MPM / Oliver Tambo Institute of Governance and Policy Studies

Information Science / M. A. (Information Science)

The purpose of this study was to examine the historical development of Islamic libraries internationally and in South Africa and to examine the Islamic Library in Gatesville as a case study to understand in which way communities have sought to provide a solution for adequate library facilities for the specific needs of the Muslim community in the greater Cape Town area.

<p>This research project is a comparative study of management of two university libraries (University of the Western Cape and Dhaka University) from two different countries (South Africa and Bangladesh). This research was to identify and document how the functions of management are applied in both libraries.</p> <p><br /> A sample of the two university libraries&rsquo / users, librarians, and library staff were taken. The questionnaire, interview, observation and documentary sources of information were major methods of data collection. In order to provide a brief presentation on how the management functions were applied at other university libraries, a description of how some university libraries in the U.K, U.S.A, Eastern countries and Africa are given. The findings of the study revealed that the problem of inadequate financial support is true for both University libraries, and is the major cause amongst other weaknesses. Both libraries still use a large percentage of non-professional staff and the library service is in desperate need of personnel. However, the observed difference between DUL and UWCL in this comparative study was significant. Services offered in both libraries differ in some cases such as: Consortia, Inter library loans, OPAC, CD-search, e-journals and multimedia. These areas still need to be developed at DUL. UWC have the most of these facilities. Although it needs to improve on aspects such as e-journals, access to data-bases and open access on the Internet.</p>

<p>Information and communication technology (ICT) is foreign to a number of public libraries and those libraries that have a technology infrastructure in place, suffer from an under-utilization of the technology, owing to a shortage of skills that are critical to boost the library into the global information society. It is important that staff in public libraries have the necessary skills and positive attitude to use the technology offered to them. The main objective of this study was to determine the use of ICT's in Nyanga, Brown's Farm and Crossroads public libraries and make recommendations towards effective use of ICT in the above-mentioned public libraries.</p>

D. Litt. et Phil. / South African academic information services realise that they can no longer rely on their own information resources to provide in the growing information needs of their users, especially after access to the Internet and the vast number of information sources of the World-Wide Web have become available. Access is needed to digital full-text, sound, graphics, images, multimedia and hypermedia documents in national and international organisations. Cooperative resource sharing between the different organisations proved to be the only solution to the growing information problem. Academic information services are required to assist in creating digital study material, and in the transfer of digital text, multimedia and hypermedia for research, instruction and distance education. By implication, the development of an information technology infrastructure within the organisation, as well as nationally and internationally, has become essential. The purpose of this research was to examine what the current circumstances and futuristic information technology developments and events are under which South African academic information services have to develop an information technology infrastructure for resource sharing. To gather information on the current circumstances, a survey was done on initiatives taken by South African academic information services towards the development of an information technology infrastructure for resource sharing. Questionnaires were mailed to 37 South African academic information services, to which 34 responded. The Delphi interviewing technique was used to scrutinise future information technology developments and events that may influence the planning and development of an information technology infrastructure. A panel of 10 experts was selected to take part in the interviews. Scenario building was applied to show how planning and decisions by management could influence the outcome of an academic information service. The focal issue was the timely development of a digital academic information service within an information technology infrastructure. General conclusions of the study are: • Current organisational and national information and telecommunications network infrastructures cannot cope with the transfer of information sources, such as sound, image and digital full-text documents. Insufficient bandwidth for the effective transfer of information is a major problem. A flexible infrastructure which conforms to set standards, can adapt to new information technology developments and supports the business and information technology strategies of the host organisation, must be developed for resource sharing. The main recommendations of the research are: Access should be provided to all digital resources of national and international organisations irrespective of time or location. Electronic text centres can be employed to provide continuous access to digital resources. Development of an infrastructure for resource sharing should be a collaborative effort between the organisations towards acquiring and employing the essential and most suitable information technology. All academic information services should participate in a regional or national resource sharing cooperative. The value of cooperation and consortium membership lies in the availability of information sources in all formats to all users of the member organisations. Standards should be improved and maintained to ensure communication, retrieval and transfer of information sources. Information services should plan for larger bandwidth to cooperate within an international information infrastructure.

