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The present study focused on information literacy education through a unique research lens, i.e. the Delphi process in developing countries. The primary aim of the study is to formulate an information literacy framework for higher education.

In total 13 experts from the field, including academicians and practitioners, were invited to build consensus on the components of an information literacy curriculum for library and information sciences or management postgraduate students.

The Delphi process was completed in three reasonable rounds to build consensus on eight information literacy course units, including computer, research, critical, information, domain-specific knowledge and copyright literacies in line with learning and communication skills. The panelists considered computer, research and critical literacies as the most significant components of an information literacy curriculum for postgraduates.

The proposed framework of information literacy curriculum may have considerable implications for educators, practitioners and researchers.

The study is unique as it focuses on developing a contextual and comprehensive information literacy education framework for information professionals.

This study aims to contribute theoretically in the information literacy (IL) literature by presenting process-based framework at the primary education level. This study also investigated school children’s information-related tasks, their favored information sources and IL skills.

The study utilized qualitative research approach and multiple nested sequential case study design to explore the phenomenon.

The majority of children from public, private trust and unregistered schools were unable to present, organize, use and understand main ideas of given information. However, the elite economic class school children had good IL skills with few exceptions. Based on research findings, a process-based IL framework has been proposed at the primary education level.

The present study proposed a process-based IL framework which has practical implications for parents, librarians, teachers and policymakers.

The paper is based on doctoral research which is of significance to information professionals and educators.

The emergence of digital technological advances pushes educators for understanding and utilizing these technologies for classroom use. The current generation of teenagers has grown up in a networked world where everyone is immersed in technology-based gadgets in everyday life. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate video game-based academic and information literacy (IL) learning of teenagers of private schools of Lahore city. Lahore is the capital city of the province of Punjab. Literary works highlighted the importance of video games in developing academic and IL skills; therefore, the current research aims to reveal this fact in local context.

The present study adopted qualitative research design and utilized phenomenological research method to achieve study’s objectives. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews. The study participants were teenagers (aged 13‒19 years) of elite economic class of private schools where students normally owned latest video game gadgets.

Based on the study findings, it is elucidated that playing video games has a positive impact on teenagers’ learning, and it promotes quick thinking. The participants exert effort to achieve goals, take up challenges for completing different points at various stages of games and interact with online competitors. It enhanced their social communication, problem-solving and IL (searching/locating and evaluating) skills.

The present study has some limitations. First, sample is limited to elite economic private schools of Lahore. Second, the lack of availability of regular video game players has limited the sample size, as Pakistan is a developing country and limited numbers of teenagers use and can afford gaming gadgets. Lastly, the results of this study are based on students’ perceptions, so there is a need to measure actual learning with assessments.

The results of the study are beneficial for the game developers, teachers, librarians and parents. The education sector may support video games usability as learning tools.

The use of Twitter by political parties and politicians has been well studied in developed countries. However, there is a lack of empirical work, which has examined the use of Twitter in developing countries. This study aims to explore the information-sharing patterns of Pakistani politicians through Twitter accounts during the pre-election campaign of 2018.

Data of three weeks of the official party accounts and the politicians running for prime minister were analysed. The mixed-methods approach has been used to analyse quantitative and qualitative data retrieved through Twitonomy.

It was found that the most active Twitter account belonged to the winning party. The prominent Twitter account functions were a call to vote, promotional Tweets, promises and Tweeting about party developments. The present study provides evidence that there is a difference between the Tweeting behaviour of established and emerging parties. The emerging party heavily posted about changing traditional norms/culture/practices.

The study contributed to existing knowledge and has practical implications for politicians, citizens and social media planners.

The present study was designed carefully and based on empirical research. The study is unique in its nature to fill the research and knowledge gap by adding a variety of Twitter functions used by politicians.

This study presents a situated and context-bound model of electronic media reports by exploring their detailed information practices within the workplace actions. It further investigates the information sources they usually consult for news or story-making process and barriers that hinder them to acquire required information.

The data were collected through semistructured, face-to-face interviews of electronic media reporters from the top news channels of Pakistan. These reporters had international exposure while having 7–20 years of work experience with different news channels.

In relation to information practices, the model also highlights the seven steps involved in news-making process of electronic media. Initially inspired from Mckenzie's (2003) model of information practice, which was developed within the everyday life context, this model attempts to see the information practices of electronic media reporters situated at their workplaces and might be seen as an extension of previous works.

This study is a unique attempt to find patterns of information practices situated in their workplace actions. The results of this study would be helpful for librarians and information specialists, who are working in media house libraries for the planning and designing of library services.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-07-2020-0308

The purpose of the paper is to examine the current status of prison libraries, their role, services and collection in Pakistani context. It also attempts to highlight the main problems faced by selected libraries.

