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From 3‐5 February 2004, the Bielefeld University Library in Germany was host to the 7th International Bielefeld Conference, “Thinking beyond digital libraries – designing the information strategy for the next decade”. Main themes to the conference were the strategic positioning and future direction of research libraries and their institutions that will lead to e‐scholarship. The agenda included: new challenges and services of academic libraries: scholarly publishing and the implication on future strategies for scholars, libraries and publishers; the potential of search engine technology for digital libraries; and next generation scholarly information portals. In the excellent talks from experts from all around the world, stimulus was provided to integrate the theories and information presented and discussed into everyday practices and routine business.

On the basis of the data collected from 144 practitioners, we studied impact of the Palm Beach County Quality Improvement System (QIS) on practitioners. We found that (a) the duration of early learning coaching, (b) the intensity of career advisors, (c) quality workshops and conferences, (d) college courses, and (e) scholarship for books and supplies in relation to taking college courses are related to improving practitioners' job skills and level of certification and degree in early childhood care and education. We found that additional income to practitioners through the WAGE$ program is effective in retaining them. We also found that the professional development program has differential impact on practitioners of various racial and ethnic groups and that more encouragement and support should be given to African-American and Hispanic practitioners to engage in professional development and pursue advancement in the level of certificate and degree. All these findings have implications for the policy of early care and education in general and for other quality improvement initiatives for early care and education in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to present various aspects of open access that are being discussed and debated in recent years.

The paper briefly reviews the flavors such as open access definitions, open access initiatives, platforms for open access, and players in the open access movement.

The paper finds that, while the debates on open access continue, there is no doubt that librarians can play an important role to help achieve faster and wider dissemination of research discoveries and new knowledge of which they have been disseminators and keepers for centuries.

The article may help readers further their understanding of the complexity of open access and raise awareness on some of the key points.

The South African automotive industry, which is the most significant sector in the South African economy, needs to function efficiently to compete globally. The purpose of this paper is to report on a study that investigated the challenges faced by the South African automotive component manufacturers and their suppliers and provide a structure and identify the dependencies between these challenges.

Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) was adopted to explore the supplier relationship challenges and the dynamics and interlinkages between these challenges. ISM was deemed appropriate, as it is a multi-criterion decision-making technique suited for complex problems and provides an ordered, directional framework.

The findings revealed that advanced communication, rapid change in demand and dependence on a single customer are independent problems but have a lesser feedback loop and do not create instability by ripple effect. Interdependencies, on the other hand, create lesser ripples when tackled.

Findings of this study will be able to guide all the stakeholders: the policymakers and the automotive industry players to target the driving issue which can bring efficiency in the South African automotive supply chain. If the automotive components manufacturers (ACMs) are able to have more than one customer, their reliance on one will decrease and the systems will improve which shall benefit the industry. This methodology can also be used in future for determining the roadmap for complex issues.

The framework presented in this paper provides decision makers with a realistic picture of their situation by providing insight into the interrelationships, ranking them by importance and aiding in creating a roadmap for addressing identified challenges.

The purpose of this paper is to address the issue of scholarly communication.

The paper discusses the problems of scholarly communication, focusing on the work of Christine Borgman.

Scholarship is living through turbulent times and one must engage with the challenges of the emerging scholarly infrastructure to contribute to a better infrastructure.

The paper provides a personal view of the import of Borgman's newest book, Scholarship in the Digital Age.

The aim of this article is to introduce the special issue of Journal of Documentation focusing on perspectives on research libraries.

The paper outlines the theme of the issue and its underlying problems.

The traditional services of research libraries may diffuse to other kinds of institutions. There is, however, a need for information specialists studying and improving research infrastructures. Future services probably need to be more focused, domain-specific and based on research in information science.

The introduction is written to assist readers surveying the issue and to share the thoughts of the editors in planning the issue.

Black boys report experiencing more school-based racial discrimination than any other group (Butler-Barnes et al., 2019). Additionally, Black boys are viewed as older and less innocent than their peers beginning as early as 10 years old (Goff et al., 2014). Black boys are also suspended and expelled at much higher rates than other students (Graves & Wang, 2022). As such, there needs to be an investment in asset-based research designed to understand the factors that can help Black boys cope with these perceptions. Consequently, this chapter will discuss strengths based protective factors that will aid in the promotion of positive outcomes in Black boys.

To report on the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) held the Fall 2005 Task Force Meeting for its Task Force representatives and other participants in Phoenix, Arizona on December 5‐6, 2005.

Provides a concise review of the conference.

The meeting offered a wide variety of timely presentations that advanced and reported on CNI’s programs, projects and issues from Task Force member institutions and emphasized significant activities on the national and international arenas.

This paper is a useful summary of a conference of interest to library and information management professionals.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the activities of Bielefeld University Library in establishing OAI based repository servers and in using OAI resources for end‐user‐oriented search services like Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE).

Discusses OAI based repository servers.

BASE is able to integrate external functions of Google Scholar. The search engine technology can replace or amend the search functions of a given repository software. BASE can also be embedded in external repository environments.

The paper provides an overview of the functionalities of BASE and gives insight into the challenges that have to be faced when harvesting and integrating resources from multiple OAI servers.

Aims to provide a summary and analysis of the organizational changes of the UNLV Libraries Knowledge Access Management Division since it was previously described in Library Hi Tech.

Describes and analyzes the significant and unanticipated changes in organization structure that occurred as the UNLV Libraries attempts to respond to the web and digital scholarly information world.

Several alternative organizational structures to respond to web and digital initiatives are described. The process used to select an organization structure that was not anticipated three years earlier is documented.

This article provides useful reading for academic library administrators contemplating organizational change to respond to the web and digital information world.