New Review of Academic Librarianship

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Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives: 5S Theory

Perspective

Abdulmumin Isah, Athulang Mutshewa, Batlang Serema & Lekoko Kenosi

To cite this article: Abdulmumin Isah, Athulang Mutshewa, Batlang Serema & Lekoko Kenosi
(2015) Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives: 5S Theory Perspective, New Review of Academic
Librarianship, 21:1, 68-82, DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2014.927371

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 New Review of Academic Librarianship, 21:68–82, 2015
Published with license by Taylor & Francis
ISSN: 1361-4533 print / 1740-7834 online
DOI: 10.1080/13614533.2014.927371

Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives:

5S Theory Perspective

ABDULMUMIN ISAH
Department of Library and Information Science, University of Ilorin, Tanke, Ilorin, Nigeria
and Department of Library and Information Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone,
Botswana

ATHULANG MUTSHEWA, BATLANG SEREMA, and LEKOKO KENOSI

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Department of Library and Information Studies, University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana

This article traces the historical development of Digital Libraries

(DLs), examines some DL initiatives in developed and developing
countries and uses 5S Theory as a lens for analyzing the focused
DLs. The analysis shows that present-day systems, in both developed
and developing nations, are essentially content and user centric,
with low level digitization projects in developing countries. Also,
there is a lack of interoperability among the various types of DL
initiatives. The article recommends investment in DL projects, digi-
tization of print collection, as well as the development of standards
that will address the problem of interoperability among the various
systems.

KEYWORDS e journals, university libraries, digitization

INTRODUCTION

The world presently experiences proliferation of digital library (DL) initia-

tives in various information institutions (libraries, museum, archives, etc.).
Libraries, especially academic libraries, are in the forefront of institutions
that have embraced DL services with a view to meeting information needs
of users in the digital era. The early attempts at DL initiatives were those
initiated in the developed nations and were modeled on the needs of the
concerned organizations. For example, Project Gutenberg developed in 1971

© Abdulmumin Isah, Athulang Mutshewa, Batlang Serema, and Lekoko Kenosi

Address correspondence to Abdulmumin Isah, Department of Library and Information
Science, University of Ilorin, PMB 1515, No. 2 Aremo Close, Tanke, Ilorin, 240003, Nigeria.
E-mail: abdulmumin.isah@yahoo.com

68
 Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives 69

by University of Illinois, US, the project was designed to provide a full text
of documents mainly on literature to the University and the world. Another
project was the Electronic Library Information Online Retrieval (ELINOR),
which was developed in 1992 by De Montfort University, UK to provide
network access to electronic materials within the University campus.
Th advent of World Wide Web (WWW) in the 1990s facilitated access
to databases of various electronic collections. And, this also informed the
development of DL initiatives. The United States of America in 1994 took
the leading role in DL projects with the DL Research Initiatives; Phase
1 and Phase 2. The Phase I (http://www.dli2.nsf.gov/dlione/) started
in 1994 as a joint initiative of the National Science Foundation (NSF),
Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),
and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Phase I
involved a total funding of US $ 24 million for a period of four years from
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1994 to 1998 to six universities. The objective of Phase 1 was to concentrate

on the investigation and development of underlying technologies for DLs.
Phase 2 of the project aimed at intensive study of the architecture and
usability issues of digital DLs including the vigorous research on human-
centred DL architecture, content and collections based DL architecture and
system centred DL architecture (Madalli 2003). In 1995, the United King-
dom also inaugurated the Electronic Libraries (eLib) program, which
equally led to the eLib Phase 1, 2, and Phase 3. The program fostered DL
development in areas such as digitalization, digital preservation, hybrid,
and electronic document delivery (Tedd and Large 2005). These initiatives
played a key role in the development of digital libraries the world over.
The emergence of DLs has bridged the gap between information- rich
and information- poor countries. As such, access to information in the DL
environment is not restricted to the physical library space. Students, scholars,
and researchers from both developed and developing countries can access
more diverse and previously unavailable contents of DLs that span myriad
technologies across institutions and nations (Alemneh and Hastings 2006).
This explains why academic libraries are embracing DL projects.
Despite the benefits of DL in the present digital era, the new technology
came with different challenges. According to Chowdhury and Chowdhury
(2003), the major challenges of digital library design are caused by differ-
ences in the computer systems, file structures, formats, information organi-
zation, and retrieval features. As a way of addressing these challenges, a
number of models have been proposed to serve as framework for DL initia-
tives. Examples of such models include DELOS Reference Model, 5s Theory,
and Cornell Reference Architecture for Distributed Digital Libraries (CRDDL).
Some of these models are products of years of experimentation while oth-
ers are specifically designed to address emerging issues in the DL universe.
DL researchers have examined these models and theories from applicabil-
ity, validity, and reliability perspectives in developed nations. However, the
 70 A. Isah et al.

situation in developing countries, where technology transfer has been the

bane of development, remains to be analytically examined. Therefore, the
objective of this article is to use 5S Theory to analyze DL initiatives with
special focus on developing countries.

