The Kitengesa Community Library is a small library built from the ground up near the rural village of Kitengesa, Uganda. The library, formally opened in 2002, currently has a collection of over 1,000 books, and a small staff who work with the community and local secondary school to provide access to books and other services to roughly 50 members of the community and over 300 school students. During the summer of 2004, researchers, both librarians from the Hunter College Libraries, traveled to Kitengesa to study the use and users of this library. The research focused on who in the community uses the library, how they use the library, an analysis of the collection, and the impact the library has had on the community. The methodology included several means for gathering data, including observation of library use, focus groups, individual interviews, and home visits, as well as examination of library circulation and membership information kept in a database. The findings consist of several implications for ongoing development of the library, including the importance of the library to local teachers, and the impact of the library on classroom activities and learning; differences in the reading habits of boys and girls who use the library and some possible reasons for those differences; and how the collection of reading materials in local languages and about local situations might be key in terms of community libraries and the development of a reading culture elsewhere in Africa.

ABSTRACT

Purpose -This paper seeks to address the administration of Standardized Assessment of Information Literacy Skills (SAILS), the use of SAILS report data, and respondent perceptions of the utility of SAILS at institutions that comprise the "All Institutions Benchmark" -the institutions which participated in the SAILS testing through the Spring 2007 testing period. Design/methodology/approach -An online survey was used to collect qualitative and quantitative data for the study. Overall response rate for the survey was 63.9 percent. Disregarding unusable responses, the response rate for the data analysis was 57.8 percent. Findings -The large majority of institutions used convenience sampling in administering SAILS. With regard to the SAILS report data, there are indications that those institutions that received support for data analysis were more likely to find the results useful; the utility of the SAILS report data can also be correlated with institutional type. Practical implications -Results from this study suggest that SAILS can be most effective if there is statistical/institutional research support for data analysis, if the sampling method for selecting test takers is more rigorous, if SAILS is used in conjunction with other instruments, and if the SAILS data is correlated with other institutional data. Originality/value -There have been few published studies on the large-scale administration of standardized information literacy assessments. Moreover, there has been no other published research study assessing multiple institutions' experience of administering SAILS and using SAILS results. Institutions interested in the use of SAILS and other well-known standardized information literacy tests will find this paper especially relevant.