4. SUDANESE LIBRARIES CHALLENGES AND APPORTUNITIES

4. SUDANESE LIBRARIES CHALLENGES AND             APPORTUNITIES

In spite of the myriad of problems in the way of libraries in Sudan to apply modern information technology techniques, they are likely to have very little choice in this 21st Century. As Sudanese are clamouring for development so is the world focusing more attention on the potentially dangerous situation in Sudan, albeit, for diverse purposes. To meet the legitimate aspiration of the people for rapid socio-political and economic development, the libraries, being engines of development are faced with serious challenges are basic levels of technology transfer. These include:

4-1 Power Sources

4-1 Power Sources

are basic requirement at even initial level of technology transfer in information institutions. Basic electricity is necessary to provide power for IT infrastructure. There are various ways to generate a stable source of Stability. Sudan has currently installed electric generation capacity of 500 megawatts (MW). Of this, around 60% is accounted for by thermal (mainly oil) and 40% by hydropower. Hydroelectric power generation varies greatly over time, however, according to rainfall patterns. Sudan's total electricity generation was 1.760 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) in 1999. Also Sudan has plans to add additional generating capacity. This is considered, as popular and cheapest source, in addition, solar and diesel energy are more reliable for rural areas of some parts of Sudan and to run mobile libraries. Both sources are graceful in powering IT system in case of power failure and scheduled programs of distribution of electricity. So distribution and reliability are other factors are to be considered. Typically to improve these factors, IT infrastructure was equipped with UPS (uninterruptible power supply) which provides protection against power and line noise which could be harmful to sensitive electric and mechanic part of the system.  It is also used in powering the IT system from batteries.

4-2. Information Technology:

4-2. Information Technology:

The libraries need to be at the vanguard of technology transfer from the developed world to the developing economy of Sudan. To meet this expectation, the Sudanese libraries must provide a link between local researchers, lecturers and scholars and their counterparts in other parts of the world. Internet connectivity, for example, is about the surest way of achieving this objective. All users of the Internet enjoy a whole range of services such as electronic mail, file transfer protocol, database access, and so on.

Unfettered access to databases around the world through the Internet offers a great opportunity for scientists and technologists in Sudan to acquire knowledge from their colleagues elsewhere. The Internet could also afford Sudanese scientists and technologists the opportunity to collaborate with their counterparts around the world on research projects.

The author calls attention to the fact that, increasingly, research is carried out by multinational teams. According to citation analysis of Sudan Bibliographical database and International Databases (CD-ROM and Internet) of NCR-DIC, there has been an enormous increase in recent years in the number of research papers resulting from international collaboration. Whereas the number of papers with international co-authors rose by 201% from 1981 - 2002 more than 80% of such co-authored articles involved writers from the developed countries while only 0.08% involved authors from Sudan.

For Sudanese researchers to be able to collaborate more significantly with their counterparts in other parts of the world, they need access to the Internet especially through their local libraries. It must be reiterated that such collaboration between researchers from African as well as Arab and their counterparts in the West and North is highly desirable as it can promote technology transfer.

Moreover, NCR-DIC set up Microfiche Technology in 1988 to facilitate the acquisition of documents related to Sudan, which cannot be easily obtained in hard copy. These include government document, theses, existing special library Collections of older documents now out of print, and the documents from Libraries outside Khartoum such as Gezira.  Its system fits into the computerized cataloguing system very easily through the microfiche accessioning system. Each document on the fiche is given an accession number and this is added to the Catalogue record on the computer when the document is catalogued.  If an online search identifies references on the fiche can be retrieved from the Storage cabinet by using the accession number, as the fiches are stored in accession number sequence.

    Also NCR-DIC had introduced Microcomputer Technology using CDS/ISIS based Library system that is advanced non-numerical information storage and retrieval software developed by UNESCO since 1985. CDS/ISIS is an integrated and Multilanguage package offering all the basic features demanded for a database management system including: database definition; data entry; indexing; retrieval; printing, some utilities; database management and data exchange. CDS/ISIS has become the software of choice for the developing world, but it also enjoys extensive use in Canada, Australia, and Western European countries. Cuba, Vietnam, and China have also used and developed the software for their national libraries and archives. Some of Library institutions of UNSECO members have succeeded in encountering CDS/ISIS databases on the Web.

