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This study aims to determine the requirements and find out the challenges for the use of digital library services for rural areas of Capricorn District Municipality, Limpopo province. The research questions of the study are: What are the requirements for the use of digital library services in rural areas of Capricorn District Municipality? What are the challenges of accessing digital library services in rural areas?

Data was analysed thematically and deductively in this study, as researcher required to accomplish the purpose of the study through consistent structure (Zalaghi and Khazaei, 2016). In deductive analysis, the researcher starts with a set of categories, which are then used to categorize and organize data (Bertram and Christiansen, 2020). The researcher got familiar with data from the interviewing process and when transcribing data from audio tape. The transcription process was done for the coding purposes. Coding allows the researcher to simplify and focus on specific characteristics of data.

The study findings advocate for the establishment of digital libraries in rural areas. The library authorities are challenged to adapt digital ways of information provision. Since librarians have been providing digital content in libraries for use on users’ laptops and other gadgets, this implies that the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture has been lagging behind in finding innovative ways to provide information, especially in rural areas. To successfully keep libraries as sources of information, transformative measures have to be taken, and where possible, revisit the policies and keep drifting with the societal changes. The library authorities have to delve into new ways of providing LIS to the communities. Unquestionably, information and communication technologies have penetrated our societies and became a way of life. In addition, there are unlimited benefits which can be derived from digital technologies, especially given the lack of physical libraries in rural areas.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the academic research is original and has not been published anywhere before.

This study aims to show that digital literacy can serve as a tool for effecting social change and highlights the achievements of an academic library in digital content creation using the Wikipedia platform.

The study adopted qualitative research method, Interview and document analysis were used for data gathering. Data gathered were analysed using content (conceptual) analysis.

Findings showed that the library has created or edited digital content for various categories of women, such as women in academia, industry and politics. These entries have received more than eight million views over a period of two years, which shows that the entries are being utilised. However, the editing exercise had been confronted with challenges such as accessing reliable citations in terms of the notability and verifiability policy of Wikipedia amongst others.

Currently, people rely more on online resources for their research, leaving physical library resources unused. Even, more students start their research online using Wikipedia. Thus, libraries could create visibility for their physical material using regularly visited sites like Wikipedia and its sister projects such as Wikidata; otherwise, these physical materials will remain invisible to the people that needed them.

Contributing to Wikipedia by creating a new entry or editing an existing one can help students to deepen their knowledge about a subject; Wikipedia editing may serve as an avenue for improving information literacy skills. Drawing from the theory of cyberfeminism as used in the study, information and communications technology has the potential to empower women and transform gender relations.

To determine and compare approaches to the education and training of librarians for work in digital libraries. More precisely, to identify – in general terms, rather than specifically – the important competencies required by information professionals in creating and managing digital libraries, and in facilitating their use, and to assess how these competencies are treated in LIS education and training, and therefore how the capacities of the information professions are being developed.

Literature analysis of the skill sets required by librarians working with digital materials. Evaluation of formal education and of professional development programmes in the UK and in Slovenia, to assess how these needs are being met.

Both formal education and continuing development training are adapting to cover aspects of the digital library environment, both in the UK and in Slovenia. This is happening as part of the normal process of the redesign of degree programmes and of training courses. Digital library skills and knowledge – embodying conceptual, semantic, syntactic and technical aspects – are being included in existing courses, for the most part, rather than in entities labelled “digital library”. This approach has strengths and also weaknesses. While there is some agreement on core topics, there is much variation in how they are presented, and in the relative importance given to them.

Based on comparison of education and training programmes in two countries, the UK and Slovenia.

Recommendations for curricula are made.

Provides an insight into education and training needs in a developing and important area.

This paper aims to propose an integrating model for creating virtual libraries in Iranian universities of medical sciences.

This study was conducted with an analytic survey method. The statistical population comprised 66 Iranian universities of medical sciences, of which 59 libraries participated in the study. A researcher-made checklist was used for data collection. To ensure the accuracy of data, interviews and, in some cases, observations were also performed. Statistical estimates, including frequency, percentage, cumulative frequency and diagrams, were used for data analysis, and the system analysis method was used for modeling.

Results demonstrated that the library software programs of the studied universities of medical sciences do not have desirable interoperability capabilities. Only Azarsa program can exchange information with other systems. In terms of metadata and its standards, the studied libraries use programs with various standards, with MARC and Dublin Core standards being the most frequently used ones in the studied sample.

The model proposed here for integration is a hybrid model which can translate metadata standards and use the Z39.50 and OEI protocol to transfer data.

This paper aims to evaluate the user satisfaction criterion for qualitative assessment of timeliness and efficacy of digital libraries based on the multivariate fuzzy logic technique.

In this paper, the performance of digital library services using fuzzy logic modeling are evaluated. This model based on fuzzy logic control is used to compute the dynamic response of users by using multiple independent variables. These parameters with inherent uncertainties in practical scenarios are characterized by fuzzy linguistic information.

Several parameters determining the user satisfaction metric in the deployment of digital library exhibit implicit uncertainties which can be intelligently modeled by means of fuzzy control systems. Given the sample data set for the proposed fuzzy multi-attribute decision-making framework, the simulation results are used to compute various error performance measures in the estimation of the fuzzy output variables.

