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Item The 3rd International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives Digital Libraries and Archives in Africa: Changing Lives and Building Communities(Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, 2016-06-21) Al Akhawayn UniversityThe corpus of Moroccan manuscripts is estimated at more than 80,000 titles and 200,000 volumes held at a number of public and private libraries—mostly religious institutions and zawāyā. These collections are invaluable both as repositories of human knowledge and memory and for their aesthetic value in terms of calligraphy, illumination, iconography and craftsmanship. Several medieval authors position Morocco as an important center in the Muslim West (al-Gharb al-Islami) for manuscript production, illumination, binding and exchange. However, except for a few scattered publications, a history of North African Arabic calligraphy (al-khatt al-maghribi) remains to be written. By providing the tools for making these collections readily accessible to the scholarly community in the Maghrib and beyond, ICT will make possible the study of North African scripts within the broader context of Arabic calligraphy and the Islamic arts of the book in general. The two main manuscript collections in Morocco are hosted at the National Library of Morocco (Bibliothèque nationale du royaume du Maroc, or BNRM, formerly General Library and Archive) in Rabat (12,140 titles), and the Qarawiyyin Library in Fez (5,600 titles, 3,157 of which in several volumes). Theses collections originated mostly from waqf (pious endowments) and state appropriation of private collections (e.g., 1,311 and 3,371 titles from the al-Glawi and al-Kattani collections respectively). They are written almost entirely in Arabic and in various scripts; Amazigh (Berber) manuscripts in Arabic script and Hebrew manuscripts constitute less than one percent of the total collections.Item The biodiversity heritage library and African digital libraries in the global context.(Smithsonian Institution Washington, DC, United States, 2015-05-29) Kalfatovic, Martin R.; Fourie, Anne-LiseThe Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) was created in 2006 as a direct response to the needs of the taxonomic community for access to early literature. Designed with meeting these needs, the BHL was grant-funded and quickly proved its value to its target users. The original BHL organizational model, based on US and UK partners, provided a template for, first, BHL Europe, and then a series of global nodes, most recently, BHL Africa and BHL Singapore. As the BHL moved from project to a cornerstone of biodiversity infrastructure, sustainability, appropriate expansion, collaboration with national and pan-national digital libraries (Europeana, the Digital Public Library of America) became more important. Working within the unique and often challenging environments of Sub-Saharan Africa, BHL assisted in the creation of BHL Africa is an inclusive network of African libraries and institutions in Western, Eastern, Central and Southern Africa. The short term goals of BHL/BHL Africa are surveying the biodiversity content of Sub-Saharan partners, defining digitization and aggregation capacity, and delivering African content to the BHL portal. This presentation will cover principles of pan-institutional digital library development, working across multiple African institutions, address areas of growth, and formulate lessons learned through global BHL growth.Item Building an online indigeous knowledge Library on culture, Environment and History: Case Study of Elimu Asilia(National Museums of Kenya, 2016-06-21) Owano, AshahKenyan libraries and information centres are inadequately equipped with local indigenous knowledge (IK) content to contribute to global digital knowledge economy. Scarcity of community stories and information on the web undermines the role of librarians and other information workers, denying local communities opportunity to participate in the development of local content about their communities and encourage them to use and appreciate local library services. All over the world, indigenous knowledge has been recognized as distinct, legitimate, valuable and vulnerable system of knowledge that requires appropriate skills to handle and manage. In Kenya, like most African countries, events and accounts were transmitted orally from one generation to another. The data/information was hardly documented. This paper presents a case study of ‘Elimu Asilia’, a participatory platform for developing local content where National Museums of Kenya librarians working with researchers and volunteers interact with local communities including children in the collection, preparation, preservation, sharing, exchange and dissemination of IK on culture, environment and history for memory, national sustainability and eco-social development using information communication technologies. It is envisaged that this platform will contribute towards the reduction of digital divide, sharing of community IK and promote global online communities for indigenous knowledge.Item Challenges of building digital repositories in Africa: A case study of best practise(Dakar, Senegal, 2016-06-22) Bakhoum, NafissatouLibraries are known to promote change through individual and institutional capacity leading to quality, effectiveness and then to development. Information and knowledge, as a vehicle of power and wealth, are then likely to root out economic marginalization, inequalities, unemployment and other shortages the African continent is suffering. But, in spite of its outstanding scholarly and cultural heritage and huge progress made in ICT, it is striking that Africa is still lagging behind in the international scheme of knowledge production, which is conducting the world. Deficiencies in education, lack of innovation, of a wide professional militantism and of a strong political commitment are the main causes. African libraries, therefore become conscious that such weaknesses, instead of being experienced as an additional source of frustration can be turned into an impulse for innovative change. Even if