5S THEORY

The 5S theory is a product of an effort aimed at providing theoretical and

practical unification of DLs. It provides a foundation for the definition of
digital library through the use of five (5) fundamental abstractions, namely:
Streams, Structures, Spaces, Scenarios, and Societies. The term 5S, originally
was developed by Hiroyuki Hirano as a management strategy for achieving
orderliness and cleanliness in production system (USEPA 2011). The original
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5S employed five words that begin with the letter “S” in Japanese (Seiri
- sort; Seiton - set in order; Seiso – shine; Seiketsu – standardize; and
Shitsuke - sustain). However, 5S as used by Goncalves et al. (2001) defined
a “core” or a “minimal” DL, that is, the minimal set of components that make
a DL, without which a system/application cannot be considered a DL. Its
flexibility as an instrument for analyzing DL development and organization
has been demonstrated in several respects (Shen et al. 2008; Murthy et al.
2010). Table 1 shows how 5S constructs can be employed to describe key
concepts of DL such as digital objects, metadata, collections, and services.
These abstractions provide a formal foundation that defines, relates,
and unifies concepts in the DL. They are used to define other DL constructs
such as digital objects, metadata specification, collection, repository, and
services (Doerr et al. 2007). For example, digital object may be defined in

TABLE 1 5S framework

5s Examples Objectives

Streams Text; video; audio; image Describes properties of the DL content

Structures Collection; catalog; hypertext;
document; metadata
Spaces Measure; measurable; topological;
vector; probabilistic
Scenarios Searching; browsing;
recommending
Societies Service managers; learners;
teachers, etc.
© Edward A. Fox. Reproduced by permission of Edward A. Fox. Permission to reuse must be obtained
from the rightsholder.
such as encoding and language for
textual material or particular forms of
multimedia data
Specifies organizational aspects of the DL
content; supports annotations including
with subdocuments
Defines logical and presentational views of
several DL components
Details the behavior of DL services
Defines managers; responsible for running
DL services; actors, that use those
services; and relationships among them
 Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives 71

terms of its structured storage stream and structured metadata specification.

The applicability, versatility, and unifying power of the 5S theory are demon-
strated through its use in three distinct applications: building and interpreta-
tion of DL taxonomy, informal and formal analysis of case studies of digital
libraries, and utilization as a formal basis for a DL description language
(Goncalves et al. 2001; 2004). For the purpose of the present research, 5s
constructs will be used as a lens for analysis of digital library initiatives.

METHODOLOGY

The article employed structured analytical technique. The 5S framework was

used as a lens for analyzing DL initiatives. The analysis of various digital
library initiatives was based on findings from extensive literature reviewed
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and information obtained from some DL web sites visited in the cause of the
research. The DL initiatives analyzed were purposively selected based on
their types and easy accessibility to their websites and databases. Multiple
search strategies were used on the keywords central to the research objective
such as “DL research,” “DL models and theories,” “DL initiatives,” DL studies,”
“Digitization,” DLs in “developed countries,” DLs in developing countries,
and “DLs in Africa.” These were searched for on the World Wide Web,
Google, Altavista, as well as in some leading databases, including Emerald,
D-Lib Magazine, SagePub, ScienceDirect, and Springer.

Digital Library Initiatives

The growth of DL initiatives in various countries is a step toward realizing
the dream of global information society. Governments and nongovernmen-
tal organizations are now investing on DL projects with a view to meeting in-
formation needs of their communities (Chowdhury 2002). The design and
implementation of DL initiatives are varied. Each project according to Mag-
nussen, (2003) is designed to meet the information needs of its community.
As such, they employed various approaches. Some of the DL initiatives were
designed to meet information needs of a heterogeneous society whereas
some are tailored to address socio-cultural needs of a homogenous society.
In order to have insights into the various DL initiatives, analysis of notable
examples in developed nations and some efforts in that direction from the
developing countries was carried out using 5S model as a lens for a better
understanding of their patterns.

