Research on Digital Resource Construction of University Library under Big Data

Purpose The use of the internet and World Wide Web to source information is now an emerging practice in developing countries and seems to be obscuring the use of printed resources in libraries. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of internet services on the use of prints in academic libraries in Nigeria.

The purpose of this study was to studyinvestigate degradation and preservation practices of information resources in academic libraries in Cross River State, Nigeria.It examined the nature and causes of degradation of information resources, strategies used in their control, and constraints limiting effective preservation.The study adopted survey design. The population for the studyconsisted of all information resources in the five academic libraries in the state. Purposivesampling technique was used in selecting 202 respondents who suppliedthe information used for the study. A structured questionnaire was used for data collection and the data were analyzed using t-test. The result of the analysis showed that all the four null hypotheses were rejected. This means that the nature of information resources degradation in academic libraries in Cross River State is significantly high. The study also revealed that barriers to effective preservation of information resources in academic libraries in Cross River State are significantly high. Based on the findings,the study recommended among others that academic libraries should recruit adequate and trained manpower in the libraries for effective preservation programmes and activities.Academic libraries should consider various methods that could be applied to curb degradation of information resources in their holding. And,adequate annual budget allocationshould be provided for preservation programmes in academic libraries in the state.

The paper studied preservation and availability of information resources in academic libraries in south-south geo-political region, Nigeria. The study was hinged on correlational research design. The population of the study was culled from three academic libraries in the South-South Geopolitical region of Nigeria, namely Donald Ekong Library, University of Port Harcourt, Kenneth Dike Library, University of Ibadan and Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Simple random sampling technique was used to sample 87 respondents. 84 (97%) respondents provided complete response. Data were collected, arranged and analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC). Findings show that preservation techniques of preventive preservation, passive preservation, active preservation and restorative preservation have significant relationship with the availability of library resources with active preservation having the highest significant relationship in academic libraries in south-south geopolitical zone in Nigeria. Consequently, it was recommended that libraries should engage in active preservation its collection and to ensure availability of library resources.

Research under the name “Librarians’ Attitudes regarding the Usage of Social Media (SM) for the Promotion of Services and Resources in Academic Libraries in Delta State” explores how librarians approach SM platforms to advertise library offerings. The research established three specific objectives which included investigating gender-based variances in SM attitudes among librarians together with examining how attitudes influence SM engagement and measuring overall SM utilization for resource advertisement purposes by librarians. The research adopted a correlational design because it examined variable relationships without changing any of the variables as described by Babbie (2016). The total research population encompassed 197 academic librarians working in libraries located in Delta State in Nigeria. The research selected all members of the population through a total enumeration sampling method. The researchers distributed the Librarians’ Attitude and Usage of SM to Promote Resources/services Questionnaire (LASMPRSQ) for data collection purposes. Each response allowed a selection from four predefined points on a rating scale. Expert review validated the instrument after research assistants conducted a timely recovery of questionnaires to maintain high response rates. The analysis based on descriptive statistics evaluated general attitudes (research question 3) and used PPMCC to establish relationships (research question 2) while independent sample t- tests detected gender variances (research question 1). The study results demonstrated that male and female librarians held similar attitudes concerning SM usage and this indicates that standard training efforts should be implemented. A positive relationship emerged between librarians’ SM interaction levels and their attitudes regarding using these platforms creating higher promotion effectiveness. Librarians expressed predominantly favorable attitudes concerning SM which prompted them to adopt it for expanding their library outreach initiatives. The study concludes that no gender variance in the attitudes of Delta State librarians concerning their keenness to usage social media platforms (SMPs) to advertise library resources/services. Optimizing SM engagement requires cultivating positive attitudes through technical assistance and professional development. Standardized SM training, frequent workshops to increase confidence, and ongoing IT support are some of the recommendations to improve librarians' usage of SM to advertise library services.

