Bibliotheca Alexandrina—Reviving a legacy of the past for a brighter common future

After briefly recalling the creation, organization, role and destruction of the Ancient Library of Alexandria, this article describes the scope and objectives of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina and its functions and organization in six departments. It explains the symbolic and aesthetic values of the winning design for the new library, the budget required for its creation, and the international support so far obtained. It summarizes the steps undertaken by Egypt, UNESCO and UNDP and briefly explains the future strategy for proceeding with the implementation of the project. It concludes by high-lighting the meaning of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina for Egypt, UNESCO and the International Community.     

Planning for the future?

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Policy and Partnerships for the Development of the Infoculture — Information at the Centre of a New Form of Solidarity

The development of digital technologies for the production, processing, dissemination and use of information is leading to the emergence of a new society based on a far reaching transformation in the relationship between people and institutions and on a radical change in many professional, economic, educational or cultural practices. The crucial question facing us today is whether our traditional societies are ready for such a shift in ways of thinking, communicating and acting. Are people sufficiently aware and adequately equipped to become citizens of this new information society? Are they prepared to be active, efficient and responsible participants in the new communities living on information exchange? Are we really ready to be part of a new culture based on a swifter and broader flow of information, ideas and knowledge? The development of that special culture, or infoculture, depends first and foremost on education, both general and vocational, and on initial and continuing training as well as on raising awareness among the public at large. Achieving a real infoculture calls for full-scale mobilization of all those who in their various ways are involved in the information society. Partnerships must be encouraged; national, regional or world projects must be given support; there is more than ever a need for a new form of solidarity to develop the infoculture.     

Editorial H-score as a metric of inner authenticity for national scientific journals—Pilot study for the field of pedagogy

There is evidence that national scientific journals are important for local communities despite their limited audience due to national languages and topics, like in pedagogy. However, it is not easy to assess the level of scientific rigour of local journals, as most do not have available scientometric data and are often published in minority languages. We hypothesize that a possible manifestation of a latent trait of inner authenticity of the scientific journal (meaning the journal is accepted by a community interested in developing the field which conducts internationally accepted research) could be H-index of the editorial board members. To test this approach, we evaluated H-index and gender of editorial board members (n = 490) from 17 Czech and Slovak national science-oriented scientific pedagogical journals which were not indexed or indexed in Erih+ or Scopus, and compared this with the five lowest-rated journals from the same field indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database. The H-index of editorial board members was somewhat higher in indexed journals with those from WoS showing higher scores, and the number of board members with no discernable H-index was far greater in non-indexed journals. Editorial boards of journals indexed in WoS were mostly male, compared to a dominance of women on boards of non-indexed journals. Acknowledging the limited sample, it appears that the H-index of editorial board members may be a way to value national scientific journals.     

Computer assisted learning—Practical objectives for future projects

Advances in micro-computers have created a new low-cost medium for distributed intelligence which provides a new hardware environment for CAL. It is now necessary to establish practical objectives for future CAL projects that would take into account the experience gained using CAL on earlier computer systems.     

Introduction: memory ethics��or the presence of the past in the present

This special issue of Archival Science examines the orientations, paradoxes, and tensions evident in the ethical struggles over the construction of the past and the degree to which archival agency can intercede in supporting a broadly drawn historical justice that also engages contemporary issues. Inspired and framed by a May 2008 conference hosted by School of Information and Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, the following essays offer case study examinations of how archival institutions and archivists contribute to societal memory systems through both their action and inaction, especially in regard to societal struggles over the meanings to be derived from the past.     

For a few dollars more: a future for scholarly books in Australia?

Australia's universities have seen significant growth in government research funding, with more to come, but this is not reflected in the output of research monograph publications; structural barriers stand between creation and dissemination of research. This is especially a problem for those working on Australian topics. The author has proposed a new model for funding scholarly publishing in Australia, which may well be applicable to other countries: just a small proportion of the funds committed by the Australian government to research inputs could ensure the publication of research outputs. This would deliver major gains in impact and productivity for government, universities, and individual academics alike.     

