The Problems of Tertiary Publishing in Africa and Implications for Training and Education of Library and Information Professionals |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Clinical Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China;2. Key Laboratory of Animal Biotechnology of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China;3. College of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Qing Hai University, Xining, Qinghai, China;4. Department of Preventive Veterinary Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shaanxi, China |
| |
| Abstract: | Trainees in the library and information profession in Africa depend on textbooks that are written for an environment other than Africa because of the dearth of textbooks suited to the local environment. There are very few books that attempt to focus on Africa and none of these books can really be used as a basic text for teaching. This has greatly affected the training of library and information professionals in Africa as the trainees are exposed to the situations in Europe, America and Asia which are generally not relevant to the African environment. Several factors have been identified as responsible for the lack of African library and information science textbooks, including the relatively young age of the profession resulting in a low number of professionals in Africa that have the required expertise to write textbooks. The attitude of publishers to tertiary textbooks is another limiting factor, as they are not likely to make a profit given the small number of trainees in the continent. In short, publishers regard such a venture as non-profitable because of the limited market. Another problem is the lack of interest on the part of professional associations in the continent to promote the writing of textbooks. In order to ameliorate these problems, it is recommended that professionals in the continent should participate in team authorship, by drawing from a pool of expertise, with a view to writing relevant textbooks. Also, there is a need for professional associations and the relevant international agencies to promote the publishing of textbooks. Finally, there is a need for retired information professionals in the continent to form a consortium of marketing outfits for the purpose of marketing and distributing textbooks on the African library and information profession throughout Africa. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
