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The purpose of this paper is to understand the landscape of data curation services among public and academic libraries in the USA, with a focus on library capacity for providing data curation services.

The authors conducted an online survey by employing stratified sampling from the American Library Directory. A total of 198 responses were analyzed.

The authors’ findings provide insight into the current landscape of libraries’ data curation services. The survey participants evaluated six capacity dimensions for both public and academic libraries – value, financial, administrative, technical infrastructure, human resources and network. The ratings the participants gave to these capacity dimensions were significantly different between academic and public libraries.

This study suggests several areas in which libraries will benefit from further developing their capacity to successfully run data curation services.

This is among the first research study to address the concept of capacity in the context of libraries’ data curation services.

The study examined capacity-building practices for librarians' effective library service delivery in Federal University Libraries in Nigeria.

The design for this paper was a descriptive survey research design. Data was collected using a questionnaire from a total number of 178 respondents. Collected data were analyzed using mean scores and standard deviation.

The findings reveal that learning capacity-building practices such as rotating members of staff for wider experience exist in these libraries. Learning capacity-building practices contributes to effective service delivery by enhancing various library services. Results also show that there are challenges confronting learning capacity-building practices which include inadequate funding. For these libraries to perform to their highest potentials, their learning capacity needs to be built and developed.

The major limitation of this study is the tendency of the respondents to fake their responses which may arise from their personal biases.

Therefore, university library management and university administrators should as a matter of urgency develop policies that will ensure that capacities are built for better service delivery or risk users losing interest in the library.

The study examined a vital dimension of capacity build, which is learning capacity building. The findings will help university administrators and library management to know the different learning capacity-building practices that exist in the various libraries and the extent to which these practices are important and relevant for effective service delivery. This will assist them in adopting relevant and adequate learning capacity-building strategies and guiding them in formulating effective capacity-building policies.

The most serious barrier to achieving a “forgiving building” is the cost of its special building systems. The library is increasingly becoming a “hi tech” and “smart” building. A sophisticated facility is required to support current collections and the emerging electronic and optical technologies that will occupy (and perhaps dominate) the future library. It is far less expensive to provide the capacity to support future components at the time of initial construction than to subsequently renovate a building to provide needed capacities at a later date. The real challenge for librarians is to convince those who fund library construction that the “forgiving building” is the least expensive alternative in the long run.

Representatives of six prominent library system vendors—Joseph R. Matthews (Inlex), Mike Monahan (Geac), Kelvin Browne (Utlas), Carl Lee (VTLS), Michael J. Mellinger (Data Research) and Stephen R. Salmon (Carlyle)—address the key issues related to system performance. From their experiences and perspectives as vendors, they address the issues of 1) designing, configuring and sizing systems, 2) the establishment of performance criteria, 3) the use of benchmark and acceptance tests, 4) the risks of miscalculations, 5) the roles of the vendor, consultant and library, and 6) related topics.

How can academic libraries unlock staff capacity for new initiatives as they transition their collections from print to digital? The following are four strategies for recapturing staff time as libraries adopt new formats while still supporting older ones at a smaller volume. First, librarians should employ strategic collection development that takes into consideration opportunities for efficiencies as they make the print to digital transition. Second, libraries should implement creative reorganizations in order to scale down print services and effectively manage new digital formats. Third, libraries should rightscale their infrastructure, that is, choose the appropriate level – local, consortial/regional, national, or global – where collection management activities should take place. Fourth, libraries, library software vendors, and publishers should develop purchasing and resource discovery infrastructures that harness shared data to enable network level electronic resource management.

Public libraries are vibrant and trusted community hubs that provide services, support, and resources in a variety of ways that impact the well-being of their communities. The Network of the National Library of Medicine (NNLM) partnered with the National Institute of Health (NIH) All of Us Research Program (All of Us) to support libraries to serve as health information resources for their patrons and provide All of Us awareness through community engagement. The NNLM All of Us National Program provides infrastructure and resources to public libraries, such as free training for library staff, health information outreach funding, connections with other organizations, and free programming tools to expand health programming beyond fitness to boost digital and health literacy in their communities.

The study aims to determine the extent of COVID-19’s impact on the libraries and information centers within Benguet. It identified the key differences in the effect of the pandemic on each type of library: public, special, school and academic. It recalled and documented the challenges faced by libraries and librarians. It determined which aspects of their library were affected and how they were modified in terms of their policies, personnel, physical space, services, collection, infodemic response and marketing.

