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Wednesday, December 26, 2007

More on the variety of access barriers

Akobundu Dike Ugah and Michael Okpara, Obstacles to Information Access and Use in Developing Countries, Library Philosophy and Practice 2007.  Excerpt:

Experts have identified various obstacles to information access and use. Uhegbu...identifies five: economic, social, environmental, occupational, and infrastructure. Etim...lists seven, including physical infrastructure, technical, and managerial capabilities, among others, though her work focused mainly on scientific and technological information. This paper will discuss obstacles in the following areas: lack of awareness; inaccessibility; information explosion; bibliographic obstacles: environment; poor infrastructure; declining budgets and rising costs; costs for users; staff attitude toward users; and crime.