federating exhaustively valuable African contents in a unique virtual space, has not already become a reality, some African scientific institutions step boldly forward in implementing programs to meet the huge challenge of digitizing scholarly contents and providing online access to them. They are struggling to break with a long period of gathering rich scientific materials, formerly shelved in libraries as treasures, in order to safeguard and valorize them. Then, building digital repositories and promoting open access in a context with limited resources has never been so relevant. They have proven efficient in providing technical infrastructure, quality-based and value-added solutions to the management of collections, especially in heritage libraries. The objective of this paper is to reinforce, through demonstration, the optimistic view consisting of believing that all is not bleak in Africa, and overcoming challenges depends on how being strategic in addressing core issues. It focuses on two points: 1. Challenges attached to the preservation and valorization of African scholarly contents; After presenting briefly the context of accumulation of scientific materials in Africa, namely in Afrique occidentale française (AOF), we focus on the benefit effects of digitizing African scholarly contents and how it can impact on the dissemination of research outputs and sustainable development. 2. Promoting access through a digital repository: a case study of best practice. This part is demonstrative and illustrates that some African academic institutions adapt to innovative change and develop capacities to build worth institutional repositories. This case study is from Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire Cheikh Anta Diop (FAN Ch A Diop).Item Collaborrative Approcahes to Building Digital Repositories in Africa(Third International Conference on African Digital Libraries and Archives (ICADLA-3), 2016-06-21) Bwamkuu, Africa JWhile there is exponential growth of local generated intellectual output from Africa, remains are challenges to make the local content visible and available at the global level. By 29th January, 2013, out of 2256 repositories listed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (DOAR) at www.opendoar.org, only 60 repositories are in Africa, which is 2.66% of total repositories in DOAR. This statistics is consistent with many available studies which indicates that Africa’s’ contribution to the global knowledge is limited. The report released by Thomson Reuters on April 2010 also confirms that Africa's contribution to the global body of scientific research is very small and does little to benefit its own populations. With over 30 academic institutions that award bachelors, masters and PhD each year, Ethiopia faces the same challenges, make intellectual output accessible at the global level. Recognizing this fact, Ethiopian major actors in the educational field, in particular, the Consortium of Ethiopian Academic and Research Libraries (CEARL) and the National Education and Research Network of Ethiopia (EthERNet), have been actively exploring ways to address the challenge using the modern technology. CEARL, as content provider and EthERNet, as infrastructure operator, has been collaborating to unlock Ethiopian academic institutions’ knowledge using common digital repository. The collaboration is guided by Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that harmonizes individual institutional policy framework. The paper explores the collaborative approaches whereby individual institutions pooled together resources and at the same time, jointly engage international partners specifically the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT), the African Digital Library Support Network (ADLSN) and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) to bring about the national repository.Item The Developing Countries and Electronic Filing: Case Burundi, Rwanda and the DRC(Archivist at the National Radio and Television of Burundi, 2016-06-22) Eustache, SirtakiArchival heritage is essential to facilitate reforms and modernization in different areas of the state and society in Burundi, DRC and Rwanda and other countries also the archives of former colonial powers are often capitals including material heritage, proof, migration, borders, resource management or data for international research. It is important to respond to societal demands in the field; be it the academic sector, the associative fabric of civil society or state structures. Models in terms of good governance / facilitating access to archives may be proposed by some European countries. Countries like the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda are among the countries that are behind in terms of looking, access and archive management, mutual capacity building.Item Digital library readiness in Africa: A strategic human resource perspective(University of Education Winneba, Ghana, 2015-05-29) Owusu-Ansah, Christopher M.The success of any digital library endeavour significantly depends on the human capital of the implementing organisation. Many African institutions and academic libraries in developing countries are focusing and channeling significant resources into planning and setting up digital libraries. However, the main hurdle for many of these efforts is the human resource capacity of staff expected to implement these projects as several studies show a considerable skills gap in many digital library projects leading to sustainability challenges. The aim of this paper is to propose the application of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in evaluating digital library resources and services in Ghana to determine the readiness of academic libraries in implementing sustainable digital library services. As a result, the study examines the strategic plan of a multi-campus public university in Ghana with a view to aligning it to the same university’s library digital strategy using the BSC. The study proposes to academic libraries involved in digital initiatives to be mindful of the digital, financial and societal contexts in which they operate. The study is expected to contribute to efforts at finding strategic measures to drive the vision of the digital library African institutions.Item Digital preservation in the context of institutional repositories in public universities' libraries in Ghana.