The proliferation of electronic resources (e-resources) arguably brings several benefits to libraries, including instant, from-anywhere access for patrons and automated workflows for technical services that are potentially more efficient. However, it also brings new challenges. One of these challenges is licensing the many e-resources offered through the contemporary library. Halaychik and Reagan address this challenge in Licensing Electronic Resources in Academic Libraries: A Practical Handbook. This resource primarily covers three license-related topics in five chapters. Chapters 1 and 3 discuss the basics of licensing and licensing law. Chapters 2 and 4 address the licensing process through the full life cycle of licenses. The final chapter discusses negotiating licenses.

<p>Electronic resources (ERs) in academic libraries have become a global phenomenon, and as libraries rely more on these resources managing them effectively becomes crucial. Electronic resource management (ERM) has consequently become a core function which many academic libraries around the globe appear to find challenging to implement effectively. Challenges of managing ERs are particularly pronounced in developing countries such as Ghana where the introduction of ICTs has typically been characterised by inadequate resources. Although there is an extensive literature on both the management and use of ERs, little research has studied how the two aspects could affect each other. Ineffective management of ERs could negatively affect their use; likewise, low usage of ERs could negatively impact on the management of these resources. Studying the concepts of management and usage of ERs together would result in better recommendations to inform practice and eliminate the challenges. In addition, the literature on the management of ERs is predominantly centred around libraries in the developed country context. Moreover, academic libraries in Ghana do not appear to be effective in managing ERs. There is a lack of understanding on how academic libraries in Ghana are managing ERs, and the ways in which this is affecting their usage and vice-versa. The study therefore fills the gaps by exploring the connection between the management and usage of ERs in academic libraries in a developing country context. Placed within a post-positivist worldview, this mixed-methods research employed a multiple case study approach, involving two public and two private universities in Ghana. Stakeholders included in the study were library staff, faculty, students, and consortium executives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with library staff and members of the governing council of the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH) concurrently with surveys of faculty and postgraduate students of the institutions investigated. These were supported by document analysis. To guide data collection and analysis, the Techniques for Electronic Resource Management (TERMS) framework (Emery & Stone, 2013), and an initial conceptual model of factors developed using constructs from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis & Davis 2003) and the literature underpinned the study. The interview findings revealed inadequate planning for ERs in the case institutions owing to operational challenges including inadequate policies for ERs, inadequate funding, and understaffing. Although efforts were being made to follow standard procedures some components of ER workflow were absent in both public and private case libraries, whereas other aspects of the workflow were responsibilities of parties external to the libraries. The document analysis showed that, the total average completeness of collection development policies of case libraries was 25% which indicated the lack of vital elements in these policies. The survey findings showed a generally low awareness and usage of ERs by faculty and students due to inadequate promotional efforts by the case libraries, inadequate infrastructure, and lack of relevant content. Consequently, respondents had a negative perception on the usefulness of the ERs which may have caused the observed low usage. The study also found three main factors as affecting the management and usage of ERs in academic libraries in Ghana which were governmental, organisational and individual factors. Governmental factors such as regulations on staffing, inadequate funding, and nationwide rationing of electricity supply were hindrances. At the organisational level, an enabler was collaboration with stakeholders, whereas obstacles included inadequate policies, staffing challenges, resource-related factors, lack of investment for sustainability, centralised management structure, low institutional commitment, poor communication, and low usage of ERs. Enabling individual factors consisted of religious beliefs, social influence, oral information, and interest in IT. Hindering individual factors comprised negative effects of oral information, resistance to change, fear of speaking against authority, reluctance to submit contents to institutional repository, negative perception on the ERs and lack of time. The findings also established various ways in which the management and usage of ERs affected each other. Low user input in the selection of ERs, access related challenges, inadequate publicity, training, and evaluation of ERs negatively affected the usage of ERs. However, case libraries that occasionally allowed users to schedule training sessions observed increased attendance to training with a corresponding increase in ER usage, which provided a basis for institutional budgetary support. On the other hand, failure of users to attend training programmes after signing up, low referral of students to the ERs by faculty and low usage of ERs of the library negatively affected ERM particularly in the areas of budgeting for ER subscription and sustainability. However, faculty and students facilitated the management of ERs of the library in terms of creating awareness of the ERs among their colleagues and peers, and also accessing the resources using mobile devices to supplement the library’s inadequate computers. The TERMS framework and initial conceptual model of factors were revised based on the findings. The study adds to the Library and Information Science research relevant to the understanding of the management and usage of ERs, factors affecting both concepts and how these two concepts are related. In addition, the study contributes to practice by recommending strategies for effective ERM to encourage increased usage of ERs. It is also hoped that academic libraries in other developing countries can draw lessons from the findings. The study also provides advanced countries with a deeper insight to guide them in providing support to developing countries. The findings also have implications for policy and decision makers in terms of prioritisation and allocation of resources for effective ERM and usage in academic libraries as contemporary issues are revealed. Keywords: Academic institutions, Academic libraries, Electronic resources, Electronic resources in Africa, Electronic resource management, Electronic resource usage</p>

