, the National Library of Scotland, and the British Library. Based on interviews with policy makers and developers of digital…

This study used archival data to explore the impact of the rural village library and other factors on the academic achievement of secondary school students in the Ugandan village of Kitengesa, and related these findings to rural library development currently taking place in Uganda and other African countries such as Burkina Faso and Ghana. A…

There have been substantial changes in the labour market over the past few years and survey results indicate 60% of staff will leave public library service over the next decade. While this creates opportunities for library staff, limited training budgets and a focus on compliance and specific library skills training have led to a gap in the formal…

Four librarians from Irish university libraries completed the U.K. Future Leaders Programme (FLP) in 2010. In this article they recount their experience and assess the effect of the programme on their professional practice and the value for their institutions. The programme is explored in the context of the Irish higher education environment,…

"Research Library Issues" ("RLI") focuses on current and emerging topics that are strategically important to research libraries. The articles explore issues, share information, pose critical questions, and provide examples. This special issue presents a report released by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Joint Task…

Since 2005 the State Library of New South Wales has provided staff with an opportunity to research aspects of the Library's services and collections through the State Librarian's Staff Fellowship Program. In January 2008, Maggie Patton commenced a project to rediscover and document the development of the rare printed collections at the State…

Before 1994 education in South Africa was divided along racial lines. There were separate departments of education for whites, coloureds (people of mixed decent), Indians (people of East Indian decent), and blacks (black Africans). Education for white children was much better funded than any of the others. The quality of the education that white…

Libraries have limited budgets and Collection Development Librarians can be faced with difficult decisions in the spending of their allocated funds. This paper discusses how the Tasmanian Polytechnic Launceston Campus Library discovered a gap in their collection and addressed this situation without funding. The Library wished to purchase fiction…

The "New South Wales Learning 2.0" training program is being made available to the entire NSW public library work force of over 2300 people in 2008-2009. This paper is a snapshot of the impact of the course as at September 2008, five months after it was launched. It explores how the training impacted on the staff skill levels, knowledge,…

In 2005, the Library at UNSW began a comprehensive restructuring process that fundamentally changed the provision of services to its academic community. A primary aim of this process was to increase flexibility of service development and delivery and so to improve research support. The motivation for reformed services arose from considerations…

The Library of Birmingham (LoB) is a 193 million British pounds project designed to provide a new space for lifelong learning and knowledge growth, a physical and virtual portal for Birmingham's citizens to the wider world. In cooperation with a range of private, public, and third-sector bodies, as well as individual citizens, the library, due to…

The nature of learning in a public library is relevant to what place e-learning and social networking technologies might have there. That a public library aims to provide something for everyone is also important. Alice Springs Public Library (ASPL) is a place of learning; it is also a crowded and composite space. The use ASPL could make of the…