Annual Library Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting 2010
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- ItemA2K : a critical reflection on access to knowledge for the growth of a knowledge society(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Lor, Peter Johan; Britz, Johannes J.Paper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. In the hope of clarifying the role that libraries can play in serving humanity in a time of rapid innovation and change, this paper critically examines the notions of the "knowledge society" and "access to knowledge" to bring to the surface some assumptions underlying them. Whereas the term "knowledge economy" emphasizes the economic, strategic and competitive value of information and knowledge, the shift to "knowledge society" (or "knowledge societies") conceptualizes the phenomenon more holistically, as encompasssing dimensions such as the social and cultural dimensions. In analyzing the "knowledge society" and "access to knowledge" it is critical to be clear about what we understand by "knowledge". In this paper we borrow from constructivist learning theory and argue that it is helpful to see knowledge as a process rather than as an outcome or state. In discussions of access to knowledge much emphasis has been placed on the physical dimension of access (connectivity, bandwidth and the digital divide) and on the legal, economic and political dimensions that form the embattled terrain of the A2K movement (the A2K Treaty, the WIPO Development Agenda, etc.). However, if knowledge is conceptualized as a process, the concept of "access" has to be extended to the epistemological dimension which takes into account the construction of knowledge in the mind of the individual in interaction with the community. This has important implications for libraries. In spite of warnings that the role of libraries will be eroded through disintermediation, we argue for a deployment of reskilled and remotivated information intermediaries working in and around libraries to motivate, teach, interpret and facilitate "access" to knowledge.
- ItemThe access to information divide : breaking down barriers(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Savenije, BasPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. The “access to information divide” between the developed countries and the developing countries is growing wider. This growing divide, due to barriers to access to information, stifles the growth and development of developing countries. Opening access to information and breaking down those access barriers become an absolute necessity. The presentation analyses the economic impact of Open Access, and describes scenarios to improve the accessibility of knowledge and the role libraries could play in this.
- ItemAccess to knowledge and the economic crisis : a chance for libraries?(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Lux, ClaudiaPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. From the World Summit of the Information Society to the development of a knowledge economy, libraries are changing their image to take place in the heart of the information society. Access to knowledge through libraries is a key element of the incredible development of libraries all around the world and explains the role of libraries in a modern society. But does it help during a time of economic crisis, when state budgets worldwide are used to finance economic development instead of libraries? There are some examples that this situation gives a chance to libraries with their potential of access to knowledge.
- ItemCultural heritage and the knowledge economy : the role and value of sound archives and sound archiving in developing countries(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Watson, Elizabeth F.Paper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. At first glance the concepts of cultural heritage and the knowledge economy may appear to be divorced from each other. Indeed, the contrary is the case. According to UNESCO, cultural heritage “encompasses living expressions and the traditions that countless groups and communities worldwide have inherited from their ancestors and transmit to their descendants, in most cases orally.” The “in most cases orally” caveat signifies that whereas during colonization the peoples of the Caribbean and Africa were considered to be culture-less our societies and communities were in fact very rich and vibrant culturally. This created heritages that could successfully rival any from any other part of the world. However, the vast repertoire of heritage of the peoples of these areas does not often factor in general considerations of heritage. The perception that colonized communities were culture-less was nourished on the notion that because many of our cultural expressions and practices were not codified in printed books, music scores and other European means of communication and preservation – therefore there was no culture according to those measures. The knowledge economy is often narrowly defined by many as being that which is associated with/driven by ICT technologies. In reality, the knowledge economy is that which is based on the intellectual capital of a nation, community or individual. This more pragmatic concept of the knowledge economy would therefore, of necessity, include cultural creativity and expressions as two important factors of this mode of production, driver of growth, creator of wealth and provider of employment. According to Nurse “in economic terms, the cultural industries sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world economy”. Thus, in economic terms, culture and cultural heritage must be viewed as critical aspects of the knowledge economy, given that they depend on knowledge that is culturally-based as their mainstay and an intellectual capital whose means of production, distribution and preservation are often intangible. Music and song were two of the critical means of communicating culture and transmitting heritage from generation-to-generation within Africa and the Caribbean. And yet, the music and song of these spaces is often hard to find, is poorly documented and not well preserved/conserved in libraries throughout these regions. This presentation will examine the role and value of sound archives and sound archiving for both cultural heritage and the development and furtherance of the knowledge economy of African and Caribbean societies.