PurposeThe advancement of technology has brought much uncertainty in the access and utilization of information resources in academic libraries. This research sought to determine the extent to which academic libraries in Kenya engage in innovation and use innovative strategies. In addition, this study aims to identify the specific innovation practices and strategies used by these libraries to ensure they effectively address users’ information needs and remain relevant within the Kenyan context.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopted a qualitative research design. Data was collected using face-to-face interviews that targeted key personnel in the academic library system, including the university librarian, the circulation librarian and the digital/systems librarian. In total, 21 respondents were interviewed in this study. Additional data was gathered by examining primary documents such as academic library policies, university websites and library brochures, among other sources. The study used purposive sampling techniques to select the population sample and the theoretical saturation to determine the sample size.FindingsThe study revealed a pressing need for change in the academic library landscape in Kenya. It established that the concept of innovation and innovation strategies is still new in academic libraries in Kenya, and libraries are still confined to traditional and routine duties. There is a lack of appropriate strategies for enhancing innovation practices/strategies in academic libraries. The paper, therefore, strongly recommends the reorganization of academic libraries in Kenya.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is the first to analyze innovation strategies and practices in academic libraries in Kenya. This study sheds light on the puzzles facing most academic libraries in Kenya regarding innovation and innovation strategies. It introduces the importance of academic libraries to embrace innovation as a strategy to avoid disruptive innovation.

With the arrival of the network and digital age, the library's holdings of resources has undergone a drastic change in which the proportion of digital resources occupy an instantly increase. The digital resources are easy to share and retrieve. This article discusses the need for integration of university library's digital resources, the principles and contents of integration. several integrated model of digital resources which are suitable for university libraries are proposed. Utilization of resource will be improved significantly by the one-stop inquiries of digital resources which is achieved by integration of resources.

PurposeTo obtain first‐hand data on the main challenges in preserving digital resources in libraries, archives and information centres in China.Design/methodology/approachThe data in this paper have been acquired by e‐mail questionnaire. The conclusions are based on feedback from 57 respondents, distributed in 14 provinces in China, who work in libraries, archives and information centres with rich digital collections and long‐term experience in preserving digital resources.FindingsThe authors consider that the long‐term preservation of digital resources in China faces two critical difficulties: firstly, the pressure on preserving digital resources has not been fully recognised and so the relevant training in the management and operation of digital preservation is absent; secondly, government departments attach little importance to this field and lack uniform guidelines. Therefore, the paper suggests that relevant international conferences or workshops should be held in China, and that a working group led by the National Development and Reform Commission of China should be set up to plan the construction, sharing and maintenance of Chinese digital resources.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited to Chinese administration systems. Although the data in this paper are authentic and representative, nevertheless it is a small sample of the numerous document collection organisations in the country.Practical implicationsThe data and analysis in this paper should greatly help international colleagues understand the status regarding the preservation of digital resources in China.Originality/valueThis research is the first of its kind undertaken in China and will provide a new vision for international peers and organisations involved in digital documentary heritage around the world.

In order to enrich and improve the collection of library digital information resources, this paper puts forward an optimization method of library digital resources based on semantic information retrieval. The method collects related information automatically from the Internet using semantic information retrieval, and selects the relevance value meeting the preset threshold of the network information to expand and update library digital resources. The experiment result shows that these methods gets a good expectant performance and dramatically optimize the library digital resources and improve the efficiency of resource retrieval and utilization.

