The Experts below are selected from a list of 5910 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Valeda F Dent - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Rural community Libraries in africa challenges and impacts
2014Co-Authors: Michael Kevane, Valeda F Dent, Geoff GoodmanAbstract:Around the word, in developed as well as developing countries, Libraries play an important role in the dissemination of knowledge. The availability of information resources can often mean the difference between poverty and prosperity, particularly in underdeveloped African communities. Rural Community Libraries in Africa: Challenges and Impacts investigates the relationship between local Libraries and community development. From the historical roots of Rural Libraries to their influence on the literacy, economy and culture of the surrounding region, this book will present academics, researchers, and, most importantly, librarians with crucial insight into the tangible benefits of Rural community Libraries and the obstacles they must overcome.
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modelling the Rural community library characteristics of the kitengesa library in Rural uganda
New Library World, 2006Co-Authors: Valeda F DentAbstract:Purpose – To provide background on how the Kitengesa Community Library in Rural Uganda, which serves as both a community library and a school library, might be seen as a model for other similar Libraries in developing countries. To use a case study of the library to highlight certain characteristics of Rural Libraries as developed by B.J. Mostert and presented in his 1998 article.Design/methodology/approach – The information in the article comes from a two‐year study of the Kitengesa Community Library. The methodology included focus groups, interviews, door‐to‐door visits, questionnaires, examination of library circulation information, and many hours of observation. Information from the study was then used to support the comparison to Mostert's characteristics of the Rural community library. A review of the professional literature is also provided.Findings – Findings indicate that the Kitengesa Community Library is a successful working model that might be used in other similar Rural villages to serve both...
Bharat Mehra - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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agriculture based community engagement in Rural Libraries
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 2021Co-Authors: Vandana Singh, Bharat Mehra, Everett Scott SikesAbstract:Community engagement in Rural Libraries receives little focus and is an overlooked area of research. In this article, we report exemplars of agriculture-based community engagement in Rural and Sout...
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Scenarios of technology use to promote community engagement: Overcoming marginalization and bridging digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian Rural Libraries
Information Processing & Management, 2020Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Everette Scott Sikes, Vandana SinghAbstract:Abstract This article identifies scenarios of technology use in Rural Libraries to promote community engagement in overcoming marginalization and bridging Rural digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region. The research is based on a qualitative content analysis of feedback collected from 15 Rural librarians in semi-structured interviews and three respondents each in five focus groups during 2017–2018. Select scenarios defined as typical experience-related representative narratives of technology use of Rural librarians serve as a tool to investigate their community-engaged initiatives. Respondents’ perspectives, behaviors, and experiences of technology use in community engagement selectively highlight their activities, collaborating partners, encountered challenges specific to the region, and the resulting outcomes of their initiatives. The article extends past theory-practice discourse in information science research to integrate impact that was documented in respondents’ community-engaged technology use behaviors in the SCA Rural environments. It explores a positive model of technology use and community engagement in the SCA Rural Libraries as a strategy to overcome marginalization and bridge Rural digital divides historically experienced in the region.
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scenarios of health engagement experiences and health justice in Rural Libraries
The International Journal of Information Diversity & Inclusion (IJIDI), 2019Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Everette Scott Sikes, Vandana SinghAbstract:This article documents scenarios or narratives of health engagement experiences in Rural Libraries based on qualitative analysis of feedback collected from 15 Rural librarians in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region during semi-structured interviews conducted in 2017-2018. The article focuses on respondents’ perspectives of the “aboutness” of their health-related engagement, collaborating partners, encountered challenges, and resulting outcomes. Scenarios were documented in broader interviews that focused on specific health activities and community engagement in 11 domains, including agriculture, diversity, economy, education, environment, government, health, law, manufacturing, social welfare, and other. The research forms part of a planning grant entitled “Assessment of Rural Library Professionals’ Role in Community Engagement in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region: Mobilization from Change Agents to Community Anchors (CA2CA@SCA-RL)” awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Tennessee, sub-contracted to the University of Alabama this year (July 2017 – June 2019). Scenarios provide a taxonomic classification of health-related programs relevant to the region and a framework of practice related to their implementation. As a health justice tool, they also challenge the hegemonic imagination of mainstream American society, news media, and popular culture that has only presented the SCA Rural belt in deficit light. The article becomes a counter-point to these past unfair and marginalizing representations in its constructive asset recognition of the SCA Rural librarians’ positive examples of health-related experiences. It spotlights the “invisible” of SCA librarians’ individual/community empowerment as change agents making an impact on the lives of their Rural residents.