Breaching ethics for the sake of a “good” interview

This essay presents a series of short stories – autoethnographic tales from the field – about my experiences as a female (qualitative) researcher studying humor in male-dominated workplaces in 2014. I conducted over thirty ethnographic interviews with professional hair stylists and barbers throughout Phoenix, Arizona and Sacramento, California to better understand the discursive processes by which humor is gendered in non-corporate organizations. While in the field, however, I encountered more than I bargained for. The study participants (male and female) openly engaged in humorous dialogue including: verbal critiques of my body/sexuality, sexual harassment, suggestive innuendos, physical touch, and outright heterosexist humor. After reflecting on my experiences, I realized how institutional resources (e.g. Institutional Review Board) and protocols function to protect research participants yet do little to ensure the safety, security, and/or comfort of researchers.     

Persistent Identification for the Permanent Referencing of Digital Resources—The Activities of the EPICUR Project

ABSTRACT

Long-term referencing of online publications (for example, research papers embedded in a distributed heterogeneous information environment) presents several challenges. In order to address the challenges, two main things must be taken into account:

? A method for location-independent referencing by means of Persistent Identifiers (PIs)

? The long-term access to digital objects by means of (long-term) preservation

These imply that long-term referencing is not only an issue of a technical implementation of PIs, but also a matter of a political and organizational infrastructure.

These starting points underlie the PI-related activities at Die Deutsche Bibliothek (the German National Library) that are occurring in the framework of the EPICUR (Enhancement of Persistent Identifier Services-Comprehensive Method for Unequivocal Resource Identification) project.

This article discusses cooperative URN management at Die Deutsche Bibliothek within the EPICUR project. It presents results concerning the framework of URN assignment and administration, resolving services, and standardization within bibliographic information services.     

Development and application of a method for measuring the effectiveness of instruction in a basic speech course∗

This essay develops a phenomenological perspective of silence and illustrates its principles through a study of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Traditionally viewed as the absence of speech, silence is discussed as a potential human response to all forms of symbolic expression. Encounters experienced as silent present a challenge; they also provide the opportunity for authentic self‐discovery, which has implications for the relationship of the individual to others and to the state. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is discussed as an architectural instance of object‐silence. The meanings individuals find at the Memorial can be distinguished in terms of various public signs of understanding that characterize their interplay with the Memorial.     

Developing a Cancer-Focused Library Survey — Assessing the Current Environment and Planning for the Future

The primary goal of this project is to understand how each National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center library, and all libraries that support cancer research, function within their institutions. Through an in-depth survey focused on three major areas (staff, content and tools procurement, and user services), the research team hopes to determine how a cancer-centric library can be successful in supporting quality patient care, research excellence, and education. Additionally, the survey will examine the necessary minimum staffing levels for librarians and information professionals based on organizational size and degree of research focus. The survey will seek out the new skills librarians will need to deliver optimal services. The survey will also explore how content libraries purchase reflects and maps to constituents’ current medical and research activities. Libraries within a research intense environment have a responsibility to align with researchers and health care professionals to provide resources and services that support their workflows. Cancer libraries need to be attuned to their institutions’ missions, whether that includes excellent patient care, research endeavors, or cutting-edge educational programs. The information gathered from the survey will provide data for this research team to define the vision and standards of excellence for a cancer specialized research library.     

Covid – 19 pandemic and the future of Nigeria's university system: The quest for libraries' relevance

The paper examined the role of academic libraries in the evolving paradigm shift in teaching methodologies in Nigerian universities as a result of the outbreak of Covid-19. It x-rayed the current global trends in online education and significant roles libraries can play. Responsive library website design and adoption, adoption of blended librarianship model and use of social networks among others were identified as best practices to adopt in order to secure a place for libraries in Nigeria in the face of the eminent change in teaching methodologies post Covid-19. Furthermore, the study considered perceived challenges libraries may be confronted with in deploying relevant ICT infrastructures geared towards transitioning from traditional to online provision of services in support of teaching and learning. The paper recommended dynamism in library service delivery, urgency in the acquisition of new skill sets by academic librarians in Nigeria, while also calling on relevant stakeholders to provide adequate funding for libraries in order to be able to deploy relevant ICT infrastructures needed to adequately support teaching and learning in a virtual environment.