The size of the considered sample data set is considerably small. Scalable real-world data sets can be used to reinforce the statistical efficiency and accuracy of the proposed model. Moreover, other techniques such as evolutionary multi-objective optimization and the Markovian process can be implemented to explore the efficient correlation between different parameters influencing the users’ behavior and facilitate the general application of the proposed technique.

The paper applied a fuzzy design methodology in which several attributes related to the service of digital library and the affiliated online resource provisions are used to assess their synchronous impact on user convenience in accessing and manipulating the library information. End-users’ satisfaction is crucial for quality-based valuation of compliance with the time limitations and proficiency of digital libraries.

The purpose of this paper is an audit of information technology (IT) skills set of librarians in some Nigerian university libraries with the aim of examining their relevance and adequacy to the digital environment. Nigerian universities as knowledge creators and their libraries as gatekeepers of knowledge are rapidly witnessing the introduction of various IT. One of the challenges facing IT/digital library projects in Nigeria has been the readiness of the university libraries in terms of knowledge and skills to implement the digital and electronic library services.

This paper used the survey approach. The sampling technique for the selection of the universities was stratified and for the librarians (respondents), census. The sampling frame was the approved list of universities released by the National Universities Commission as of the time of this study. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences.

The findings of this paper revealed that many of the respondents do have knowledge and skills of email use and word processing tasks but lack knowledge of search engines and directories other than Google and Yahoo, respectively. Many of them do not know how to evaluate and catalogue e-resources; have no knowledge of subject gateways, specialised databases and some open-access library databases; have no knowledge of database management; are not skilled in Web design; and are equally not familiar with Web design applications.

The study recommends management support for IT skills training and/or continuous professional development to improve the librarians. Librarians are also challenged and encouraged to explore the range of training resources available over the Internet for self-development.

The purpose of this study is to present an overview of the two open source (OS) integrated library systems (ILS) – Koha and ABCD (ISIS family), to compare their “next‐generation library catalog” functionalities, and to give comparison of other important features available through ILS modules.

Two open source ILSs, Koha and ABCD, were compared in‐depth according to their functionalities and characteristics. A checklist was created for each module: acquisition, cataloging, serials, patron management and circulation, reports and statistics, and administration. For an online catalog module, a separate checklist with “new generation catalog” characteristics was created. The authors also defined an additional set of criteria which could influence the decision process and selection of appropriate ILS like funding, metadata schema, preferred ILS functionalities, provided support, and the role of the IT department, and computer and network infrastructure in the library.

Evaluation of ILSs reveals that Koha has more functionalities than ABCD, especially those connected with the “next generation library catalog”. If a library is using UNIMARC or MARC21 format for bibliographic description and has a good IT support, Koha is an open source ILS with a wide community which has to be considered for implementation. ABCD has great metasearch possibilities and is worth considering by libraries using other or no metadata schemas or without IT support.

The research was limited to two research libraries and their praxis and experiences. Further analysis can include other open source ILSs.

This study can help libraries preparing to migrate to open source ILS to choose an appropriate one.

This is the first comprehensive study conducted on Koha and ABCD comparing all modules in detail.

The purpose of this paper is to present a technical perspective when implementing the Slovenian open access infrastructure that consists of four institutional repositories (IRs) and a national portal (NP) that aggregates content from the repositories in order to provide a common search engine, recommendations of similar documents, and similar text detection.

During the project, the necessary legal background and processes for mandatory submissions of final study works, research publications and research data were established, as well as processes for data exchange between the IRs and the NP, and processes for similar text detection.

The consortium consisted of four Slovenian universities that significantly differ in size, organisation, and workflows. It was anticipated that exactly the same legal background and software would be used for the four repositories. It turned out that complete unification was impossible due to the differences.

The national open access infrastructure will improve the visibility of Slovenian research organisations. It supports the compliance with the funders’ open access mandates. The established infrastructure enables the depositing and archiving of approximately 80 percent of the peer-reviewed scientific publications that are annually published by Slovenian researchers. At the same time, the majority of final study works from Slovenian higher education institutions are available in full-text format.

This paper describes a technical perspective for setting up a national open access infrastructure, which has not been described in the literature previously.

Current e-learning platforms are based on relational database management systems (RDBMS) and are well suited for handling structured data. However, it is expected from e-learning solutions to efficiently handle unstructured data as well. The purpose of this paper is to show an alternative to current solutions for unstructured data management.

Current repository-based solution for file management was compared to MongoDB architecture according to their functionalities and characteristics. This included several categories: data integrity, hardware acquisition, processing files, availability, handling concurrent users, partition tolerance, disaster recovery, backup policies and scalability.

This paper shows that it is possible to improve e-learning platform capabilities by implementing a hybrid database architecture that incorporates RDBMS for handling structured data and MongoDB database system for handling unstructured data.

The study shows an acceptable adoption of MongoDB inside a service-oriented architecture (SOA) for enhancing e-learning solutions.

This research enables an efficient file handling not only for e-learning systems, but also for any system where file handling is needed.

It is expected that future single/joint e-learning initiatives will need to manage huge amount of files and they will require effective file handling solution. The new architecture solution for file handling is offered in this paper: it is different from current solutions because it is less expensive, more efficient, more flexible and requires less administrative and development effort for building and maintaining.