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a model of community engaged scholarship across institutional borders to assess the role of Rural Libraries in community engagement in the southern and central appalachia
Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS Actes du congrès annuel de l'ACSI, 2019Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Vandana Singh, Everette Scott SikesAbstract:The paper explores a model of community-engaged scholarship developed in a planning grant entitled “Assessment of Rural Library Professionals’ Role in Community Engagement in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region: Mobilization from Change Agents to Community Anchors (CA2CA@SCA-RL)” awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Tennessee, recently sub-contracted to the University of Alabama (July 2017 – June 2019). It provides insights bridging “institutional borders” at multiple levels to spotlight “invisible voices” of Rural librarians and glimpses best practices in community engagement that might be relevant to other Rural areas historically facing similarly challenging socio-cultural/socio-economic circumstances.
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mobilization of Rural Libraries toward political and economic change in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election
The Library Quarterly, 2017Co-Authors: Bharat MehraAbstract:AbstractThe 2016 presidential election in the United States was unprecedented in the extent of bitter divisiveness between the candidates’ campaigns, the complex factors attributed to the unexpected results, and the difficult years in which the nation will reel from the short- and long-term effects. In its aftermath, an aggravated, broken nation extends Rural Libraries an extraordinary charge to help mend the splinters and move forward in their local environments. They have an opening to take ownership of a compelling responsibility as agents of democracy toward political, economic, and civic recovery. This think piece analyzes the implications of the 2016 presidential election for Rural Libraries primarily as information service providers that can aggressively further political information literacy, fluency, and advocacy and economic development as tools to nurture a more refined, responsive, respectful, and relevant form of democracy in the twenty-first century than what we have seen recently.
Vandana Singh - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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agriculture based community engagement in Rural Libraries
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 2021Co-Authors: Vandana Singh, Bharat Mehra, Everett Scott SikesAbstract:Community engagement in Rural Libraries receives little focus and is an overlooked area of research. In this article, we report exemplars of agriculture-based community engagement in Rural and Sout...
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Scenarios of technology use to promote community engagement: Overcoming marginalization and bridging digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian Rural Libraries
Information Processing & Management, 2020Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Everette Scott Sikes, Vandana SinghAbstract:Abstract This article identifies scenarios of technology use in Rural Libraries to promote community engagement in overcoming marginalization and bridging Rural digital divides in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region. The research is based on a qualitative content analysis of feedback collected from 15 Rural librarians in semi-structured interviews and three respondents each in five focus groups during 2017–2018. Select scenarios defined as typical experience-related representative narratives of technology use of Rural librarians serve as a tool to investigate their community-engaged initiatives. Respondents’ perspectives, behaviors, and experiences of technology use in community engagement selectively highlight their activities, collaborating partners, encountered challenges specific to the region, and the resulting outcomes of their initiatives. The article extends past theory-practice discourse in information science research to integrate impact that was documented in respondents’ community-engaged technology use behaviors in the SCA Rural environments. It explores a positive model of technology use and community engagement in the SCA Rural Libraries as a strategy to overcome marginalization and bridge Rural digital divides historically experienced in the region.
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scenarios of health engagement experiences and health justice in Rural Libraries
The International Journal of Information Diversity & Inclusion (IJIDI), 2019Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Everette Scott Sikes, Vandana SinghAbstract:This article documents scenarios or narratives of health engagement experiences in Rural Libraries based on qualitative analysis of feedback collected from 15 Rural librarians in the Southern and Central Appalachian (SCA) region during semi-structured interviews conducted in 2017-2018. The article focuses on respondents’ perspectives of the “aboutness” of their health-related engagement, collaborating partners, encountered challenges, and resulting outcomes. Scenarios were documented in broader interviews that focused on specific health activities and community engagement in 11 domains, including agriculture, diversity, economy, education, environment, government, health, law, manufacturing, social welfare, and other. The research forms part of a planning grant entitled “Assessment of Rural Library Professionals’ Role in Community Engagement in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region: Mobilization from Change Agents to Community Anchors (CA2CA@SCA-RL)” awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Tennessee, sub-contracted to the University of Alabama this year (July 2017 – June 2019). Scenarios provide a taxonomic classification of health-related programs relevant to the region and a framework of practice related to their implementation. As a health justice tool, they also challenge the hegemonic imagination of mainstream American society, news media, and popular culture that has only presented the SCA Rural belt in deficit light. The article becomes a counter-point to these past unfair and marginalizing representations in its constructive asset recognition of the SCA Rural librarians’ positive examples of health-related experiences. It spotlights the “invisible” of SCA librarians’ individual/community empowerment as change agents making an impact on the lives of their Rural residents.
