Volume 11, Issue 1

The study investigates the information needs of the informal economic sector in Uganda. The uses to which the sector puts the information it acquires are explored as well as the role and impact of information in the growth and development of the sector. A survey research technique was used in the pilot study, with the data collected largely through focus group discussions, interviewing of key informants and organizations, and observation through voice recording and photography. Preliminary results show a variety of information needs, uses, effects, channels, languages, sources, and constraints. This study has been extremely valuable for testing research instruments. The study’s results indicate a need to simplify the packaging of information and to improvise on its delivery.

The African public library systems have failed to respond to the needs of their constituency. The problems faced by these systems are multi-faceted but can be divided into five broad categories: the introduction of an anachronistic and inappropriate colonial model, inadequate training of library staff, deficiencies in determining specific needs through analysis, lack of cooperation among agencies involved in library-related work, and the absence of sustained efforts to achieve an alternative framework. In this literature survey, these problems will be discussed and recommendations made for addressing some of the issues. A table will also be provided detailing the ideal African public library system.

When navigating the seas of collection development, you sometimes have to cover your ears to the sirens’ cries from the shore, row straight ahead, and let nothing distract you. It is very much like that now, if you find yourself listening to the shore pleas of some of the profession’s most distinguished voices. The sirens, such as Ray English of Oberlin College and Sue Martin of Georgetown University, are urging librarians to cancel their subscription to one of the library profession’s flagship journals, The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The journal has new owners, Elsevier Publishers, and the sirens implore libraries to drop their subscription and add in its place a soon-to-be-published alternative, Portal: Libraries and the Academy. Librarians, they argue, should set an example to their academic colleagues by being willing to cancel overpriced Elsevier titles in their own academic field of librarianship.