This paper refers to the development of a microcomputer-based system using the Micro CDS/ISIS (English and Arabic versions). It comprises the application interfaces for creating a machine-readable catalogue and for information retrieval. The CDS/ISIS software is distributed free to libraries and information centers all over the world by UNESCO where in Sudan, NCR-DIC coordinates the distribution of the software and provides training on it. CDS/ISIS has a wide application as an indexing tool but its flexibility has extended its use to library automation applications like cataloguing and information retrieval. This is because CDS/ISIS comes with a built-in subset of the Pascal language that allows local customization and development of user applications and interfaces. Many such customized applications have been reported in the literature (Ghobrial, 1992). Some good interfaces have also been developed to complement the information retrieval capability in CDS/ISIS.

NCR-DIC system developed whose machine-readable catalogue based on the standard Common Communication Format (CCF). It is complemented with the information retrieval interface, which has full search and retrieval functions, including keyword searching. The electronic catalogue created form the resource database that can be used to teach and give hands-on experience on on-line information retrieval.

    Conversion of record formats of other databases, which are either on CD-ROM or floppy disks to NCR-DIC databases, which is accomplished through conversion programs. Such type of conversion is very limited as compared to keying from keyboard including data elements not available in the imported databases. Generally conversion of original records can be made to suit NCR-DIC database format, which is ISO 2709.

This results in development of following NCR-DIC systems:

The development of the Windows version was the result of a strategic development policy decision aiming at maintaining the leading role CDS/ISIS has played and is still playing on the international scene, which resulted:

·        The complete rewriting of the software in C++, in order to provide a common standardized language for all the versions (MS-DOS, WINDOWS, and UNIX), thus reducing maintenance costs;

·        The adoption of a multi-platform software development system in order to increase the level of portability to different hardware and operating systems (covering therefore a whole range of computers from stand alone PC's to powerful mini-computers);

·        The implementation of a client-server architecture using market-standard interfaces.

  No conversion is needed when moving from CDS/ISIS DOS to CDS/ISIS for Windows. However, formatting language functions are just 95% compatible. In some cases you may find some syntax errors appearing: you may have to adapt your display format to the new one. In terms of search engine, the two versions are totally compatible: both can use the same I/F (inverted file). The data entry worksheet is also compatible but the screens will appear different.   CDS/ISIS for Windows (WinIsis) is 100% compatible with all Windows Operating Systems, which can be used as a platform for developing simple applications using its powerful formatting language. New commands for handling nice presentations are now available as well as hypertext capabilities.

A number of tools for making CDS/ISIS databases on the Internet are available. Some of the tools are distributed free-of-charge and available for downloading e.g.

·        JavaISIS 3.0 Client/Server suite for CDS/ISIS databases (UNESCO) databases on the Internet. It provides its clients with advanced remote database management functions such as: browse, query, data entry, export and print.

·        The WWWISIS server, versions 3 and 4

·        ISIAM, publication on NT servers - free (built with ISIS_DLL)

In addition, the CD-ROM technology affords libraries in Sudan a unique opportunity to acquire information materials to meet the needs of their users. Ghobrial (2002) has extolled the virtues of the CD-ROM and highlighted its potentials for researchers in Sudan. Apart from storage space economy, the CD-ROM provides access to information held by important databases without laying cables. This is very significant considering that lack of good telephone services is one of the major obstacles to computerization and networking by libraries in Sudan during those decades. Furthermore, the full text compact discs might also prove more secure than print copies; it is impossible to mutilate them by cutting out pages to be taken home. Mutilation and stealing of information materials is known to be a serious problem facing libraries all over Sudan.

    One sometimes hears the Internet characterized as the world's library for the digital age. This description does not stand up under even casual examination. The Internet and particularly its collection of multimedia resources known, as the World Wide Web was not designed to support the organized publication and retrieval of information as libraries are. It has evolved into what might be thought of as a chaotic repository for the collective output of the world's digital printing presses. So, Digital Technologies enable ultra rapid access to the richest sources, wherever they are located in the world's collections, and the rapid exchange of commentaries in electronic forums or videoconferences. These new possibilities favour an 'extensive' reading, the comparison of diverse texts and viewpoints, multidisciplinary transversality, a "conversation" between readers. They are beginning to have a considerable impact, as much on the individual mechanism of the appropriation of texts, as on the sociology of reading. True polytextuality - in which diverse types of texts and images, sounds, films, data banks, mail services, interactive networks may mutually resist or interfere with one another - this process of reading generates progressively a new dimension - polymorphic, transversal, and dynamic. We may call it 'metareading', which is becoming a new driving force of culture. Instead of aprioristic strategies that envisage cataloguing every document using a universal classification, hypertextuality prefers a tactic of using small steps, capable of binding them together after the event, whole corpora generated from research and particular points of view. It wagers, in short, on the plurality of the world of documentation. In other words, the ideal of coherent and convergent, unified knowledge (of which the library would be the microcosm). At the same time that it explodes the limits of text, hypertextuality revives one of the founding questions of culture: by what mediations can private experience and collective practices enter into an exchange?

4-3. Automated information services:

4-3. Automated information services:

The economy of Sudan has so seriously declined that it is unable to provide basic teaching and research facilities in its tertiary institutions and research institutes. To provide its users access to the best of teaching and research materials available in the world, timely, and at least cost, Sudanese libraries must automate their services and form networks. Most of the problems associated with acquisitions and collection management in general would be over for Sudanese libraries once they are on the web.

4-4. Sustenance of electronic Publishing:

4-4. Sustenance of electronic Publishing:

As publishing goes electronic, many primary journals and secondary services previously acquired by libraries through normal subscription to hard copies can only be accessed through the Internet (Arunachalam, 1999). Due to the lack of appreciation of decision makers has hinted that publications such as Current Contents Connect, SciFinder (Chemical Abstracts) and multidisciplinary citation indexes such as Web of Science are available on the World Wide Web, though at a fee that most university and research libraries in Sudan cannot afford.

Grant led the cost implication to libraries of Sudan to access to journals published on the Internet is very high. However, of even greater concern is that any library that is not computerized has, as it were, automatically cut off its users from access to important journals available only on the World Wide Web. This development poses a great challenge to Sudanese libraries that have the onerous responsibility to meet the information needs of the users especially for research and development.

4-5. Information networks and Internet Connectivity Projected Sudan to the World:

4-5. Information networks and Internet Connectivity Projected Sudan to the World:

Sudan is very rich in culture and has great tourism and investment potentials. While documentation and other records on Sudanese cultural heritage and investment potentials abound locally, such information is yet to be sufficiently marketed to the outside world, which are discussed intensively in workshops and seminars individually or collectively. With the opportunities offered by modern information technologies, Sudanese libraries have a great chance of projecting Sudan positively to the world thereby attracting foreign investments and promoting tourism. In spite of everything, abundant indigenous knowledge, the outcome of local research efforts into various fields of life, including agriculture, medicine, science and technology abound all over Sudan. These are scattered on library shelves and in private offices in form of grey literature and are largely unutilized. Since such materials can easily become part of the collections of libraries in Sudan, such indigenous knowledge could be projected to the rest of the world through the Internet. For this to happen, Sudanese libraries must embark on aggressive acquisition of Sudan collections, including grey literature, computerize their information management and form library networks. Such library networks in Sudan will surely boost development through the provision of serious development information appropriate to the Sudanese environment.

So far, much of the information on Sudan in the world's information networks tend to project only the negative tendencies and situations of Sudan and Sudanese. It is noteworthy that such tendencies are found with all peoples and nations. While Sudanese libraries should not be merely out to counter the negative information about Sudan, there is serious need to project to the whole world the positive sides of Sudan and the achievements of Sudanese often swept under the carpet. Sudanese in various fields of life have performed many feats but these are hardly given publicity by the Western press.

Sudan can benefit of network development programs as discussed by Ghobrial (1999, 2000) which include:

1-     PADISNET (Pan African Documentation Centre Network) - This is a project to interconnect centres performing research on planning of development in some African countries into a network for data and information exchange and NCR-DIC acts as national focal point;

2-     CABECA - (Capacity Building for Electronic Communication in Africa) - This is a project to promote computer networking throughout Africa. It is sponsored by the Pan Africa Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). CABECA is funded by the IDRC, Canada to achieve low cost electronic connectivity in some countries of Africa. It has already established nodes in some parts of the Region.

3-     SLDS  (Strengthening Libraries and Documentation Services in IGAD States). The Netherlands Government sponsors it. NCR-DIC designated as National Information Node.

4-     RAIN (Regional Agricultural Information Network for ASARECA states. It is designed to remove the isolation suffered by agricultural researchers in the sub-region by integrating them via network with their counterparts in other parts of the globe and to create linkage among the researchers themselves.

There are certainly many other networks all over the world but not listed here. Considering the existing regional and international information networks, there is no doubt that the networking capabilities of Sudanese libraries will be greatly enhanced in the coming decade. Once the libraries can put their houses in order and establish local networks, these can under proper arrangement be interconnected with the existing networks. A major criticism of the information networks in Sudan is that they have been initiated and entirely funded by bodies outside Sudan. The implication of this is that whenever such sponsoring bodies do withdraw their support the systems are most likely to fail. For sustainability, it is important for Sudan to take the initiative on information networks and to be committed to funding them, at least, jointly with donor agencies and nations. It is only then that whatever networks established can serve the best interest of Sudan in terms of priority and sustainability.