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a model of community engaged scholarship across institutional borders to assess the role of Rural Libraries in community engagement in the southern and central appalachia
Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS Actes du congrès annuel de l'ACSI, 2019Co-Authors: Bharat Mehra, Vandana Singh, Everette Scott SikesAbstract:The paper explores a model of community-engaged scholarship developed in a planning grant entitled “Assessment of Rural Library Professionals’ Role in Community Engagement in the Southern and Central Appalachian Region: Mobilization from Change Agents to Community Anchors (CA2CA@SCA-RL)” awarded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services to the University of Tennessee, recently sub-contracted to the University of Alabama (July 2017 – June 2019). It provides insights bridging “institutional borders” at multiple levels to spotlight “invisible voices” of Rural librarians and glimpses best practices in community engagement that might be relevant to other Rural areas historically facing similarly challenging socio-cultural/socio-economic circumstances.
Alexis Schrubbe - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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the digital inclusion role of Rural Libraries social inequalities through space and place
Media Culture & Society, 2020Co-Authors: Sharon Strover, Colin Rhinesmith, Brian E. Whitacre, Alexis SchrubbeAbstract:A great deal of scholarship on broadband deployment and federal policies has positioned Rural America through a deficit framework: Rural parts of the country have older populations (and therefore n...
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Libraries, the National Digital Platform, and Inclusion
2017Co-Authors: Sharon Strover, Colin Rhinesmith, Brian E. Whitacre, Alexis SchrubbeAbstract:Wireless hotspot lending programs are gaining popularity through library systems in several major cities in the U.S. Portable hotspot devices allow a patron to “take home” the Internet from the library, and are premised on providing free, cellular-based mobile access for Internet-ready devices in the home, usually to people who indicate they lack home-based broadband. In 2015, the New York Public Library partnered with the Maine State Library and the Kansas State Library to fund Rural hotspot lending programs in small Rural community Libraries. Extending the reach of Internet-based services in this fashion is a new addition to Rural Libraries’ functions, and this research seeks to how these programs impact the users and small communities where they operate. Extremely Rural areas typically have less robust Internet services available commercially and lower home broadband adoption levels; research suggests the prices for fixed broadband services are sometimes much higher than the local populations can afford. Local Libraries are typically the only site where people in these communities can access the Internet for free and/or at reasonably fast speeds. As more educational, health, government and commercial services migrate to and assume user Internet access, Libraries stand out as particularly prized sites for these purposes in Rural towns. Under a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, our research assesses hotspot lending initiatives in 6 Rural Libraries in Maine and 18 Libraries in Kansas. Most of the communities in the sample face several economic challenges. The hotspot programs themselves are fairly small (as are the communities in which they operate), but they provide insights into the role and operations of information seeking in areas bereft of many alternative sources while also providing a way to examine how Libraries extend Internet access into underserved areas. The research investigates 1) how Rural Libraries implement and operate a hotspot-lending program; 2) their potential economic impacts in the community; 3) and larger community outcomes that might be associated with increased connectivity in Rural areas. Our team of researchers investigated these outcomes through site visits to the Libraries and their counties and towns, where librarians and local stakeholders - elected officials, school personnel, local telecommunications providers – provided qualitative data regarding Internet access, the hotspot program, and local information needs. In our current research phase, we are conducting focus groups with users in several sites, and also developing a quantitative database by surveying a broader population of users. In this paper we share the results of focus groups with patrons who utilized the device and characterize how this particular program may or may not influence broader information seeking and the use of various Internet-delivered services. Although our research project will not conclude until January of 2018, we will have sufficient data by fall, 2017 in order to characterize the Internet environment of our Rural sites. We will address where Libraries in Rural America “fit” in the circulation and retrieval of information, and more broadly in the national picture of digital inclusion. Data collection for this study is still ongoing, but preliminary findings from qualitative interviews with library staff have resulted in clear definitions of the challenges and opportunities unique to remote areas implementing a hotspot-lending program. Our qualitative data from focus group meetings and personal interviews detail myriad creative ways that Rural hotspot users and local institutions find and utilize connectivity that affects the civic, and sometimes economic, affairs of their households and their communities.