(The Balme Library, University of Ghana, 2015-05-29) Mensah, MonicaLong-term preservation of digital collections is an integral task for institutional repositories. It ensures that the digital intellectual output of the library is preserved for future access. Digital preservation has been recognized as a complex process, and there are still many unsolved issues which makes it a challenging task for institutional repositories. As such, this paper is aimed at identifying and discussing the issues and challenges of digital preservation facing institutional repositories in public university libraries in Ghana. The study was qualitative. Data used for analysis were drawn from respondents from public universities who had developed institutional repositories to capture, maintain and disseminate their information in the digital form. The key finding of the study was that, although the universities had established institutional repositories to capture and maintain digital collections, existing digital preservation methods and systems were inadequate and could lead to consequences such as denial of access to their digital collections or total loss of information. Recommendations based on findings included the development of comprehensive digital preservation policies to provide mandate and direction to preservation of the libraries digital collections.Item Digital Preservation: Handling Large Collections Case Study: Digitizing Egyptian Press Archive at Centre for Economic, Judicial, and Social Study and Documentation(CEDEJ)(Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt, 2015-09-14) Samir, Ahmed; Sharkas, Ahmed; Adly, Noha; Nagi, MagdyManaging the digitization of large collections is quite a challenge not only in terms of quantity, but also in terms of text and material quality, designing the workflow system which organizes the operations, and handling metadata. This has been the focus of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina during its partnership with the Centre for Economic, Judicial, and Social Study and Documentation (CEDEJ), to digitize more than 800,000 pages of press articles dating back to 1976. This triggered a need to design a workflow to manage such a massive collection proficiently. This required simultaneous intervention of four main aspects; data analysis, developing a digitization workflow , implementing and installing the necessary software tools for metadata entry, and publishing the digital archive. This paper demonstrates the workflow system implemented to manage this massive press collection, yielding more than 400,000 items to date. It illustrates the BA’s Digital Assets Factory (DAF); the nucleus of the digitization process ,and the tools and stages implemented for ingesting data into the system. The outflow is also discussed in terms of organizing and grouping multipart press clips, in addition to reviewing and validating the output. The paper also discusses the challenges of associating the accessible online archive with a powerful search engine supporting multidimensional search.Item Digitization Capacity and Skills of Academic Librarian in Nigeria(Redeemer’s University, Nigeria, 2016-06-21) Adeleke, Akinniyi AIncreasing number of Nigerian universities is devising creative means of increasing their digital contents in the public domain by digitizing intellectual outputs of their faculty members. Digitization accords academic institutions the opportunity of making their institutional resources available thereby increasing their visibility and better performance in ongoing web ranking of world universities. However, certain skill sets and competencies are required by librarians who are responsible to establish and maintain digital collections in their respective institutions. This study therefore to investigated the level of librarians ’possession of these skills. A survey was conducted on librarians in eleven selected private and public universities in Nigeria that have minimum ICT infrastructure required for digitization. Eighty six librarians responded and data analysis revealed that digitization was still at its infancy in the libraries and few librarians were involved in the process. The study also found librarians score themselves below average in many of the specific digitization skills even though they considered them important. Also, majority of the librarians had no formal professional training in digitization and only a few spent time for personal skills development in the process.Item Digitization capacity and skills of academic librarians in Nigeria(University , Nigeria, 2016-06-21) Adeleke, Akinniyi A; Senior LibrarianIn order to increase their global visibility and better performance in the web ranking of world universities, more Nigerian universities have been devising creative means of increasing their digital contents in the public domain resulting in more sharability of institutional resources. Digitization builds capacity for the university library system to realize its mandate of supporting learning, teaching and research activities of its parent institutions through the instrumentality of the emerging and evolving information and communications technologies (ICTs). However, certain skill sets and competencies are required by librarians in Nigerian universities to establish and maintain digital collections in their respective institutions. A questionnaire survey is conducted on this category of information professionals in ten selected private and public universities that have minimum ICT infrastructure required for digitization. The collected data are analyzed and results presented in simple descriptive statistics.Item Digitizing Egyptian National Documents Archive: Challenges and Solutions(Alexandria University, 2016-06-21) Samir, Ahmed; Elsayed, Bassem; Adly, Noha; Nagi, MagdyThe Egyptian National Documents Archive (Dar El-Mahfouzat) dates back to 1805, to Mohamed Ali’s era. This renders the archive a crucial and valuable aspect