The ONCE provides its membership with a cost-free online library service, through which they can obtain books in both print and DAISY format. The present paper contains a brief description of the structure and growing popularity of this service.

This research investigated the management of audiovisual materials (AV) in the East and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA). The study employed questionnaires, interviews and observation to gather data from a population of fourteen national archives. The response rate from the questionnaires was 64.28%. The observations and interviews were carried out from a sample of three national archives and four national media organisations, as explained in Chapter Three. The study confirmed previous studies that attributed continued dissipation of AV materials to various factors such as climatic and environmental conditions, shortage or lack of skilled AV archivists and lack of a standard legal framework in the ESARBICA region. Most national archives did not cover audiovisual archives in their legislation. The study discovered that most of the national archives did not apply the following policies to AV materials: appraisal, acquisition, access, preservation, retention, digitisation and disposal. The study revealed that most of the national archives had a collaborative relationship with national media organisations, where the latter were required to deposit copies of AV materials in the national archives. However, some national archives relegated the responsibility of managing AV materials to media organisations. Poor infrastructure hindered effective management of AV materials. Most of the national archives did not have equipment to monitor environmental conditions. This could have contributed to the vinegar syndrome in some of the national archives. Poor structural placement of some of the national archives resulted in inadequate allocation of funds to the national archives. This invariably impacted on the way national archives preserved AV materials. The researcher discovered that there were very few training opportunities in AV archiving in the region. The few trained staff had intermediate skills obtained from conferences, seminars and workshops. Most importantly, the study revealed that most of the national archival institutions in the region were not applying the records life-cycle model (or any other model) to the management of AV materials. The major recommendations were a change in the structural placement of the national archives, where the directors of the archives would report to an influential ministry in the government service. Such a position would accord the national archives more recognition and thus more financial resources may be availed to the national archives to enable them manage the nation's heritage more effectively. An Integrated Records Management (IRM) model was recommended. The application of the IRM model requires a paradigm shift from the traditional image of archivists as mere custodians of archives to active participants in the decisions that affect the management of all formats of records, from the creators' organisations or departments before such records (including AV materials) are transferred to the national archives for long-term preservation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

This research investigated the management of audiovisual materials (AV) in the East and Southern Africa Regional Branch of the International Council on Archives (ESARBICA). The study employed questionnaires, interviews and observation to gather data from a population of fourteen national archives. The response rate from the questionnaires was 64.28%. The observations and interviews were carried out from a sample of three national archives and four national media organisations, as explained in Chapter Three. The study confirmed previous studies that attributed continued dissipation of AV materials to various factors such as climatic and environmental conditions, shortage or lack of skilled AV archivists and lack of a standard legal framework in the ESARBICA region. Most national archives did not cover audiovisual archives in their legislation. The study discovered that most of the national archives did not apply the following policies to AV materials: appraisal, acquisition, access, preservation, retention, digitisation and disposal. The study revealed that most of the national archives had a collaborative relationship with national media organisations, where the latter were required to deposit copies of AV materials in the national archives. However, some national archives relegated the responsibility of managing AV materials to media organisations. Poor infrastructure hindered effective management of AV materials. Most of the national archives did not have equipment to monitor environmental conditions. This could have contributed to the vinegar syndrome in some of the national archives. Poor structural placement of some of the national archives resulted in inadequate allocation of funds to the national archives. This invariably impacted on the way national archives preserved AV materials. The researcher discovered that there were very few training opportunities in AV archiving in the region. The few trained staff had intermediate skills obtained from conferences, seminars and workshops. Most importantly, the study revealed that most of the national archival institutions in the region were not applying the records life-cycle model (or any other model) to the management of AV materials. The major recommendations were a change in the structural placement of the national archives, where the directors of the archives would report to an influential ministry in the government service. Such a position would accord the national archives more recognition and thus more financial resources may be availed to the national archives to enable them manage the nation's heritage more effectively. An Integrated Records Management (IRM) model was recommended. The application of the IRM model requires a paradigm shift from the traditional image of archivists as mere custodians of archives to active participants in the decisions that affect the management of all formats of records, from the creators' organisations or departments before such records (including AV materials) are transferred to the national archives for long-term preservation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

