These are, indeed, exciting and challenging times for library and information services worldwide, and the opportunities for their effective application in the African context are virtually limitless. In concluding this chapter, we should like to highlight three impor-tant aspects of African library and information ser-vices which may have tremendous implications for enhancing the health and progress of the region:
increased emphasis on indigenous knowledge sys-tems; greater attention to the productivity of library and information workers; and promotion of research dealing with the impact of information on decision-and policy-making processes.
Recent research and publication activities on African indigenous knowledge systems, especially from Southern Africa, are most welcome. But they are far too few, too uncoordinated and too poorly funded. African library and information workers need to champion a vigorous campaign for compre-hensive, longitudinal studies aimed at making lasting contributions to the world’s collective memory on all aspects of the exciting challenge posed by the topic.
At present, Africa’s productivity levels in library and information services would seem to rank among the lowest in the world. What are the para-meters of productivity improvement, especially in the context of strategic management, and how should the parameters be measured, vis-à-vis the parameters used to determine the productivity of other workers in a national economy? These are not easy questions, and we have no illusions that the answers to them will come easily or soon. But they
must be addressed now if the profession is to be per-ceived by policy-makers as belonging to the main-stream of African development efforts.
Finally, African library and information work-ers should be acutely concerned about the worth of their calling in a region in which so many other areas of activity – primary health-care delivery; provision of food, shelter and quality education; and poverty alleviation – generally cry out for immediate atten-tion by poorly endowed governments. And yet, a lit-tle reflection should remind us that effective library and information services underpin every decision and policy process everywhere, but particularly so in the context of Africa, which must survive to become an active part of a rapidly evolving Information Society of the Third Millennium. African govern-ments must be persuaded to recognize the strategic significance of investing substantially and continu-ously in the global research effort to determine the impact of information, especially in the context of development initiatives. After all, the immediate beneficiaries of the results of such research would most probably be the African peoples themselves.
Acknowledgements
So many libraries and information providers, within and outside Africa, contributed valuable resources for this chapter that we cannot possibly acknowl-edge them individually. However, one of them – the Library of IDRC Headquarters in Ottawa, Canada, and especially Bev Chataway, the Library’s Head of Research and Information Service – deserves our special gratitude. We are, of course, responsible for all errors of fact and interpretation found in the paper. ■■
Wilson O. Aiyepekuholds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography (1967) and a Ph.D. in Information Science (1973). He is a qualified librarian and Fellow of the Institute of Information
Scientists. He has taught library and information science since 1969 at the University of Ibadan, and was appointed professor in 1983. He has been Director of the Africa Regional Centre for Information Science (ARCIS) since October 1990. W. Aiyepeku has been an Editiorial Board member of the Journal of Information Science, Education for Information and Information Technology for Development since 1979, 1992 and 1995 respectively. Current research and publication activities focus on development
information systems, information in public policy, and education for information. He has consulted for numerous institutions and many international organizations, including the Council for the Development of Economic and Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA), the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, UNESCO and the World Bank/Global Environment Facility.
Wilson O. Aiyepeku Director and Professor
Africa Regional Centre for Information Science (ARCIS)
University of Ibadan 6 Benue Road, P.O. Box 22133 Ibadan, Nigeria
Tel: 2-8103621
Fax: 2-8103610/2-8103154 E-mail: library @ibadan.ac.ng
Helen O. Komolafeholds a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies and a Master’s degree in Library Studies – both from the University of Ibadan, in 1986 and 1989 respectively. She has
practised medical librarianship at the E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, since 1990, and is an active member of the Nigerian Library Association.
Helen O. Komolafe Librarian Medical Library College of Medicine University of Ibadan Ibadan, Nigeria
T
he changes in the social and political systems in the countries of Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have had an impact on the national R&D systems and as a consequence have led to changes in the information systems, their priorities and goals.The different political situations in the coun-tries of the region and the different rates of transition to a market economy have influenced the develop-ment of information and library systems in the vari-ous countries. To assess the changes in these coun-tries, to help preserve accumulated knowledge in the form of databases and to help integration into the world information market, two organizations – the German National Research Centre for Information Technologies (GMD) and the International Centre for Scientific and Technical Information (ICSTI) in Moscow – conducted a study covering twenty-one countries in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. A pilot study in 1992 dealt with database production and services (Courage and Butrimenko, 1993), followed in 1993–95 by an inves-tigation of libraries and information centres as well as electronic information services (Courage and Butrimenko, 1996). Data collection and analysis was undertaken by thirty-five leading information centres and libraries in the countries involved. The studies provide information on 3,000 databases and 1,500 information organizations and libraries as well as an analysis of the structure, problems and devel-opments of the information market and information services.
In spite of many differences, there are also many similarities in the problems faced. These simi-larities were particularly obvious during the first three to four years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Comecon. Some of the countries of the region that started the transformation process earlier, such as Hungary, Poland and to some extent the Czech Republic, have already travelled a signifi-cant part of the road towards a new information and Information (ICSTI),
Russian Federation
library system; others, particularly the Caucasian and Asian states of the former Soviet Union, are at the very beginning of adaptation and restructuring.