The qualitative research approach was adopted to achieve the study objectives. Data were collected using face-to-face interviews to find out respondents’ views about libraries in prison.

Findings of the study confirmed that inmates’ library queries are mostly related to the legal matters, and it is quite natural. One of the significant services of the Pakistani prison libraries is to help prisoners in their education. The main role of the library caretaker was to educate and offer rehabilitation programs. Unavailability of library space, lack of professional staff, limited collections, poor budgetary situation and censorship issues are the major challenges that Pakistani prison libraries are facing.

The study findings further implicate that open libraries and access to books would promote positivity within society and reduce criminal and immoral acts.

It is the first of its kind and unique study that presents the current situation of prison libraries in the Pakistani context. The study has practical implications for policymakers to give importance to prison libraries in terms of finance, professional staff and the availability of information sources.

Reporters are considered unique in terms of their information needs and seeking from other groups of masses. As they are running information business, the purpose of the study is to know about their skills of seeking, evaluating and engaging with information effectively and efficiently.

A cross-sectional survey was conducted with electronic media reporters from 20 news channels to assess their information literacy skills (IL) and personal information management practices (PIM).

The results indicated that the study’s participants considered themselves as information literate. They perceived themselves competent and confident in IL skills for the overall scale and on its all sub-dimensions as well. Interestingly, the study findings show that IL skills affect PIM practices positively. However, they were less competent in advanced searching techniques (i.e. use of Boolean logic, truncation etc.) and cloud-based storing tools and applications.

The study has inferences for information professionals, educators, media owners and other stakeholders. Policymakers in electronic media, particularly media libraries should offer training opportunities by organizing workshops, seminars etc. to enhance their advanced IL as well as PIM skills at workplace.

Very few studies investigated the IL phenomenon beyond its skills and assessment aspects. The present study uniquely identified impact of IL on PIM practices of working electronic media journalists.

This study aims to evaluate the usability of Google Drive (GD) in addition to measuring the effectiveness of GD and the challenges faced while using this cloud storage application among public library users of Lahore.

The study adopted a sequential explanatory mixed method design comprising the quantitative (QUAN) and qualitative (QUAL) parts. For the QUAN phase, a questionnaire survey was conducted among 384 users of public libraries through purposive sampling. For the QUAL phase, the think aloud technique was performed on several tasks during experiments and verbalized their thoughts and experiences while interacting with the system. The cloud usability model (CUM) was used to measure the “usability” of GD.

Findings indicated that most users were satisfied with GD's obvious features and inherent functions. QUAL results indicated that respondents did most tasks easily, whereas only some could complete the task.

The study is valuable as it is the first time used CUM to measure the perceived usability of GD. Second, the study used a mixed method study to get insights into perceived usability, effectiveness and challenges while using GD. The findings might be helpful for cloud support teams, including GD, as they can enhance certain features of usability, which lead to increased usage among users.

This research work is based on MPhil thesis.

This study aims to explore differences in the usability of the Google Drive application based on demographic characteristics, computer skills and use frequency of Google Drive among public library users of Lahore.

The study adopted a quantitative approach and survey-based research method to achieve the study's objectives. The cloud usability model (user perspective) has been used as a theoretical lens to guide the study objectives. It comprises five dimensions of usability – capable, personal, reliable, valuable and secure.

The findings of the study revealed that the usability of Google Drive varied statistically significantly on the basis of depending on the respondents gender, age, academic qualification, computer skills and Google Drive use frequency.

It is a valuable study since it and adds knowledge to existing literature and has implications for practice.

The findings might be helpful for cloud support teams including Google Drive as they can notice the demographic and other differences among users' perceived usability of Google Drive and can enhance certain features of usability which leads attributes to increase its usage among users.

This study aims to investigate social sciences PhD scholars’ research experiences through a qualitative lens. Researchers explored the doctoral students’ research conceptions, supervision-related expectations, reasons to join PhD, key learning areas and advantages of PhD in this study. Education sector is rigorously seeking PhD faculty and simultaneously offering a number of research degree programs and scholarships to boom the research culture. The amount of time, energy, finance and dedication involved in it urges researchers to investigate this phenomenon holistically.

Qualitative research approach, phenomenology (semi-structured interviews) is used to conduct this research, and interpretative phenomenological analysis technique is used to analyze the collected data.

Findings have been reported comprehensively through interpretative phenomenological analysis. Respondents had a number of expectations from supervisors and viewed this journey as challenging and at the same time beneficial for their professional and personal life.

This study is unique in nature, as it depicts research conceptions of doctoral students, benefits of PhD, challenges in pursuing PhD and supervision expectations from a developing country perspective. This study’s outcomes have impressions for policymakers, researchers and supervisors. The findings have insights for educators to produce more constructive researchers and scholars.