- ItemFrom “outreach” to new library model?(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Hart, GenevievePaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. South Africa is aligned with other emerging economies, like Brazil and India, whose voice is growing stronger and who might in future improve their position in the global knowledge economy. But surely the biggest hurdle must be the huge gap in South Africa between rich and poor – claimed by some to be the biggest in the world. More than 48% of South Africans live below the poverty line. Other speakers at the symposium will provide evidence of the role of information in the sustainable development required to narrow the poverty gap. The developed countries of the so-called “North” have systems for easy and wide access to information – by means of e-government, e-medicine, e-education, and, so on. However, less than 10% of South Africans have access to the Internet. This paper will examine the contribution, real and potential, of public libraries to sustainable development. The point of departure is the developmental model of library services proposed in the recent Library & Information Services (LIS) Transformation Charter, a vision document emanating from the National Council of Library and Information Services. The Charter suggests that UNESCO’s eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) might provide a framework for developmental library services. However, the Charter’s country-wide investigations, as well as the speaker’s own research since the late 1990s, have uncovered some of the daunting challenges ahead. The paper will report on two ongoing case studies, which might throw light on how the Charter’s vision could become a reality. One is of a group of dual use school community libraries in a remote rural region and the other focuses on two sister libraries in Cape Town. The argument is that what are often viewed as “outreach” programmes point the way to new models of library service which will be meaningful to far more than the present tiny minority of South African library users.
- ItemInterfacing indigenous knowledge with other knowledge systems in the knowledge economy : the South African case(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Seleti, YonahPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010.
- ItemKnowing is not enough : engaging in the knowledge economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Tise, Ellen R.Paper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. It is generally accepted that access to knowledge is a significant contributor to growth and development and that libraries drive access to information and knowledge. The rapid development of technology has contributed significantly to improving access and expediting growth and development. There are many examples which demonstrate how libraries do and can open new doors to possibilities through access to knowledge. It is clear that libraries have a critical role to play in the facilitation of access to knowledge and can help to closing the digital gap between developed and developing countries, privileged and underprivileged people, etc. Libraries have significant power to educate, inform, and stimulate the knowledge economy. So, how do and can libraries further enhance access to knowledge?
- ItemKnowledge creation, dissemination and implementation : the librarians role in todays knowledge economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Goldner, MattPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. The way knowledge is created, disseminated and acted upon continues to go through rapid change and evolution. This presentation will explore the role of libraries and librarians in this new knowledge economy. How is knowledge created in today’s information environment and what should libraries be asking themselves to be participants? What is the role of libraries in the dissemination of knowledge in a Web world? What workflows should libraries insinuate themselves into and create in their own services to be a vital part of the knowledge economy? The presentation does not aim to give all the answers but to evoke thought about change through looking at models for information discovery and use outside the library space and case studies of successful innovation in libraries.