WORLD DIGITAL LIBRARY

The World Digital Library (WDL) is a collaborative project of the U.S. Library
of Congress, UNESCO, and partners throughout the world. The library was
 72 A. Isah et al.

established with the following mandates: promotion of international and in-

tercultural understanding; expansion of the volume and variety of cultural
content on the Internet; provision of resources for educators, scholars, and
general audiences; and creation of capacity in partner institutions to narrow
the digital divide within and between countries (WDL 2012). The WDL makes
available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, signifi-
cant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world from
8000 BC to 2012 AD. These items are unique primary materials that include
manuscripts, maps, rare books, musical scores, recordings, films, prints, pho-
tographs, and architectural drawings, as well as many other items. All 193
UNESCO countries are represented in these collections. Each item contains
a full and thorough description, links to similar items that are within the
collections, and links to external resources (Murlillo 2010).
The WDL homepage (http://www.wdl.org/en/) is a new design tech-
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nique that can be viewed completely on one page. This means that the user
does not have to scroll up or down to view all items. The webpage also pro-
vides the user with browsing options to search the content by place, time,
topic, type of item, and contributing institutions. Navigation tools and content
descriptions are provided in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Portuguese,
Russian, and Spanish languages. Many more languages are represented in the
actual books, manuscripts, maps, photographs, and other primary sources.
Access to digital content of WDL is made easy with the use of consistent
metadata that describes each item using a consistent set of bibliographic
information (or metadata) relating to its geographical, temporal, and topi-
cal coverage, among other requirements. Consistent metadata provides the
foundation for a site that is easy and interesting to explore. This provision
helps to reveal connections between items. The metadata also improves ex-
posure to external search engines (WDL 2012). This enables users to navigate
collection in various repositories all over the world.
The digitization of WDL content is wholly the responsibility of the con-
tributing partners, who are expected to have digitized their contents through
their digitization program. This is easy for contributing partners in the de-
veloped countries but the situation is different where facilities to digitize
contents are a big challenge. To address this situation, Library of Congress
has worked with partners in Brazil, Egypt, Iraq, and Russia to establish dig-
ital conversion centers to produce high-quality digital images. Much of the
contents on the WDL were produced at these centers.

EUROPEANA DIGITAL LIBRARY

Europeana is Europe’s DL established to provide socio cultural needs of the

European countries. Europeana currently features content from 33 countries
including all 27 Member States of the European Union (Brunelle et al. 2012).
 Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives 73

The Europeana homepage (http://www.europeana.eu/portal/) is designed

with robust user interface available in all official EU languages. Authorized
users can have free access to its collections via the Internet. In order to view
the document in greater detail, the user is redirected to the content provider’s
website where the particular terms and conditions of access apply.
The organization of collection by contributing partners (cultural her-
itage institutions: libraries, museums, archives, and audiovisual collections)
followed different approaches as they catalogue their contents using dif-
ferent metadata standards. Approaches also vary in different countries. In
order to make the information searchable, a metadata called Europeana Se-
mantic Elements (ESE) was employed in order to achieve a single common
standard. This metadata standard at present takes a lowest common denom-
inator approach to the integration of different types of digital content. An
effort is on the way to introduce a richer metadata standard “Europeana Data
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Model,” which is expected to give users more and better information. Euro-
peana is not into any digitization, rather, the decision about which objects
are digitized lies with the organization that holds the material. However, the
European Union effort toward harmonizing cloud computing among mem-
ber states is expected to provide European digital library a better platform
for the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage materials.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY DIGITAL INITIATIVE (LDI)

Harvard University launched the Library Digital Initiative (LDI) in July 1998.
The project was a five-year program to develop the University’s capacity
to manage digital information with the following set objectives (1) creating
the technical infrastructure to support the acquisition, organization, delivery,
and archiving of digital library materials; (2) providing a team of specialists
to advise librarians and others in the University community on key issues
in the digital environment; (3) providing librarians and staff with experience
in a wide range of technologies and digital materials; and, (4) enriching
the Harvard University Library collections with a significant set of digital
resources (HLDI 2001). In line with these objectives, Harvard DL project was
integrated on the existing library structure, this approach enabled the library
to serve its users with the existing traditional collection in parallel with digital
resources. The homepage of Harvard DL (http://hul.harvard.edu/ois/ldi/)
provided links to various retrieval mechanisms provided to aid easy access
to various types of digital collections.
The digitization project was designed to capture traditional library col-
lection through retrospective conversion from analogue to digital material.
Currently, Harvard Library provides access to online books in two ways:
Books digitized from Harvard’s collections and Licensed e-book collections.
In addition to being able to access books through Harvard DL, Harvard users
 74 A. Isah et al.

are able to access books that are open to the public through efforts such as
those by the Internet Archive, Google Books, or HathiTrust (an e-resources
joint collaborative project). The University digitization project as noted by
Cline (2011) continued to focus on the building of digital collections of en-
during value that provides quality service in support of teaching and learning.
The preservation of digital content in Harvard library is managed by Digital
Repository Services (DRS). The DRS is a set of services that ensure usability
of securely stored digital objects over time. In addition to this preservation
strategy, the emerging cloud storage solution, entitled “Dura Cloud” is also
used as external preservation storage location for DRS content.

AFRICA DIGITAL LIBRARY

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Africa Digital Library (ADL) was developed in 1999 by the Center for Life-
long Learning at Technikon South Africa with the following objectives: de-
velopment of digital library that is available free-of-charge to residents and
institutions of Africa, for academic and business use and provision of dig-
itized full text resources to learners in Africa via the Internet (ADL 2012).
The library has used its partnerships with the Association for African Uni-
versities and US commercial e-library firm (netLibrary) to amass a collection
of 8,000 e-books. The collection covers 52 subject areas and is available in
54 countries of Africa. The ADL homepage (http://www.africandl.org.za/) is
designed to enable users to navigate the digital content completely on one
page. Registration to use ADL within African continent is automatic, whereas
Africans living outside the continent will have to wait for confirmation of the
registration before access could be granted.
ADL was developed to bridge the gap in access to digital information
in Africa. This according to Wade (2002) will enable any resident of Africa
to access books in the library at no cost, provided they have access to the
Internet. The ADL project aims to facilitate access to library resources without
the expense of developing and maintaining a physical infrastructure. The
library collection comprises of books and other resources, in digital format,
accessible through the Internet. This has enabled African countries to fill the
information gaps between developed and developing nations. According to
Kavulya (2007) DL has facilitated better information gathering, processing,
distribution, access, and application in Africa.

UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA DIGITAL LIBRARY

The foundation of University of Botswana (UB) DL initiative was laid in 1999

when the Library embarked on automation of its services. The vision of UB
Library’s automation was to provide optimal and seamless access to library
 Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives 75

resources and services in support of learning, teaching, and research through

an integrated library system ‘INNOVATIVE’ system. This system brings all re-
sources from main library and branch libraries in seamless access to students
and staff of the University anywhere anytime where there is internet connec-
tivity (Nfila 2008). The application of online public access catalogue (OPAC)
in the library system enabled the UB library to bring all resources together
in such a way that users can access both print and electronic resources. It
also serves as gateway to electronic journals subscribed to by UB and link
to various open access electronic resources accessible free of charge via the
Internet.
The UB library catalogue record of both print and electronic materials
can be accessed from the DL homepage (http://www.medupe.ub.bw/). The
services available to all students and staff from remote access include: Notifi-
cation of new acquisition, circulation transaction that enable patron to check
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record of materials borrowed, and process renewal of borrowed material

without visiting the library, online reference services via e-mail communi-
cation to the reference librarian. The UB library subscribed to a number of
electronic journals and databases with full text access to their journal articles.
The University is yet to carry out extensive digitization of print collection, as
such, only bibliographic details of the print collection can be accessed via
the library online public access catalogue (OPAC). A consultation of full text
will require visiting the library. The Metadata designed for the description
of DL resources adhered to metadata standards. In order to maintain the
standard, all the e books purchased by UB library come with MARC records
with appropriate metadata.
In 2007, the UB management inaugurated Digital Scholarship Task
Group whose terms of reference included, among others, making recom-
mendations on future directions for the University’s Library Services, eLearn-
ing, and e-Research in the digital environment as well as recommend specific
actions for developing a unified digital academic environment for the period
2009–15 and beyond. Among the recommendations made specifically for the
library was that UB library “should acquire cutting edge technology relevant
for digital scholarship services” (Nfila 2008, 1).

UNIVERSITY OF ILORIN DIGITAL LIBRARY

The University of Ilorin Library, Nigeria, was established in May 1976 to

support teaching and learning of the parent institution. In order to meet
information needs of the University community, the library acquired numer-
ous print and electronic materials that cut across all disciplines of studies
in the University (Isah 2010). The University library, through the support of
the National University Commission subscribed to a number of electronic
information resources (Databases) that are expected to also enhance
 76 A. Isah et al.

teaching, learning and research activities of the University community.

These electronic resources can be accessed from the Library homepage
(http://www.unilorin.edu.ng/unilibrary/) using any computer connected to
Internet with the aid of User name and password already provided to mem-
bers of the University community.
The University of Ilorin DL is still at the developmental stage as the
library is presently planning to deploy Virtual Software- