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As fake news and other disinformation are spread primarily online and erode trust in experts and institutions, they challenge the role of librarians as information gatekeepers. Experts have advocated for libraries to educate the public to resist misinformation, yet libraries cannot assume sole responsibility for information literacy work. In this chapter, the authors explore several successful information literacy programs in Ukraine, whose fake news problems made global headlines in 2014, when the Russian annexation of Crimea was accompanied by a flood of crude but effective disinformation. The authors look particularly at the Learn to Discern programs established by the international non-profit organization IREX to foster information literacy using techniques grounded in interdisciplinary expertise and carefully evaluated through pilot studies and follow-up evaluations. These programs train instructors through workshops and provide them with materials. In the first program, aimed at the general public, many of the instructors were librarians, and library facilities were heavily used to deliver the public training. In the second program, information literacy was integrated into the public school curriculum and thousands of teachers were trained to deliver expertly designed materials for particular grade levels and subjects. The authors also consider the special challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, both as a source for new forms of misinformation and as a disruptor of training previously delivered in tightly packed libraries and classrooms. These Ukrainian programs demonstrate the potential for fighting fake news and other misinformation on a scale far beyond what could be accomplished by individual libraries acting alone.

That innovation and training essentially belong together could be so self‐evident as virtually to be a cliche. Yet, in Britain's industrial story of the past twenty‐five or thirty years, this inter‐relationship has remained a maxim more honoured in the breach than in the observance. There have been scores of new enterprises, born from enthusiastic technological innovation, surviving only for a relatively short life, to perish through commercial collapse, or at best, decay. Technological brilliance has been unsupported by adequate managerial calibre, and there was no learning of this other essential ingredient for entrepreneurial success.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the findings from the pilot stage evaluation of the Global Libraries – Biblionet Romania project. The project involves introducing public access ICT via public libraries in Romania and the pilot evaluation was designed to ensure the adoption of an appropriate impact planning and assessment program for the main project.

Since the start of the Global Libraries – Biblionet Romania project, planning and managing for results have been the guiding philosophy. The team was concerned to find the right balance between what is too much for librarians in terms of data collection, and what precisely to promote as useful metrics with which the librarians are comfortable and which do not create too much extra work. A step‐by‐step approach has been used to involve librarians in decisions, facilitate consensus, and double‐check agreements, understandings and results. This involved phases of engagement with users in the pilot project areas, librarians, and the national professional body.

The pilot has revealed some of the key characteristics of library patrons as public access ICT users, some of the major factors in implementing public access computing through libraries and important elements of the capacity for change in the national professional body, all of which will inform the design and planning of the main project.

Librarians in the 12 pilot sites had different levels of expertise and interest in data collection and different levels of understanding of the relationship between impact assessment and service development. The paper expresses how one can quantify the benefits of using computer and internet in public libraries. Handled skilfully, this approach can be a strong advocacy tool to communicating with public authorities and other local or national stakeholders. Although this was a pilot project, it was substantial in scale and provides useful insights into all facets of a major implementation program as well as important assessment data on Romanian public libraries.

The pilot project has already provided original evidence of the significance and value of public libraries in Romania. (The main project that will be designed on the basis of this evidence will in due course add a major and continuing further dimension to this process of assessment.)

This paper aims to describe the main impact and performance measures employed by the Global Libraries – Biblionet Romania programme (GL‐Biblionet) and reports on the pilot application of a pop‐up survey designed to provide focused user‐feedback to inform the development of the programme.

GL Biblionet aims to ensure that community informational needs are increasingly met at public libraries, and that these in turn provide better services to users and the community. An efficient performance management system of public library computing service is required for these purposes, including an adequate data/feedback collection system, and a flexible mechanism to analyse and report the findings. A pop‐up survey mechanism was developed and tested as a key part of the user feedback element of impact and performance measurement.

The pilot implementation of the pop‐up survey was broadly successful in providing useful data but the survey results need to be contextualised and triangulated with other impact and performance measurement data to assess their level of reliability. More nuanced questions about users' self‐assessments of competence in using ICT need to be developed.

Although only at the pilot stage, the GL‐Biblionet approach to pop‐up survey development offers a potentially useful tool for long‐term use by public libraries in Romania and for other countries faced with similar public library development and user feedback issues.

This paper reports on a novel and potentially valuable application of pop‐up survey technology for national systems of public libraries and for local or regional application.

This paper aims to explain how the Global Libraries (GL) Initiative of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation plans for and assesses the impact of its programs on libraries and communities as part of their commitment to improving lives by increasing public access to computers and the internet in public libraries.

GL encourages libraries to design programs and services that address local and national priorities. Impact assessment processes assist libraries in collecting, analyzing and reporting on evidence to show: whether activities are conducted effectively to enable learning and improve processes; whether the program makes a difference to users and communities; and what impact evidence to use in advocacy for continued support and funding. GL's process and philosophy are described and case studies from two grantee programs in two countries are provided.