The study used the qualitative descriptive method approach, specifically narrative research design and conducted online focus group discussions in which 14 librarians with managerial or supervisory functions participated. This method was used to explore the topic holistically by using qualitative inquiry. It best suited the purpose of fully understanding the experiences of libraries during the pandemic. The recorded online focus group discussions conducted through Zoom were reviewed and analyzed to identify key themes and responses from the participants. The themes identified from the thematic analysis were further validated with the participants through correspondence, chats or e-mails.

The findings showed that libraries were faced with challenges brought on by the lack of a written policy for the pandemic response, a lack of information communication and technology skills and resources, strict requirements on physical setup for pandemic compliance, budget cuts or realignments and delayed procurement, misinformation and users’ lack of awareness of the new services offered by the library.

The study focused on the pandemic experiences of libraries and information centers in Baguio-Benguet, which was hailed as a model for local pandemic response, through the lenses of librarians with supervisory roles or functions.

Libraries could reflect on their experiences in this pandemic to plan for future strategies that would be best implemented in situations where face-to-face services are not allowed.

This study presented various best practices from different library institutions that could be emulated in the future. Many of these are still relevant regardless library services are going back to normal.

The purpose of this paper is to explore innovation barriers in academic libraries. Through analysis of barriers to innovation, the authors can further elucidate the nature of innovation in academic library settings, which can help remove factors that hamper innovation.

Using a qualitative case study to explore the innovation processes for two academic libraries, this study includes interviews with 28 interviewees, from senior leadership positions to practical librarians, to analyze the barriers to innovation they have experienced.

Building on a literature review, this study proposes a barrier to innovation framework for academic libraries. The qualitative findings identified two specific barrier types that academic libraries face, environmental and organizational barriers, identifying 19 barrier factors that intertwine to yield seven dimensions across the two levels of analysis. It is advised that library leadership team should both encourage innovative behaviors and eliminate the innovation barriers to enhance library innovation capacities.

The insights from this study can help the library managers of academic libraries to develop preemptive actions for dealing with various barrier scenarios, and thereby enhance possibilities of successful innovations.

This paper aims to provide a review of recent trends in the open access (OA) movement, as well as to discuss the significance of those trends for information access in developing countries.

An analysis of the recent literature was carried out, focusing on the benefits of a greater information access in developing countries. The paper also brings together the diverse experiences from the authors on OA publishing and archiving with institutions in a number of developing countries.

Knowledge workers in developing countries are now getting access to scholarly and scientific publications and electronic resources at a level that is unmatched historically. This is highly significant, if developing countries are to meet the millennium development goals. The OA movement and the growing number of Open Archive Initiative‐compliant institutional repositories promise to provide even greater access to resources and publications that were previously inaccessible. These low cost technology and interoperability standards are providing great opportunities for libraries and publishers in developing countries to disseminate local research and to bridge the south‐north knowledge gap.

This paper therefore provides recommendations for knowledge workers on how to actively participate in and contribute to the global knowledge commons. The results and recommendations contained in the paper should be of interest to authors, policy makers, funding agencies and information professionals in both developing and developed countries.

The purpose of this paper was to explore African conceptions of digital libraries from the perspective of the historical literature. This paper argues that the concept of digital libraries is a western creation and that there was a need for developing societies to develop their own conceptions to guide their own digital library development agenda.

The paper is based on a literature review. The paper makes use of publicly-available literature on the theme of digital libraries from both the Western and African perspectives. The search terms used were “digital libraries”, “Africa digital libraries”, “electronic libraries”, “information communication technologies/libraries” and “institutional repositories”. A total of 89 publications were examined for this purpose.

The analysis revealed that most of the initial digital library initiatives in Africa emanated from the west with African countries benefiting from international initiatives to expand access to information resources to bridge the global digital divide. However, due to a number of contextual challenges such as lack of sustainable funding and inadequate capacity and strategy, the development of digital libraries was hampered. Thus, even though digital libraries enjoy considerable goodwill, there remain negative conceptions of digital libraries in Africa.

Information institutions in African countries must evolve a unified conception of digital libraries as this would largely drive the direction of digital library development towards achieving the developmental goals of the continent.

The study applies the attributes of innovation to explain contextual factors shaping African conceptions of digital libraries.