PurposeBlockchain technology is a distributed and decentralized public digital ledger, which is employed to save dynamic transaction data and static records across several computers so that each record could not be modified retroactively without the collusion of the network and alteration of all subsequent blocks. Recently, it has become immensely popular in digital resource sharing in different research areas such as healthcare, smart cities, cryptocurrency and libraries. Since the current eLibrary systems are vulnerable to issues such as unauthorized access, plagiarism, etc., there is a lack of access control system that can efficiently address these issues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors designed a conceptual model for evaluating the users' intention in the use of blockchain-based digital libraries, which can facilitate the resource organization and provide additional security to interactive processes between users. To conduct our survey, the authors devised and shared two versions, English and Chinese, among 298 participants. Moreover, 7 PhD students participated in the pre-testing of the questioner design. The authors analyzed the demographic data using the Jamovi software and SmartPLS in order to generate the path modeling.FindingsThis study revealed that blockchain technology adaption in eLibraries is essential for enhancing the quality of services, infrastructure and resources for libraries. The study’s results show that optimism, informativeness, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, attitude and intention to use blockchain technology for accessing digital resources in libraries.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the adoption of blockchain technology in the digital library. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first empirical attempt to provide a new perspective of developing digital libraries based on security policies. This model shows the underpinning knowledge to manage digital resources, which can facilitate the design phases and enhance the management costs in eLibraries.

The best practices for publishing linked data have been adopted by an increasing number of libraries, leading to the creation of a global data space-the web of digital library data. However, in library linked data publishing, most of the existing researches mainly focus on structured and semi-structured digital library resources (for example catalogue data). Researches on publishing unstructured digital library resources (for example: contents of papers) are seldom. In order to overcome this problem, this paper proposes a fine-grained linked data creation method to publish the papers stored in digital libraries into linked data. At last, in order to evaluate this method, this paper conducted an experiment on the papers on “text segmentation”. From the experiment results we find that our fine-grained linked data creation method is feasible and will promote the opening access to digital libraries resources.

The study was carried out to examine users’ expectation of library services and resources in this COVID-19 pandemic era. The descriptive survey design was adopted for the study. The population of the study comprises library users of College of Education Library, Agbor and Federal University of Petroleum Resources Library, Effurun, Delta State. 210 respondents were selected each from the two academic libraries via purposive sampling technique making a total of 420 respondents used for the study. The instrument used for data collection was an online questionnaire designed through Survey Monkey. The study revealed that the respondents from both academic libraries indicated they expect services such as electronic access to services and resources, virtual reference services, accurate COVID-19 information to keep them updated, online user education programmes, selective dissemination of information via email, display of library services on social media, research help services online, and a spacious study hall to enable them observe the physical distancing while studying in the library. Also, users from both academic libraries indicated they expect to have access to electronic databases, e-zines and online newspapers, internet sources, e-journals, e-books and government publication in this COVID-19 pandemic era. On the channels of accessing services and resources in this COVID-19 pandemic period revealed that the respondents from both academic libraries agreed that they access library services and resources majorly through Email Service, while only respondents from College of Education, Agbor indicated that the also access their academic library services and resources through their library social media platforms. It can be observed also from the study that the respondents from both academic libraries were averagely satisfied with their academic library though they expect more incorporation of information communication technology in service delivery to boost their access in this COVID-19 pandemic era.

The Information Technology is changing the way faculty teachers and students learn. As the technology is changing rapidly, libraries are constantly required to evaluate new technologies and apply them to identify users to provide the best services. The paper provides a brief introduction to digital library resources. Kinds of Digital library resources, merits and issues are discussed. Keywords: ICT, Digital libraries, E-resources, Trends Cite this Article M.B. Kotur, M.N. Mulimani. Digital Library Resources for the Users: An Over View. Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences. 2019; 6(Special Issue 1): 111s–114s.

Assessment of theft and mutilation of information resources in selected academic libraries in Niger State