- ItemLeveraging the power of aggregation to achieve an enhanced research environment(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Walker, JennyPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. With advances in scholarly communication, the academic research world is becoming more global and collaborative. E-Science, for example, has introduced scientific projects on a whole new scale in terms of collaborative effort, the dissemination of information, technical infrastructure, and the amount of data that is generated. In this global environment, scholars’ quest for information transcends borders; indeed, every research document, no matter where it was created, can be accessed globally and its impact can be felt widely. Information providers publish a growing quantity of quality materials and disseminate them to institutions around the world. Institutions, for their part, are striving to offer and facilitate the searching of as many relevant information resources as can feasibly be provided to their users, given local resource constraints. Researchers, in turn, are faced with the challenge of searching in multiple, discrete information repositories or overcoming the limitations of metasearch systems, which are currently deployed in a large number of libraries. As a result, new services are emerging that are intended to help users in their research tasks. An example of such services is vendors’ provision of large aggregations of scholarly materials from diverse information providers, made possible through recent advances in technologies and the increasing willingness of most publishers to broaden access to their collections. Quick to embrace these aggregations, institutions have begun integrating them tightly with local library collections for the benefit of their users. With this growing amount of accessible scholarly data, scholars are in need of new tools to help them home in on the information that they seek instead of wading through masses of materials. The recent introduction of faceted categorization assists in this task, helping users refine large result sets intuitively. Other useful tools for researchers are system-generated recommendations that are based on the search behavior of scholars who previously searched for similar materials (as on e-commerce sites that tell users that “customers who bought this item also bought…”). Because research today is conducted with no regard to geographic location or institutional affiliation, a recommender service of this kind becomes even more meaningful with the increase in the body of information upon which it relies. This presentation will illustrate the power of aggregation in providing tools for today’s researchers and will draw on library examples to do this.
- ItemNational initiatives : role of the National Library of South Africa(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Tsebe, John KgwalePaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Libraries and information services are significant in the provision of information for socio-economic development and sustainability. It is through these institutions that information is organised, preserved and disseminated to society. This starts from basic life skills information to entrepreneurial information. Through knowledge derived from these institutions, the world is capable of improving human lives and as a result strengthens economies of the world. The growth in the global production of knowledge has necessitated new inventions to facilitate universal availability and access. This paper discusses broadly the role of the National Library of South Africa as a key custodian of published documentary heritage. The focus is however, on the NLSA’s national initiatives contributing towards a knowledge-based economy. The NLSA’s role is expressed in terms of the value the library has in contributing to the development of a knowledge-based economy. As a national heritage institution, the NLSA is a central point facilitating access to the world’s information resources and contributes immensely to human development which ultimately drives the knowledge economy. The enabling political environment lays a solid foundation for the active participation within the knowledge economy.
- ItemOpen access publishing and supporting a knowledge economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Rosenberg, GarryPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Access to information and knowledge is a fundamental requirement for the development of a knowledge-based economy. From a publisher’s perspective the potential and pitfalls of open access publishing will be assessed in relation to providing a platform for a knowledge-based economy. The speaker will draw on experience gained as the Director of an open access Press in South Africa to address the issue.
- ItemOverview from a business perspective on the knowledge economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Heckroodt, SteynPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. In providing an overview, from a business perspective, on the knowledge economy, this paper attempts to elucidate knowledge as the centre of economic growth and development by comparing developed and developing countries, as a phenomenon, with one another. In doing so, it critically analysis the role played and contribution made by knowledge in each scenario. The paper focuses on the phenomenon of the lack of skills, which in effect translates into a lack of “know how” – knowledge and information. It compares the notion of planning to develop regions throughout the African continent, with the stark reality of how a lack of knowledge dampers economic growth and prosperity and leads to failure of these plans. The paper also, in this respect, touches on the effect that a lack of knowledge and information has on the confidence of the business community. The business community translates a lack of knowledge into a lack of ability to do, hence a reduction in local labour uptake in many African countries, and a subsequent increase in expatriate labour for purposes of mitigating business risk against investments made. Although not the key focus of this paper, it does reflect on the ongoing debate of whether knowledge should be viewed and applied as a product of, or as a tool for, economic development. In doing this, it positions knowledge relative to the traditional four key economical aspects, which contributes to economic growth, being capital, labour, land and entrepreneurship. It further more draws a comparison between global economic growth and the human population’s ability to feed this growth in order to progress from a position of crime to stability in the economic scale of balancing supply and demand.