of Egyptian heritage. Dar El-Mahfouzat has partnered with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) for creating a digital archive for a collection of documents comprising more than six million pages physically pertaining to the Archive for digital preservation and access. In implementing this project, the BA has undertaken three main aspects simultaneously; building the digitization facility, developing and installing the necessary software tools and building the capacities of the staff. Each aspect represented a challenge accompanied with the notion of deploying state-of-the-art technologies for a proficient digital output. Two million pages have been digitized to date and the digital archive has been created to support multilevel authorization to secure access to classified documents. This paper will elaborately reflect the work done by the BA in creating the digitization workflow, and developing the associated tools for archiving digitally a grand historical facility in Egypt, while demonstrating the challenges encountered and their handling.Item Funding memory institutions in Ghana: The case of Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD)(University of Ghana, 2015-05-29) Asamoah, Catherine; Akussah, Prof. Harry; Mensah, MonicaInformation is the beacon of organizations globally. The need to properly manage information to serve as evidence of every activity to ensure accountability, transparency and probity is an essential but often ignored practice in most memory institutions worldwide and especially in Africa. Studies have shown that more focus is directed towards media, civil society, human rights and parliamentary democracy to the neglect of memory institutions when it comes to governance issues. Charged with the responsibility to ‘preserve Ghana’s collective memory by facilitating and overseeing the efficient management of records of all MDAs, PRAAD’s mandate has been limited as a result of the department been starved financially. Support to PRAAD over the years has basically come from donor agencies like IRMT, DFID, and IDA of the World Bank, Danish government, National Archives of Netherlands among others. Consequently, this paper explores ways through which PRAAD is funded and attempts to identify ways in which PRAAD can strengthen its funding capacity through nationwide advocacy, publicity and other grant seeking activities. The study was guided by the qualitative paradigm. The Director of PRAAD, together with the heads of all the three departments (records centre, preservation service branch (PSB) and the archives unit) were interviewed. A major finding was that lack of funding and logistics had undermined the role of PRAAD. The paper further emphasized on the need for government to intensify support for PRAAD to enable the department to effectively and competently perform its mandate for the development of Ghana through safeguarding the nation’s collective memory for informed decision making.Item Implementation and usage of digital Libraries: A case study of Bunda College Greenstone digital Library in Malawi.(Mzuzu University, 2016-06-21) Majawa, Felix PatrickThe study investigated how the Bunda College Digital Library was implemented and used. 91 undergraduates, 10 postgraduates and 43 academic staff responded to questionnaires on the digital library usage. Facebook instant messages and phone interview were used to obtain data from library staff about managerial and technical activities. The digital library (DL) was created to address the need for digitizing documents on Malawi and/or by Malawians. Staff members were trained in the DL activities, however it lacked funding and largely utilized available resources. All the three categories of respondents agreed that the digital library was useful. Engaging in DL consultancy services, employing one library staff on temporary basis and including activities of the DL in the annual budgets were presented as the major recommendations. The study was limited in the sense that 3rd and 4th undergraduate students were on holiday during the data collection period and many postgraduates were out for their field research. This affected the richness of the study. Bunda College Library staff, Malawian librarians and Bachelor of Library Science students at Mzuzu University would find this research useful. Although similar research initiatives have been carried out, this research is unique as it tackles managerial and technical aspects of DL implementation as well as usage by the end users.Item Implementation of workshops scanning and creation of electronic libraries in Francophone Africa: transfer of skills and partnerships(2016-06-22) ROSSI, Pier LuigiSince 2001 the IRD (Institut de recherche pour le développement) we undertook multiple actions in several Francophone African countries for digitization and internet access setting products scientific document collections by University or Institutes research in these countries. Between October 2008 and September 2009, with support from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, we have set up 26 workshops scanning in 7 countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia). To do this we have ensured the installation of equipment, training in digital technologies, electronic library building with the "Greenstone" software. The collaborative website "beep" (www.beep.ird.fr) promotes the enhancement and visibility of electronic collections produced by our African partners. During the year 2012 we ensured the implementation of two workshops scan at the University of Lomé and a workshop at the Department of Demography at the University of Ouagadougou. In 2013 our actions will continue in Cameroon (Iford), Morocco and several countries under the cams (African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education).Item Indigenous knowledge in a virtual context: Sustainable digital preservation. A literature review(Unisa Library (SP PD6), 2015-05-29) le Roux, AnnetteThe basis of this paper stems from the second African Library Summit, held in 2013. At that event Professor Lawton Hikwa of the National University of Science and Technology of Zimbabwe (NUST) and the