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The purpose of this paper is to present the current status of digital reference services (DRS) among selected academic libraries in the Philippines – the University Library of the University of the Philippines Diliman, the Rizal Library of the Ateneo de Manila University and the University Library of the De La Salle University Manila – by figuring out how information service is provided using instant messaging (IM) and social networking sites.

A survey was conducted to examine the nature, practice and impact of DRS and to ascertain users' preferences and level of awareness of the availability of Ask‐a‐Librarian – an information service offered through IM, and the Facebook fan page of the university libraries under study.

Interestingly, the findings reveal that the full potential of Reference 2.0 has not yet been maximized. When it comes to reference services in academic libraries, students and faculty members have chosen to go online: Ask‐a‐Librarian, web forms, e‐mail and Facebook. A significant increase in the number of reference transaction was observed after integrating Web 2.0 and digital reference tools to its information services. IM and Facebook were found to be the most useful tools in finding relevant information. A majority of the queries received were brief and factual information inquiries and questions on how to use online databases.

The paper further explores the different aspects of IM and Facebook reference service: statistics, content of the questions and quality of the answers, reference interview, and the user's awareness and preferences. The results of this study may prescribe practices integrating Web 2.0 applications to beef up reference service, in which academic librarians in the Philippines may benchmark.

This paper is the first systematic evaluation of the nature and practice of Reference 2.0 in the Philippine setting; it makes a valuable contribution that could boost academic libraries in the country as they endeavor to provide world‐class service to many.

This paper aims to focus on applications of Web 2.0 that improve training and communication within the reference services department.

The paper discusses some of the best known and most heavily used examples of Web 2.0: blogs, calendars, wikis, RSS, image collections, podcasts or vodcasts, social bookmarks, text messages, instant messages, and social networks.

Implementing Web 2.0 tools to coordinate communication and training creates a dynamic, interactive system for sharing procedures, ideas, and new developments within a reference services department.

The paper provides useful insight into training staff using Web 2.0 applications.

In his Presidential Address to the Library Association Conference at Eastbourne, in May 1949, Sir Ronald Adam, Chairman of the British Council, included a comprehensive description of the Council's library work in various parts of the world. This address, which also covered the other related activities, such as book‐exhibitions, book‐reviews, presentations of periodicals, and bibliographical publications, was printed in full in the Library Association Record of June 1949 and also in the Library Association's Papers and summaries of discussions at the Eastbourne conference. A reasonably up‐to‐date survey of the Council's libraries overseas is thus available in print, and the present article is accordingly more in the nature of footnotes to Sir Ronald's text than a repetition of the facts given by him. A conspectus of the system of Council libraries as of the end of 1950 is provided as an appendix to this article. Since the Eastbourne Conference there have, of course, been some developments, not all of them, unhappily, forward. There have been new libraries in India, Pakistan, Ceylon, and Indonesia. There has been a decrease in the work in West Africa, due to the transfer, as planned, of the library at Accra to an independent board. There has been a decrease in Europe, owing to the withdrawal, unplanned, of Council libraries, with the rest of the Council's activities, from Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia. There have been one or two smaller libraries closed in other parts of the world, due entirely to cuts in the Council's budget. The year 1951/2 will almost certainly witness further, perhaps major, cessations of library work in several areas; and the general tempo of development is likely to be severely curtailed almost everywhere, simply because of sheer lack of financial means to carry on. In view of the peculiar financial relations which ultimately determine the library development of the Council, as they determine its every other activity, it may be helpful to place the Council's libraries in the setting of the Council's general structure.

The Employment Act 1980 has repealed Sections 11‐16 of the Employment Protection Act 1975, with the result that statutory union recognition provisions no longer exist in Britain. At the present time there are relatively few people who would mourn the passing of these provisions. From the start many employers were unhappy with what they saw as strongly pro‐union provisions, while the unions became increasingly disenchanged with the lengthy procedural delays in hearing claims, and ACAS itself was unhappy with a number of court rulings that substantially restricted their discretion in hearing and deciding such claims. As a consequence there are likely to be few persons hoping for, much less calling for, the re‐introduction of statutory union recognition provisions, even in a modified form, in the immediate future. Indeed no less an individual than the former Chairman of ACAS himself is on record as saying that:

The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

The paper introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

Information about each source is provided. The paper discusses the characteristics of current scholarship, and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information in the paper may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The study compares the quality of indexing in library and information science databases (Library Literature (LL), Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), and Information Science Abstracts (ISA)). An alternative method to traditional retrieval effectiveness tests, suggested by White and Griffith in their paper ‘Quality of indexing in online databases’ [13], is adopted to measure the quality of the controlled vocabulary of each database. The method involves identifying clusters of documents that are similar in content, searching for each document from a given cluster in a database, identifying the terms used by the databases to index each document, and calculating certain measures to determine the quality of indexing. Problems found with the White and Griffith discrimination index led the authors to propose an alternative discrimination index which takes into consideration the collection size of a database. Our analysis shows that LISA has the best quality of indexing out of the three databases.