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The Perils and Possibilities of the Urban Library as Digital Inclusion Institution
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2016Co-Authors: Sharon Strover, Alexis SchrubbeAbstract:Recently several Libraries in the U.S. have sought to extend their services and ameliorate local digital divides by instituting hotspot lending programs. These programs essentially move Internet connectivity into people’s homes by loaning out devices that connect to 3G or 4G cellular networks, and then allow patrons subsidized access to the Internet from anywhere on that network. The largest one, in New York City, has loaned 10,000 hotspot devices, targeting people with no home broadband service. New York Public Library (NYPL) partnered with Rural Libraries in Maine and Kansas to develop hotspot lending programs. Other library programs in St. Paul, Chicago, Kansas City, Seattle, and Bellingham, Massachusetts also are experimenting with providing their users loaned devices that use cell phone networks to provide simultaneous, at-home connectivity capable of supporting several devices (such as desktop computers, tablets, or mobile phones). Non-profit Mobile Beacon, a hotspot and connectivity broker working with many hotspot lending programs, cites possible benefits associated with these programs, including providing opportunities for children to do homework at home using the Internet and thus reducing the “homework gap;” searching for job opportunities; staying in touch with distant family; and facilitating seniors as they search for health information. However, to date there has been no formal, publicly available investigation of the library hotspot programs. The research reported here examines several questions associated with supporting this cost-effective method of providing home-based Internet connectivity. It aims to shed light on policy options for urban broadband challenges even as many larger cities are embarking on their own Digital Inclusion programs and as the FCC transitions to a universal service program espousing a threshold broadband service. Our core questions examine: (1) the affordances in offering a subsidized, relatively easy but still limited source of home-based broadband to distinctive urban populations and environments; and (2) the role of locally-based access and expertise represented by Libraries specifically. Library hotspot programs could remediate broadband access, but beyond that Libraries offer teaching and support roles that are neighborhood-based. Should they be a significant part of the solution to the current digital divide? Initiated in December, 2015, our research on New York City’s hotspot program - the largest in the country – includes some user survey data as well as the results of focus groups with users. While this study is ongoing, preliminary data suggest the program successfully reached a low income population, and that the types of Internet uses were varied but included instrumental applications such as continuing education and employment. While the intended population of parents with school-age children was not as present as anticipated, there was clear evidence of a widespread need for affordable Internet. The users were not Internet naifs, but there is some evidence that the longer connection availability afforded by having a hotspot increased both skills levels and confidence with the Internet. The hotspots appeared to assist with homework gap problems, and the data suggest that adults outside of a child’s direct family also had a role in assisting with Internet-based homework.
Mohamed, Nor Aini - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Understanding the reading habit and attitudes among the Rural community in low literacy rate areas in Malaysia: Rural library perspectives
'Emerald', 2020Co-Authors: Samsuddin, Samsul Farid, Mohamed Shaffril, Hayrol Azril, Bolong Jusang, Mohamed, Nor AiniAbstract:Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reading habit and attitude among Rural communities in the low literacy rate areas in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: Multi-stage cluster and simple random sampling were employed and 400 respondents who live nearby the Rural library were selected. Findings: Moderate levels of reading attitude were obtained from the result of the study, in which several variables produced a significant relationship in the reading attitude (education level, household income and time spent in reading). Practical implications: Better understanding on the reading habit and attitude among Rural communities could produce better information on the service provision towards the establishment of Rural Libraries in low literacy rate areas in Malaysia. This would also increase the utilisation of reading sources and services provided. Originality/value: The paper provides better understanding on the reading habit and attitude among the Rural communities in the low literacy rate areas in using the facilities provided by the Rural Libraries. The findings may be useful to the Rural literacy and library development community in the developing countries
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Understanding the reading habit and attitudes among the Rural community in low literacy rate areas in Malaysia
'Emerald', 2020Co-Authors: Samsuddin, Samsul Farid, Mohamed Shaffril, Hayrol Azril, Bolong Jusang, Mohamed, Nor AiniAbstract:Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reading habit and attitude among Rural communities in the low literacy rate areas in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach: Multi-stage cluster and simple random sampling were employed and 400 respondents who live nearby the Rural library were selected. Findings: Moderate levels of reading attitude were obtained from the result of the study, in which several variables produced a significant relationship in the reading attitude (education level, household income and time spent in reading). Practical implications: Better understanding on the reading habit and attitude among Rural communities could produce better information on the service provision towards the establishment of Rural Libraries in low literacy rate areas in Malaysia. This would also increase the utilisation of reading sources and services provided. Originality/value: The paper provides better understanding on the reading habit and attitude among the Rural communities in the low literacy rate areas in using the facilities provided by the Rural Libraries. The findings may be useful to the Rural literacy and library development community in the developing countries. © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited
