Nowadays, open access (OA) in its diverse forms constitutes the most interesting and promising model for the research output of an academic or research institution. The purpose of the present study is to discuss the situation of OA in the developing world, with a focus on Bangladesh. The study also addresses why OA is important for developing countries and which initiatives have been taken in Bangladesh. Finally, we discuss some challenging issues of OA and suggestions on how to overcome these issues. It is rather obvious that developing countries have always faced a lack of research information and were unable to afford sufficient subscriptions to journals. The other side of the picture is the poor dissemination of the research outcome in the developing world. In Bangladesh, only three organizations have their institutional repository and have a reasonable number of local OA journals. We will identify some problems that impede the process of building open access IR, or more generally an OA environment in

Public libraries are very important social organizations in building knowledge based society. There are two types of public libraries in Bangladesh i.e. Government public libraries and Non-Government public libraries. This article concentrates on the status of Non-Government public libraries in Bangladesh. There is very few literature on Non-Government public libraries in Bangladesh. Currently there are 972 Non-Government public libraries running in Bangladesh. In gathering data on Non-Government public libraries in Bangladesh, the Directory of Non-Government Public Libraries published by National Book Centre is considered. A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) has been conducted to acquire comprehensive information about the status of Non-Government public libraries in Bangladesh. Eventually some problems of Non-Government public libraries have been addressed and as remedial measures a number of recommendations have been put forward by the authors. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/el.v23i1.12119 Eastern Librarian Vol.23(1) 2012 pp.91-104

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