Library and other Administrative Departments
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Item Assessment of Reengineered Library Services and Spaces for Improved User Experience in Universities in Kenya(Journal of Arts & Humanities, 2019-04) Musangi, Penninah S.; Odero, Damaris; Kwanya, TomInnovation and transformation have been synonymous with the library environment, as they strive to rethink the services they offer amidst the changing information landscape. This paper assesses the reengineered library services and spaces in universities. The paper demonstrates how university libraries in Kenya have reengineered their services and spaces variably in order to cope with the changes in the information landscape and for improved user experience. However, despite the strides made by libraries in responding to the changes in information landscape, there is reported mixed user experience on the reengineered services and spaces. A multiple case study approach of six purposively selected private and public university libraries in Kenya based on Webometric ranking as an indicator of reengineering was used. Data was collected through face-to-face interviews with 30 librarians and 25 focus groups of students. The study established that university libraries have reengineered their services to respond to the changes and nurture a competitive advantage, but users still associate libraries with the traditional services. Additionally, reengineering has not had an effect on the satisfaction levels and usage of the library. The authors conclude that reengineering library services and spaces in universities has not improved user experience. The study recommends continuous reviews of the reengineered services for improvements or redesign; involvement of library users in the redesign of the services, and promotion of the reengineered services.Item Management of university research output in digital era: A case of Strathmore university library(research gate, 2013-07) Musangi, Penninah S.; Sawe, Emily CheronoToday scholarly information is being produced in digital format unlike few years ago when scholars used to present their work in a hard format.Kanyengo (2009) notes that creators of knowledge and publishers of knowledge and everyone who is involved in the production of knowledge prefer the electronic format.A lot of digital content is now being produced in the scholarly world and this has brought serious and pressing issues in the access, preservation an dissemination of the content. This paper will highlight Strathmore university’s experience in using institutional repository to manage their research output, the benefits and the challenges they faced.Item Open access initiatives in Kenya: The role of the librarian(research gate, 2017-07) Musangi, Penninah S.Open access has brought a revolution in scientific publishing. It has brought about a new business model which allows everyone to read scientific publications free of charge. Open access has been touted as an answer to the high cost of subscriptions for scientific journals amidst reducing budgets. Historically, librarians play a key role to collect, store and disseminate scientific outputs. Nowadays librarians are central in disseminating research outputs by creating and managing institutional repositories. The technological transformations in publishing have put the librarians in the limelight in terms of professional knowledge and skills in the new scholarly communication systems. This calls for rethinking of the place of the librarian by universities as research and scientific publishing are central to any institution of higher learning. The objectives of the study were to examine the level of open access awareness among librarians, establish the existing open access initiatives in universities in Kenya, investigate the role played by librarians in supporting open access initiatives and determine the challenges faced by librarians in open access publishing. Data was collected from librarians in Kenya using a questionnaire and analyzed thematically guided by the objectives. It was found that librarians in Kenya are involved in creating awareness about open access, establishing institutional repositories, uploading content, and creating metadata, among others. However, it was also found that there are various challenges which continue to bedevil the uptake of open access. Some of these include lack of familiarity with the technical standards related to open archiving as well as a negative attitude by teaching faculty and doubts about the quality of open access content. The study recommends to libraries to establish open access advocacy programs; sign open access petitions and mandates; as well develop and implement open access policies.