This master's thesis presents analysis, design and implementation of an information system for supporting studying and practicing of selected methods described by Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) with focus on service design and service operation. In the form of a web application the thesis presents an uncommon approach to e-learning system development by extending the standard lecture part by game elements and interactive scenarios. Developed system allows creators to define services and tasks, such as incidents and problems caused by their operation, and evaluate reactions of responsible users. The application can be used by IT administrators or Service Desk managers to train new IT engineers or Service Desk operators.

The diploma thesis deals with library service quality in relation to the development of library budgets. In the introductory chapter, the teoretical knowledge of service quality is gathered and summarized. The next chapter is focused on the PLIS standard. Attention is paid to its history and current form. The next chapter present an integrated view of the librarianship in the Plzeň region, its financing and regional function. In the next chapter is a detailed analysis of three libraries focussed on their financing, performance indicators and filling PLIS standard. The next chapter looks ahead to autors subjective evaluation of quality of library services in analysed libraries.

Educational Digital Libraries (DLs) are complex information systems which are designed to support individuals' information needs and information seeking behavior. To have a broad impact on the communities in education and to serve for a long period, DLs need to structure and organize the resources in a way that facilitates the dissemination and the reuse of resources. Such a digital library should meet defined quality dimensions in the 5S (Societies, Scenarios, Spaces, Structures, Streams) framework - including completeness, consistency, efficiency, extensibility, and reliability - to ensure that a good quality DL is built. In this research, we addressed both external and internal quality aspects of DLs. For internal qualities, we focused on completeness and consistency of the collection, catalog, and repository. We developed an application pipeline to acquire user-generated computing-related resources from YouTube and SlideShare for an educational DL. We applied machine learning techniques to transfer what we learned from the ACM Digital Library dataset. We built classifiers to catalog resources according to the ACM Computing Classification System from the two new domains that were evaluated using Amazon Mechanical Turk. For external qualities, we focused on efficiency, scalability, and reliability in DL services. We proposed cloud-based designs and applications to ensure and improve these qualities in DL services using cloud computing. The experimental results show that our proposed methods are promising for enhancing and enriching an educational digital library. This work received support from ACM, as well as the National Science Foundation under Grant Numbers DUE-0836940, DUE-0937863, and DUE-0840719, and IMLS LG-71-16-0037-16. / Ph. D.

Text in English / Legislation plays an important role in the provision of public and national library services. However, in Zambia libraries that perform the functions of public and national libraries are operating without a legislative mandate. As a result, there is a fragmentation of library services as there is no single institution which performs all the functions of a national library service. Although several efforts were made before to enact national library service legislation, no Act of Parliament has been passed to date (2014). This study sought to provide empirical evidence to refine our insight of the benefits of having national library service legislation and the consequent implications of not having any legislation in the provision of library services. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaire administration to public library staff; interviews with senior government officials, and executive members of the ZLA and ZALICO; and document analysis on text from grey literature. The existence of the statistical significance of association between “Importance of library legislation” and “Provision of library services in Zambia” was measured and confirmed using Pearson chi-square χ2. Public library facilities, services and collections in Zambia were found to be below par, and it was concluded that this was due to lack of library legislation. The study recommends that appropriate legislation that puts together the functions of public and national libraries under one institution be enacted in Zambia as soon as possible. It is also recommended that further research be undertaken to investigate the current status of library facilities, services and collections in selected neighbouring countries where library legislation has been passed. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