This paper aims to explore recent trends of how Web 2.0 applications were used in 75 academic libraries in Asia through their library websites.

The Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2016 was considered for this study and out of 200 top universities ranked, 75 universities were selected for data collection. Using a multi-method approach, this study evaluated key design elements, library service platforms and website content of each academic library website, examining their site features, Web 2.0 types and applications. The criteria for selecting the websites were first the website was in English and second had Web 2.0 applications integrated into the main website. For the ranking of websites, a library web service index was developed, benchmarking from these groups – resource discovery tools, Web 2.0 applications, e-resources, mobile applications, library guides, digital reference services and digital inclusion – as indicators.

The authors found that over two-thirds of Asian university libraries have deployed one or more Web 2.0 applications, though their popularity and implementation vary greatly. Most widely used Web 2.0 applications are Facebook (61.3 per cent), RSS (53.3 per cent), Twitter (46.7 per cent) and YouTube (37.3 per cent). Instant messaging (5.3 per cent) and podcasting (4 per cent) were least applied. With an average of 44 per cent, the diffusion rate of Web information is moderately high among the majority of the Asian university libraries.

Many studies explored Web 2.0 applications from developed countries. However, this study attempts evaluating the use of Web 2.0 applications through content, sites and features of academic libraries in Asia, from developing countries perspective.

This paper aims to investigate the level of awareness and use of Web 2.0 tools by librarians in university libraries in Africa.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from 140 librarians from 16 leading university libraries in Africa.

The study revealed that librarians in Africa are mostly familiar with Web 2.0 tools such as social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), blogs, instant messaging and wikis. It was also found that the most frequently used Web 2.0 tools by the librarians in university libraries in Africa are Facebook, instant messaging, blogs, Twitter and wikis. The study revealed that the librarians use the Web 2.0 tools for the purpose of announcing library news/events, online reference services, training resources, blogging and image and video sharing with users. Finally, lack of skills, power failure, lack of facilities such as computers with Internet access, lack of time and lack of interest were mentioned by the librarians as some of the challenges to using Web 2.0 tools.

These research results can also be consulted by interested librarians when they plan to make Web 2.0 applications in their libraries.

This study draws an overall picture of the Web 2.0 applications in university libraries in Africa and attempts to provide these libraries with helpful information to better understand how their colleagues elsewhere are utilizing Web 2.0 technologies in rendering library services.

The study aims to investigate the level of awareness and use of Web 2.0 tools by librarians in university libraries in Nigeria.

A questionnaire was used to collect data from 176 librarians in 49 university libraries in Nigeria.

It emerged that the librarians were more familiar with social networking sites, instant messaging, media sharing sites, blogs and wikis. The popularity of these Web 2.0 tools made them the most frequently used by the librarians. Web 2.0 tools like Flickr, RSS feeds, podcasts, social bookmarking, were among the least used. The study revealed that librarians use Web 2.0 tools mostly for reference services online, library news/events, training resources, and image and video sharing. Lack of facilities such as computers with internet access, lack of skills, and lack of time were indicated as some of the barriers in the use of Web 2.0 tools by librarians in university libraries in Nigeria.

These research results can be consulted by interested librarians as they plan to implement Web 2.0 applications in their libraries.

This study draws an overall picture of Web 2.0 applications in Nigerian university libraries and attempts to provide helpful information to better understand how librarians elsewhere are utilizing Web 2.0 technologies in rendering library services.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the extent to which librarians in university libraries in Nigeria and South Africa use Web 2.0 tools.

The study is a descriptive survey using comparative method. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 110 librarians from 11 leading university libraries in Nigeria and South Africa.

The results showed that the librarians from both countries use Web 2.0 tools, but differences exist between the librarians in university libraries in Nigeria and South Africa. It emerged that librarians in South Africa use various Web 2.0 tools frequently, more than the librarians in university libraries in Nigeria. This might be as a result of lack of awareness, lack of interest, lack of skills, and not willing to embrace emerging technologies on the part of librarians in university libraries in Nigeria. The results revealed that librarians in university libraries in Nigeria are confronted with challenges such as power failure, lack of facilities, lack internet connectivity and lack of skills when compared to their South African counterparts in the use of Web 2.0 tools.

These research results can be consulted by interested librarians, mostly in developing countries, when planning for Web 2.0 applications in their libraries.