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The purpose of this paper is to examine the levels of motivation and needs satisfaction of academic library employees, adopting Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to examine individuals’ motivation.

The study collects and analyzes quantitative survey data. The research population comprises 108 employees working across eight college libraries at Kuwait University.

While participants generally agreed that their needs were being satisfied at each of the five levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, they reported higher levels of satisfaction of their self-actualization and social needs. Self-actualization is the summit of Maslow’s motivation theory representing the quest for reaching one’s full potential as a person.

One limitation is the relatively small sample size due to Kuwait having only one public university. Future research could overcome this limitation by investigating both private and public universities.

This research contributes significantly and in various ways to understanding motivation in a library setting. It elucidates many aspects of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory criticized in previous literature. Overall, the study’s results should be useful to scholars in the library field interested in motivation, to academic librarians and to managers in academia.

Though many prior studies have focused on motivation in a library setting, Maslow’s theory has been little considered in the context of academic libraries. This study uses a theoretical framework based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to understand and explain the levels of motivation and needs satisfaction of academic library employees.

Using the Association of Research Libraries' SPEC KIT 303 library assessment framework, this study examines and evaluates academic libraries' efforts toward establishing a culture of assessment.

A quantitative questionnaire is employed to collect data. The sample comprises 70 library staff working in eight academic libraries in public and private universities in Kuwait.

The findings document a readiness to create a culture of assessment in Kuwaiti academic libraries, though this was greater in private universities. Resources to develop this culture, such as assessment and analysis methods and the requisite skills and knowledge, are available, but commitment from academic leaders and plans for a shift toward culture of assessment were not evident. Overall, participating academic library staff acknowledged the value of developing a culture of assessment, but this seems not to be an institutional priority

The methodology and findings address gaps in library and information science education and library management on creating a culture of assessment and suggest future research avenues.

Library assessment is a core function of libraries, but guaranteeing the continuity and consistency of related activities requires an organizational culture that facilitates and supports such assessment. While many articles have focused on the requisites for building a culture of assessment in higher education, few, if any, have assessed academic libraries in the cultural context of the Middle East.

To take full advantage of the unprecedented availability of information on networks and digital systems, professionals need to be comfortable finding information relevant to the tasks at hand. This study was conducted at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research to investigate scientists’ personal information management (PIM) practices.

A qualitative research approach was used. Critical incidents were collected to probe information about PIM activities. The PIM-related critical incidents were gathered through extended conversations in the form of semi-structured interviews.

Extended conversations revealed that scientists were aware of the importance of information organization and management. They collected and received information from various sources regarding their tasks and saved part of the information for future use. Scientists organized saved information into named folders using the categories of projects, clients and planning. The files were updated by regular deletion and cleaning. Different strategies were used to retrieve the information. These included searching by keywords and file names, and browsing using the folder structure. Scientists have used various PIM tools. They reported that time pressure, information overload and anxiety due to information fragmentation were major challenges in PIM.

This study recommends a compilation of guidelines to assist scientists in the efficient management of personal information. As there are only a few studies currently available in the literature on scientists’ PIM, this study makes a valuable contribution to the relevant professional literature.

This study aims to research knowledge-sharing behavior and social capital from a pedagogical perspective. It explores the facilitating role of face-to-face and online interactions in social capital development to understand how the formation of a specific form of social capital nurtures knowledge-sharing behaviors.

A qualitative approach used interviews and a focus group to collect data from 20 teachers in different positions and subject areas.

For face-to-face interactions to form social capital, learning communities must develop features including shared vision, shared language, trust-building and self-development and foster identification with and commitment to the community. Of all the categories of pedagogical content knowledge exchanged among teachers, teachers seek knowledge of general pedagogy, representations and strategies and knowledge of curriculum and media more than any others. However, when differentiating between online and face-to-face activities, knowledge of the curriculum and media is sought more frequently online. In contrast, the preferred way of learning about general pedagogy is through face-to-face activities. The choice of knowledge channel reflects the complexity of the types of knowledge needed and the type of social ties required to support this exchange.

The research is expected to expand understanding of how teachers develop their social capital and how social ties foster knowledge-sharing behaviors. This study suggests professional development activities and online professional learning platforms facilitate building social ties.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of libraries as community institutions by reflecting on the experience of the Ferguson Municipal Public Library (FMPL), Missouri, USA, during the time of social unrest in the summer of 2014. The research explores the traditional and non-traditional roles of libraries during times of social unrest while focusing on relevant areas of crisis management preparedness and competencies necessary during crisis.

The study adopts a qualitative approach in investigating the research problem and uses the case study method to collect relevant data.

This paper reports on the experience of the FMPL staff during this time. Their experience of what happened, how they dealt with it, and what their expectations were after the crisis are all documented.

Several scholars have studied how public libraries respond to disasters, yet little is known about whether public libraries proactively engage in community-wide disaster planning, and if so, what is the nature of those partnerships.

Knowledge organization (KO) content is central to educational programs of library and information science (LIS) and information and knowledge management (KM) programs. The components of information and KO have similar philosophies, theories, approaches, strategies and tools. LIS education programs have strong traditions of teaching KO. Fresh emphasis is noted on metadata, data mining, info-maps, knowledge maps, taxonomy, ontologies and other strategies for organizing an organization’s explicit and tacit knowledge. This paper aims to analyze how LIS schools have responded to the needs of developing competencies related to information and KO among its graduates.

This study analyzed the curricula of LIS accredited schools and leading schools in selected regions of the world based on the course titles presented on their websites.

This analysis provided an overall picture of the coverage of KO courses in LIS programs of 68 selected schools located in Southeast Asia, the Europe and accredited schools of North America.

The paper is limited to the treatment of KO in 68 selected programs of LIS education.

Library and information education programs may benefit from the findings for incorporating needed content in KO coursework.

The study is ground-breaking as it addresses the needs of development of KO competencies among LIS professionals from the perspective of findings of a systematic study of the curricula of 68 schools.