M.A. (Information Science) / Management is usually concerned with the motivation and job satisfaction of employees. When workers are adequately motivated and they derive sufficient satisfaction in their job, it is assumed that their productivity is likely to be enhanced. However, even without relating it to productivity, workers' job satisfaction is considered important enough to deserve serious attention from managers and researchers in various disciplines. This study intends to examine the motivation and job satisfaction of information specialists in public libraries in South Africa. The study of motivation is a candid search for answers to perplexing questions that revolve around human nature. There is no doubting the fact that the problem of motivating other people is surely as old as human history. The common adage that "one can lead a horse to water but cannot force it to drink" was, and remains, the most important aspect of the motivation problem. Because human behaviour is complex, there are numerous theories of motivation. Eight of the most well known theories are discussed: Maslow, Herzberg, MacGregor, McClelland, Atkinson, Hackman and Oldham, Vroom and Porter and Lawler. Attention is paid to the possible implications of the theories for library management. It seems though that, whatever theory of motivation one consults, some fertile sense and some constraining theory turns up. The focus should therefore rather be on the development and integration of existing theories to formulating new ones. A review of literature revealed that there is a relationship between motivation and job satisfaction. Thesurvey instrument was a forty-six-item questionnaire developed specifically for this study by the researcher. The first section of the questionnaire elicited background information, such as age, marital status, qualification, tenure, salary and benefits. The second section of the questionnaire gathered information about the participation and perceived participation of the responding information specialist in the library situation.

M.A. (Information Science) / This research investigated the problem of multiple bibliographic interfaces that end-users face when conducting searches. A situation analysis was conducted which provided a profile of the situation under investigation. Based on the results of the analysis an end-user training programme for adoption by subject reference librarians at the University of the North Library with regard to bibliographic CD-ROM databases is formulated. This programme is proposed to address problems that end-users experience with these databases and in the process to improve their search abilities. Finally, areas for further investigation with regard to the situation, learner and learning situation are also suggested.

M.Inf. / The research study investigates the importance of information as a resource in academic institutions. The study serves to answer questions appertaining to management of information as a resource, such as, what is information resource management? How should information as a resource be managed in academic institutions? How should information be audited? Which stages should be followed in developing information policy? The interrelationships of information as a resource, information auditing and information policy as managerial components are discussed. Information audit and information policy become the major components of management of information as a resource. Information in various enterprises is becoming increasingly recognized as a resource. The study purports to indicate that information as a resource can be managed like other traditional resources such as labour, entrepreneurship, capital and natural resources to use it for competitive advantage. The aims of information audit and information policy are to serve as fundamental development of an information managerial strategy. The information audit enables the information service to pursue the most significant strategic marketing of its information resources. The necessary breadth of information auditing techniques, such as Burk and Horton's "Infomap" are required to fulfill a wide variety of objectives. They analyze the effective methodology for auditing information resource controls and help to identify relevant and accurate information resources for the purpose of learning, teaching and research. The purpose of developing information policy is prompted by the objective of which the information enterprise would successfully like to achieve. It is more appropriate to develop a set of information policies, each of which is concerned with a specific area of operation or focussed on other topics of interest and informational value within the academic institution. At the ultimate end the University of the North is singled out as a model for the development of information policy.

M. Tech. Interior Design / The focus of this study was a small university library situated on the TUT Arts Campus in Pretoria. Since the library opened its doors nearly 20 years ago, little attention was paid to the interior and no alterations were implemented since then. Staff and students did not perceive the library as a positive asset due to the state of disrepair of its interior. As indicated by previous studies, redesigning a library interior has the potential to improve the learning environment it offers. It was hypothesised that the condition of the TUT Arts Campus library interior may have been a deterring factor causing students' reluctance to use it and that the redesign of the library's interior would have the potential to solve this real-life problem. This study involved itself with the process of redesigning the interior of the TUT Arts Campus library and the process of achieving the final design. The study dealt with answering the research question: How may one go about to redesign the interior of the TUT Arts Campus library, with the use of focus groups involving iterative cycles and user-based input, to increase student usage?