English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

In this articie i argue that the ciassical growth model for academic libraries has been shorvn, by and large, not to be sustainable in less developed and inclebted cot intr ies, especia l ly in AÍ i ica, and may be reaching the end of i ts useful l i fe even in advanced industr ia l societ ies. L ibrar ies in Afr ica have been shorvn to be hard to sustain, not in tire hbrary literature, which presents by-and-large 'a fairly rosy and encoulaging picfure of the state of l ibraries,' and not theoretically,buï cmpìricully in the reality of empfy shelves and rvom-out book stock in i iniversitv libraries across the continent.a I Sot l rc sect ions of th is ar t ic le f i rs t appcared in a papcr g ivcn to a confcrence on 'Thc Electronic Library as a Gateway to Inforntat ion: Resource Sharìng and Uscr Services in the Elcctronic Library, ' Lund Univcrs i ty , Srveden, 2 to 6 Junc 1998. Í am grate Í ì l to Al Kagan for cornrnent ing on an i t r ter t r rcdiate c l raf t . For the or ig inal and morc pcssimist ìc text , see Col in Darch, 'The shr inking ptrb l ic dorrain and the unsustainable l ibrary, 'avai lable atht tp: / /wivrv. Iub. lu.se/s iou papersidarch.htnr l Iaccessed 4 January 2001]. A s l ide presentat ion ofrhe sanre mater ia l is at h t tp : / /wu 'u ' . l ub . l u . se /s ida /Lund p rescn ta t i on /s ld00 l .h tm, [accessed l9 January 200 l ] . 2Dr. Col in lv1. Darch is a Senior L ib lanan at Chanccl lor Oppcnheirncr L ibrary Univ 'crs i ty of Cape Tou'n 3 Thonras A. Stcrvart, lntcllccttnl capital; the ttevv wealth of organizations (London: Nicholas Brea ley , 1997) . p . i x . o Diana Rosenberg, 'Can l ibrar ies in Afr ica ever bc sustatnablc?' lnforntat ion Det,e lopntent vol . 10, no.4 (December 1991), p.241. 25 University of Dar es Salaam Library Journal vol.3 no.1-2 (2001), p.25-39 In general, the problems of attempting unlimited groMh in individr,ral print-based libranes are not hard to see, and have been predicted in the l i terature at various periods. However, our contemporar1l context is the emergence of post-indr,rstrial or knowìedge-based societ ies in the wealthy North, characterised by rapìd but f tagnrcnted technolog ica l change. In Af r ica, the post -co lon ia l s ta te is in a condi t ion o f co l lapse, econont ica l ly n targ ina l ized and over lvhe lmed by rndebtedne ss. Sincc the falì oÍ ' the social ist bloc, Northern capitairsm has coÌl1e to do rn ina te t he r vo r l d econo lny , a phenon lenon usua l l y r e í ' e r red t o unproblematically as'global isat ion. ' Unsurpt ' is ingly, jn the postindustr iaÌ or ' infornration' society, knowledge is seen as a form of capital or even as a weapon, as the astonishing quotation above indicates and i ts exclusive possession confers competit ive advantage in the mar l<etp lace.5 T l t t ts , we are not on ly wi tness ing a huge quanti latí t ,e increase in the volume of avai lable inforntat ion, but also a l tuge increase in the cost of access to tr, and in the addit ional costs of the new abi lr ty to n-ranipuÌate i t elecf i-onical ly." This increase occLrrs both t lrrough and alongside a systematic l trocess of privatísatron or commodif icat ion of informatron. -fhis begarr in areas such as patents, but is now also impacting direct ly on l ibrary practice in terms of Ì imitat ions ol-Ì fair use copying. i tr tpemanent and resh' icted access to purchased electronic resources, restr ict ions on end-users. t-aci l i tat ion of electronic nricro-paynrents, and so forth. Every one of these changes hits Afr ican lrbraries har<Jest of al l . Thc phenon'ìenon of 'global isat ion, ' intersecting rvit ìr the new infbrmation and communication technologres (ICTs) mani/èsts il.self c'ortu'eÍeltt in the arena of information as the Web and the Internet. The uneven character of globalisation and i ts contradict ions are also made concrete. Thus, the gror.vth of e-commerce and the ubiqLri ty of the 'dot corn' donrains may be an expression of the grou' ing cornnodi{ìcation even of lorv-cost digitaÌ ly-stored inforn-ratìon, but I shal l argue that the present real i ty of the Internet, and i ts possible future, may leave some room tbr alternative scenanos. Nevertheless, i f individual print l ibraries are runsustainable in Afr ica under present condit ions, and i f electronic resources Çanno t be r v i de l y accessed because o f i n f r as t ruc tu ra l wea l<nesses , a reconceptlralisation o1'rvhat constitutes library activily may be required to meet, at a strate gic level, the information requirements of a truly independent Afr ican scholarshrp in both teaching and research. ' l havc argucd c lscrvhcrc t l rat l ibrarrans in gcncral tend to overcst i rnate he socia l value of inforrr rat ion and to ignorc i ts cconor l ic valuc. Sce Darch, 'The cconorrr ics of inforrnat ion and thc in fo rn ra t i on soc ic t y : i s soc ia l cqu i t y s t i Ì l on the agcnda in the 1990s ' / ' I nuovo t io t r no . Ì0 ( . l unc 1 9 9 5 ) , p . 3 1 2 ( 'At prcscnt rnany pLrbl ishcrs cqr-r i rc acadcrnrc l ibrar ics to purchasc hoth pr int and c lcctronic fonrìa ls. This is obviously crpensive i t involves t radi t ional nranagernent and storagc osts o.ç n,cll as thc priccy canrl.lus-rvidc lT infraslructurc ncedcd for elcctronic acccss to rcu.ìotc databascs.

university of dar es salaam library journal

The 'Alexandrian' library, digital resources, and the shrinking public domain: a critique of the current model for delivering academic information in Africa