author co-facilitated a workshop on Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and digitisation. From discussions at this workshop the following question was posed: Are there long-term sustainable African digital preservation plans or policies in place to have these heritage materials still available and accessible in the far foreseeable future? To discuss this question, a brief overview of the concept of digital preservation and the challenges of digital preservation is needed.Item Institutional policy and management of institutional repositories in Nigerian universities(University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 2015-05-29) Imo, Nwabuisi T.; Igbo, Harriet U.The development of institutional repositories in libraries has come as a blessing to universities in Africa. It is envisaged that it will solve problems of low visibility of African content on the World Wide Web (Internet), greater speed of dissemination of knowledge from Africa, increased citation for authors whose works are published in the repository and improved ranking for the universities amongst others. However, evidence from past studies has revealed some doubts about the effectiveness of institutional policies in facilitating the growth and development of academic projects in African universities. The study which is a conceptual one is designed to review the development of IR in Africa with emphasis on Nigerian environment, determine what should constitute an institutional policy, and situate this within the framework of conditions for registration of IR by DOAR and ROAR. The study noted that between June 2011 and December 2014 Africa has dropped from 4% to 3% of world registered IRs. In Nigeria the study pointed out that 106 of 129 registered universities have websites but only eight have registered IR and out of this number only one has policy in some aspects of the operation. It was recommended that government interventions are crucial in this regard as this would serve as watch dog in monitoring/ensuring strict adherence to the implementation of the projects.Item An Investigation in to the digital scanning of photographs in archival collections(2016-06-21) Somers, NellieThis paper provides an overview of copyright and ownership, with a specific focus on photographic copyright and ownership and how copyright affects photographic researchers. The discussion also covers the duration of copyright in photographs and copyright protection in the new era. Solutions are offered to some of the more commonly occurring problems that may face archivists, librarians and individuals responsible for private and public collections.Item Jstor Digitization Project in Nigerian University Libraries: Policy Issues in Building and Sustaining Digital Collections(Bayero University, 2016-06-22) Diso, Lukman IWith funding from the MacArthur Foundation, ITHAKA (JSTOR) has collaborated with two Nigerian university libraries – Bayero University, Kano and University of Ibadan, Ibadan – to develop digital collections. “The purpose of this digitization project is to build capacity within the academic library at two major Nigerian academic institutions, to enable the digitization and dissemination of a modest number of historically significant collections and documents archived at these institutions, and to further expand awareness of these important primary source collections to scholars and students in Nigeria as well as those across Africa and beyond” [(Masinde & Rajan, (2011)].This paper attempts to examine the objectives and terms of collaboration as articulated in the signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) between ITHAKA and the institutions, the management of the collaboration, the Decapod technology system deployed for the digital labs to execute the digitization project, policy issues and institutional capacity building, and the implications for the future of digital collections, archiving/preservation in Nigerian universities.Item Management of institutional digital library with Invenio software: IDS example, the Document Server IDEP(2016-06-21) Antonin Benoît DioufThe world is undergoing a digital revolution as during revolutions Earlier factors that have been profound changes in the evolution of man, Africa still remains outside the process and may be even more distanced from the most advanced continents in terms of development. This is why it is very commendable that wills manifest reflection to create frameworks, exchange and sharing of practices that are only beneficial for awareness on this important issue of time is the most widespread as possible in the continent. It is in this context the need to include the relevance of the creation of the International Conference on Libraries and archives Digital African (ICADLA), now in its third edition this year 2013 and other well initiatives that participate in the same movement. Taking advantage of the opportunity offered by this conference, it seemed important, even essential to share the experience of the African Institute of Economic Development and Planning (IDEP) United Nations in creating and managing a digital library. All the more that the Institute is at the crossroads roads after 50 years of accumulation and a documentary produced both internally and from external sources. It is then imperative to take part in the digital revolution course and make it available on the networks that we have as resources to discover. 6 months ago we set up a functional digital library with a minimal deployment costs, it related to the free and open nature of the software we used. Experience even more relevant to share the African context in general is marked by a scarcity of financial resources in the field of document management and librarianship. In this article we present our pan-African institution with filigree everything its specificity for documentation and which is the ingredient that is the basis of the draft creation of digital library. We then describe the functional characteristics of software before finishing with prospects on a continental scale, who register relationship with the need to make Africa a digital content provider like any other continents.