The Polish‐American Freedom Foundation (PAFF) adopted innovative methods developed for them by the Information Society Development Foundation to determine baseline library usage in rural public libraries in Poland. Rather than counting borrowers, which was the approach facilitated by the available data, they conducted random sampling in target areas. This allowed them to count users who do not borrow books, and to gauge scale of repeat usage and user demographics. In so doing, the team found that libraries have a substantially higher reach than book‐lending data alone suggested. The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) assessed community information needs and determined that education, health, and employment are the issues about which Romanians want more information. Libraries in Romania will design services based on a careful understanding of those needs.

The research findings reported are drawn from systematic quantitative and qualitative evidence gathering undertaken as part of the impact‐planning and assessment programs being implemented in the two countries.

The paper presents a current view of the GL approach to impact assessment and service sustainability as well as two early reports, one on the results of baseline evidence collection and the other on community needs assessment in the two participating countries.

Despite increasing evidence for the effectiveness of off-the-shelf and rehabilitation-specific active video games (AVGs) and virtual reality (VR) systems for rehabilitation, clinical uptake remains poor. A better match between VR/AVG system capabilities and client/therapist needs, through improved end-user involvement (UI) in VR/AVG implementation research, may increase uptake of this technology. The purpose of this paper is to review four case examples from the authors’ collective experience of including end users in VR/AVG research to identify common benefits, challenges and lessons learned.

The authors apply knowledge and lessons learned from the four cases to make recommendations for subsequent user-engaged research design and methods, including evaluation of the impact of end UI.

A better match between VR/AVG system capabilities and client/therapist needs leads to improved end UI in all stages of VR/AVG implementation research. There are common benefits of increasing buy-in and soliciting early on the knowledge and skills of therapists as well as input from the ultimate end users: people participating in rehabilitation. Most settings have the challenges of balancing the technology requirements with the needs and goals of the practice setting and of the end users.

Increasing end UI in VR/AVG implementation research may address issues related to poor clinical uptake. In the VR/AVG context, end users can be therapists, clients or technology developers/engineers. This paper presented four case scenarios describing the implementation of different VR/AVG systems and involving a variety of populations, end users and settings.

The set of recommendations for subsequent user-engaged research design and methods span the process of development, research and implementation. The authors hope that these recommendations will foster collaborations across disciplines, encourage researchers and therapists to adopt VR/AVGs more readily, and lead to efficacious and effective treatment approaches for rehabilitation clients.

The purpose of this paper is to review the International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, Japan 2009, with emphasis on new trend of Japanese robot industry.

This paper is based on in‐depth interviews with exhibitors and the reporter's insight in Japanese robot industry.

A big change is observed in the direction of the Japanese industrial robotics in an attempt to overcome the economic crisis.

New markets, new applications, new robot types, and new robot‐based production systems will be emerging.

This is the first report describing the “change” in the Japanese robot industry after the breakout of the world economy recession.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Libraries (GLs) initiative approach to advocacy and how it informs, guides, and integrates impact data to support sustainability of GL program results.

The paper defines advocacy in the context of GL, and explores the GL grant planning process, tools, and collaboration between advocacy and impact specialists. Results are demonstrated through grantee examples that illustrate a variety of approaches to library advocacy using impact data at local, country, and regional levels.

The paper demonstrates the importance of identifying community needs, designing impact measures to demonstrate how libraries help to address those needs, and the variety of ways impact evidence can be used to effectively advocacy for public libraries. This basic formula can be applied to advocacy efforts ranging from a broad national policy to a small incremental change in perceptions of libraries by local decision makers.

This paper reinforces the essential link between library impact measurement data and successful advocacy.

The purpose of this paper is to research the difference in reading and learning from print versus electronic media in a professional and educational setting. To what extent does the materiality of the medium influence the efficiency and effectively of the reader? What is needed to create “digital born” information rich texts? In Part 1, sustained reading of information and knowledge rich texts is addressed.

In‐depth comparative tests with a great number of subjects between print‐on‐paper, e‐ink screens and LCD screens. In Part 1 the results of tests with sustained reading of information and knowledge rich texts are reported.

All tests show that print‐on‐paper is still a superior medium for learning and digesting complicated and elaborate texts, whilst electronic screens are appreciated for quick information gathering, communication and navigation. Electronic representations of information and knowledge demand that the structure of the writing has to change.

Given the rapid development in electronic displays, many issues – in particular ergonomical – become a “moving target”. An important limitation – which is one of the quests of this research – is the lack of sufficient genuine digital born texts.

The need to start and review the writing process; the appearance but also the structure of information and knowledge rich texts. A second issue is the need to develop easy capabilities to make an electronic text as easy a “tool” as the print text, with underlining, comments and notes.

The development of novel ways of publishing educational texts.

Deep qualitative research in comparison with quantitative tests. Comparison between professional information acquisition and learning.

Aims to describe the new tendency of Japanese robotic industry observed at the International Robot Exhibition 2005 in Tokyo.

Reports new robots, robotic systems and research.

Finds that Japanese robotics is trying to support the future direction of the nation.

Introduces an approach to study what is going on in the Japanese robotic community based on the social needs of the country.