Digitizing the intellectual output of Ghanaian universities

Abstract

Purpose With the emergence of ranking of universities by organizations, one major factor considered in the rankings is the intellectual output of the universities. For universities to remain part of the global academic competitive society, intellectual output of universities can no longer be stored on shelves in libraries. Academic libraries have engaged in digitization of the intellectual works of their institutions which is a core mandate of any academic library. The purpose of this study is to ascertain the state of digitization initiatives among university libraries in Ghana. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative approach was adopted. Nine top universities in Ghana were selected to participate in this study. Interviews were conducted with heads of libraries. Findings The findings of the study revealed that seven out of the nine libraries studied have embarked on some sort of digitization initiative, and all libraries studied are using the same digital asset management system (Dspace). Major challenges reported by the participants that are common to all the libraries studied are lack of adequate and modern equipment, lack of trained personnel and lack of cooperation from faculty members. Originality/value This study brought fore the initiatives undertaken by academic libraries in Ghana to establish and maintain institutional repositories (IRs) amidst a number of challenges. It is a major contribution to the literature from West Africa as not much literature on IR is found from this part of the world.

Institutional repository infrastructure: a survey of Ghanaian public universities

“…The results in Table 3 indicate that 65.1% of the respondents agreed to a high extent (means = 3.85 and SD = 1.14) that the lack of technical staff for system development and management of IRs poses a great challenge to the sustainability of IRs in public universities in Ghana. This is in line with findings by previous studies that found that the technological expertise to effectively manage repositories or other IT systems is either non-existent in most academic libraries in Africa or inadequate (Dzandza, 2020; Oguche, 2018). This is a conundrum, as it seems that the library profession keeps evolving, but its professionals do not seem to be abreast with the needed skills and competencies to keep pace with changes within their own profession.…”

Is research with qualitative data more prevalent and impactful now? Interviews, case studies, focus groups and ethnographies

“…In these cases, some of the interviews might be with people in senior or creative roles (e.g., managers, artists), and focus groups would be inappropriate for this type of application. For example, one Arts and Humanities study interviewed heads of libraries in Ghana (Dzandza, 2019) and another conducted "interviews with stakeholders" from the cultural industry in Syria (Kousa & Pottgiesser, 2019). In a similar Business, Management and Accounting example, "18 semi-structured interviews were carried out with chief investigators" (DeSisto, Cavanagh, & Bartram, 2019).…”

Institutional repositories in South India: an exploratory study

“…The selection of software is one of the most important things to note while establishing an IR. DSpace is an important software used by most institutions to create an IR (Kuchma and Rosenblum, 2010;Sawant, 2011;Moulaison, 2015;Pinfield, 2014;Dzandza, 2019).In the USA, the usage of home-grown metadata was very high in repositories (Park and Tosaka, 2010;Moulaison, 2015). Likewise, Kenfield (2019) found that slightly more than half of ARL IRs do provide metadata documentation in their websites.…”

“…Tremendous studies have been conducted on IRs' benefits and challenges, their growth and user perception and the general features of open-access repositories, including the software used, subject coverage and type of institution (Narayan and Luca, 2017;Dubinsky, 2014;Shajitha and Abdul Majeed, 2018;Oguz and Assefa, 2014;Nunda and Elia, 2019;Pinfield et al, 2014;Dzandza, 2019;Ukwoma et al, 2019). However, very few comprehensive studies have evaluated IRs in depth.…”