Text in English / Legislation plays an important role in the provision of public and national library services. However, in Zambia libraries that perform the functions of public and national libraries are operating without a legislative mandate. As a result, there is a fragmentation of library services as there is no single institution which performs all the functions of a national library service. Although several efforts were made before to enact national library service legislation, no Act of Parliament has been passed to date (2014). This study sought to provide empirical evidence to refine our insight of the benefits of having national library service legislation and the consequent implications of not having any legislation in the provision of library services. Quantitative data was collected through questionnaire administration to public library staff; interviews with senior government officials, and executive members of the ZLA and ZALICO; and document analysis on text from grey literature. The existence of the statistical significance of association between “Importance of library legislation” and “Provision of library services in Zambia” was measured and confirmed using Pearson chi-square χ2. Public library facilities, services and collections in Zambia were found to be below par, and it was concluded that this was due to lack of library legislation. The study recommends that appropriate legislation that puts together the functions of public and national libraries under one institution be enacted in Zambia as soon as possible. It is also recommended that further research be undertaken to investigate the current status of library facilities, services and collections in selected neighbouring countries where library legislation has been passed. / Information Science / M.A. (Information Science)

Magistro darbo objektas – viešosios bibliotekos vaidmuo bendruomenėse. Darbo tikslas – apibrėžti ir įvertinti viešosios bibliotekos, kaip sociokultūrinio objekto, vaidmenį bendruomenėje. Darbo uždaviniai: išanalizuoti svarbiausius bendruomenės gyvavimo aspektus ir bruožus, teoriniu požiūriu išnagrinėti viešosios bibliotekos paskirtį ir kaitą, išsiaiškinti Marijampolės savivaldybės viešosios bibliotekos filialų vaidmenį mažose bendruomenėse. Atlikus literatūros analizę ir atvejo tyrimą, kuriuose informacijai ir duomenims gauti naudotasi bibliotekos nepublikuotų ataskaitų, statistinių duomenų analizės bei anketinės apklausos metodais, prieita prie išvados, kad viešoji biblioteka užima reikšmingą vietą socialinėje bendruomenės sistemoje; pastebėta bendruomenės, kaip socialinės sistemos, funkcionavimo priklausomybė nuo sociokultūrinės aplinkos bei švietimo ir kultūros paslaugų infrastruktūros išvystymo. Analizuojant socialinę bendruomenės sistemą, jos vystymosi bei struktūros pokyčius bei viešosios bibliotekos, kaip socialinės institucijos transformacijos požymius, atkreiptas dėmesys į viešosios bibliotekos galimybes vietos bendruomenėje jos sociokultūrinei, informacinei bei edukacinei situacijai gerinti ir viešosios bibliotekos pokyčių, lemiamų bendruomenės poreikių, perspektyvas. Išanalizavus bendruomenės teritorinius bei socialinius aspektus, prieita prie išvados, kad individo socializacija ir integracija į pilietinę visuomenę vyksta gyvenamosios vietovės pagrindu... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The subject-matter of the master’s thesis is the role of the public library in the community. The aim of the work is to define and evaluate the role of the public library as a socio-cultural object in the community. The goals of the research study are as follows: to establish cultural and information needs of the community, to review the mission and evolution of the public library, to estimate the need of the public library services and to define their structure, and to survey and evaluate the role of the branches of the Marijampolė municipality public library in small communities. Having used the theoretical methods of induction and comparison of the scientific literature and the empirical scientific research based on the method of analyzing data from statistics and the data acquired from the questionnaires, a conclusion was made that the public library plays a significant role in the social system of the community. Having applied the method of generalizing abstraction, there was observed a dependence of the functioning of the community as a social system on the development of the infra-structure of the socio-cultural environment and that of the educational and cultural services. Having analyzed territorial and social aspects, a conclusion was made that socialization and integration of the individual into the civil society takes place on the territorial basis in the set social environment through purposeful community and socio-cultural education. It was also noted that in... [to full text]

The dissertation is devoted to the analysis of the environment and the future prospects of special libraries. Knowledge has been achieved by direct observation, conceptual modeling and content analysis of scientific documents. Universum of special library can be expressed as an entity- relational model. Document services, which are based on the theoretical framework of information management, are proving to be the most important service in special libraries. Management of special libraries is based on knowledge of the information needs of the user community and the methodology of library processes. Library services are interconnected and the system can be expressed in the form of mind maps. Processes and services of special libraries can provide data for information-science research.