Search results

A brief history of paper is given and an overview of conservation and preservation efforts throughout the world is presented. The causes of deterioration of bibliographic resources are traced to inherent factors, external factors and structural failure. A number of preservation and restoration practices available immediately are discussed. The responsibility of the Federal Government, of the National Library and of other libraries throughout Nigeria is emphasised.

The resources and services of the Federal Polytechnic Library, Bauchi, are evaluated with a view to understanding better the problems of polytechnic libraries in a developing country like Nigeria. A brief historical background of the polytechnic is given. An analysis of a questionnaire administered to library users is presented and recommendations made for improvement of both resources and services of the Federal Polytechnic Library.

The paper gives brief background information on the evolution of university education in Ghana since 1948. It then attempts to explain the concept of status and the parameters of academic librarianship. The main objective of this paper was to find out the current status of librarians in Ghanian universities. To achieve this, data were gathered from the three older university libraries in the country through a questionnaire. It was found out that there was no consensus on the status of universities in Ghana. It then gives several suggestions to improve on the academic status of librarians in Ghana.

Surveys factors affecting the reading habits of secondary school students in Ogbomoso State in Nigeria and discusses the results. Highlights the following inhibiting factors: the family background of students where few homes are conducive to reading owing to noise and lack of reading materials; the lack of functional libraries in most of the schools surveyed and a similar lack of trained librarians or teacher librarians; the failure to provide library periods in schools; language teachers and shortage of equipment and resources for teaching reading skills; and a heavy reliance on school texts, although students show willingness to read more broadly, e.g. newspapers and novels.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the growing trends in the trade in counterfeit products, in the context of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Counterfeiting and sale of counterfeit products is a global economic problem. It covers different sectors of the economy and is present in almost all countries of the world. This is the subject of increased interest, not only of institutions and organisations working on solving this global problem, but also of the scientific and professional community, which seeks to point out different domains of this problem, as well as measures to eliminate its effects. The increased share of trade in counterfeit products in international trade is worrying. New problems arise with the entry of the world economy into the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In such circumstances, or in the so-called new normality or reality, there have been some changes in the field of trade in counterfeit products. So we can talk about the ‘old’ topic in the ‘new’ reality. Thus, numerous questions have been opened about the trends in the trade in counterfeit products. The obtained results of the desk research in this chapter make an attempt to give an answer to these questions. Thus, in addition to the discussion of counterfeiting and counterfeit products as a global economic problem and crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the subject of a special discussion will be trends in trade in counterfeit products, both in the world and in the Republic of Serbia, while pointing to the measures and instruments that can be applied in order to prevent and eliminate the negative effects of this phenomenon.

Purpose – Entrepreneurship development has become a goal of many countries to achieve economic development. Islamic economics is concerned with marketing, trading, business and entrepreneurship activities. This chapter examines the role of entrepreneurship development in Islamic economics.

Methodology/approach – This chapter is purely theoretical in nature. Thus, the Glorious Qur’an, Hadith and other related documents are its major sources.

Findings – The discussion reveals that entrepreneurship development has the potential to promote economic growth and development, employment, self-reliance and national growth. The discussion identifies a lack of capital and financial support as a principal obstacle to the development of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. This chapter further reveals that the success of entrepreneurship development and other commercial activities requires organisation in terms of coordination, networking and sharing of resources, as well as cooperation between government, public sector, private sector and enterprise.

Originality/value –The chapter is original in its form and arrangement having emerged as a novel attempt and the first of its kind. The chapter has a pearl of value to the Islamic economists, entrepreneurs, academic circle, and all those who may consider it relevant for application in their desirable business and cherish the value of its standing.

Highlights the concept of “barefoot librarianship” to make the provision of library services more relevant to traditional African people who are largely non‐literate. Enumerates the constraints of the full implementation and practice of this type of grassroots information service which includes poor staffing, equipment, finance, accommodation, etc. Identifies the special training needed for the barefoot librarian who is seen as information specialist, information professional, librarian‐field‐worker and photo‐journalist. Concludes by reiterating that the concept is not a misnomer as it recognizes the peculiarities of the people of Africa and their information needs, as well as the imperatives of modern information techniques.

In terms of the concept of broken home as a juvenile delinquency risk factor, whilst Nigeria and Ghana are culturally different from western nations (Gyekye, 1996; Hofstede, 1980; Smith, 2004), parental death (PDE) and parental divorce (PDI) have been previously taken-for-granted as one factor, that is ‘broken home’. This paper aims to deconstruct the singular model of ‘broken home’ and propose a binary model – the parental death and parental divorce hypotheses, with unique variables inherent in Nigerian/Ghanaian context.

It principally deploys the application of Goffman’s (1967) theory of stigma, anthropological insights on burial rites and other social facts (Gyekye, 1996; Mazzucato et al., 2006; Smith, 2004) to tease out diversity and complexity of lives across cultures, which specifically represent a binary model of broken home in Nigeria/Ghana. It slightly appraises post-colonial insights on decolonization (Agozino, 2003; Said, 1994) to interrogate both marginalized and mainstream literature.

Thus far, analyses have challenged the homogenization of the concept broken home in existing literature. Qualitatively unlike in the ‘West’, analyses have identified the varying meanings/consequences of parental divorce and parental death in Nigeria/Ghana.

Unlike existing data, this paper has contrasted the differential impacts of parental death and parental divorce with more refined variables (e.g. the sociocultural penalties of divorce such as stigma in terms of parental divorce and other social facts such as burial ceremonies, kinship nurturing, in relation to parental death), which helped to fill in the missing gap in comparative criminology literature.

This paper aims to examine the impact of the assurance and advisory role of internal audit (ADRIA) on organisational, human and technical proactive measures to enhance cybersecurity (CS).

The questionnaire was used to collect data for 97 internal auditors (IAu) from the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The authors used partial least squares (PLS) to test the hypotheses.

The results show a positive effect of the ADRIA on each of the organisational proactive measures, human proactive measures and technical proactive measures to enhance CS. The study also found a positive effect of the confirmatory role of IA on both human proactive measures and technical proactive measures to enhance CS. No effect of the confirmatory role of IA on the organisational proactive measures is found.

This study focused on only three proactive measures to enhance CS, and this study was limited to the opinions of IAu. In addition, the study was limited to using regression analysis according to the PLS method.

The results of this study show that managers need to consider the influential role of IA as a value-adding activity in reducing CS risks and activating proactive measures. Also, IAu must expand its capabilities, skills and knowledge in CS auditing to provide a bold view of cyber threats. At the same time, the institutions responsible for preparing IA standards should develop standards and guidelines that help IAu to play assurance and advisory roles.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that deals with the impact of the assurance and ADRIA on proactive measures to enhance CS. In addition, the study determines the nature of the advisory role and the assurance role of IA to strengthen CS.