- ItemPromoting African indigenous knowledge in the knowledge economy : exploring the role of higher education and libraries(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Moahi, Kgomotso H.Paper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Every community has its own knowledge system which enables it to survive, relate and make sense of its context and environment. As such, indigenous knowledge (IK) is not necessarily the preserve of the African continent and its people. However, the fact is that Africa has a lot to offer in terms of its IK and studies have shown that IK is used and applied by a majority of communities in the African setting in the areas of health, agriculture, arts, education, etc. The issue though is that much of IK is under threat of disappearing and is also not in any way considered as an integral part of the knowledge economy as we know it. Generally, Africa is said to only contribute roughly 1% of the knowledge within the knowledge economy. Indeed, Africa is known to be a knowledge consumer, rather than a knowledge generator. Whatever knowledge that comes out of African IK is more often than not knowledge that was taken out and appropriated elsewhere without acknowledgement or gain for the community from which it was taken or originated from. This paper will explore why Africa’s IK is not playing a more active and visible role in the knowledge economy (other than as exotic arts and crafts). The reasons are many, but the fact of the matter is that the very history of the African continent has a lot to do with it, from the days of being colonized, to the ways that academics and librarians perceive their role. The paper will also explore the roles that both academia and librarians must play if IK is to feature prominently in the knowledge economy.
- ItemThe public library in a knowledge-based economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Sturges, PaulPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Predictions that the printed book, and the library with it, will have no place in a twenty-first century knowledge-based economy are likely to be premature, if not actually completely inaccurate. The role of the public library must necessarily be different in many ways from what we have known, but some things will stay the same. Books seem likely to hold their place in the mix of formats and content for leisure reading and to support formal education. However, if the public library is content to limit its role to these forms of book-based activity it will miss real opportunities to be a socially committed enabler for the knowledge economy. With this in mind IFLA FAIFE has been promoting library involvement in positive provision of public Internet access, access to health information and support for transparency, through a programme of workshops for librarians. The public library needs to widen its welcome and make its premises even more of a focal point for communities, whilst at the same time reaching out more effectively to those who may not feel the library provides a suitable offering for them. Outreach should include dissemination of information to the community and popular technology that can achieve this, notably the cell phone, must be exploited. Finally, the public library has a responsibility to promote community-wide information literacy, so as to enable intelligent and effective use of digital as well as print resources.
- ItemThe role of libraries in knowledge management and knowledge economy(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Mchombu, KingoPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. The presentation will review the concepts of knowledge economy and knowledge management. The differences between data, information, knowledge and wisdom will be highlighted. The role of libraries and information centres as contributors to a knowledgebased economy in Africa will be explored, including the challenges and possible solutions faced by libraries in Africa.
- ItemUniversity investments in the library. Phase II : an international study(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2010) Eger, ArthurPaper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Figures from the Association of Research Libraries, show that while the amount of money libraries spend on resources has gone up over time, library users perceive a decrease in the value of the library overall as an information gateway. This perception, along with a combination of other factors, makes establishing insights in the Return Of Investment (ROI) for libraries more important than ever. To demonstrate that library collections contribute to the income generating activities of their parent institution, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign (UIUC) pilot study was established. When the data were put into the model, a 4.38-to-1 return ROI-ratio was calculated. In its second phase, this study was expanded to 8 institutions in 8 countries, including the University of Pretoria, to determine in what ways universities around the world are similar as well as different, and whether or not the original model could be replicated. This work was completed in the autumn of 2009. Methods used were interviews with key university leaders, collection of library budget figures and grants income, and a faculty survey. As expected, differences were uncovered, particularly in the areas of university mission, funding sources, mandates and library alignment with the institutional mission. Highest ROI-values come from institutions with a purely research mission or with a concentration in science and technology. Further results show that library collections help faculty in areas of productivity, efficiency, interdisciplinary explorations, and international collaborations; university leaders use the library to help recruit and retain faculty and students and that the library plays a role in promoting the university’s international reputation; and last-but-not-least, a majority of faculty view the library and its resources as valuable to research and integral to the grants process.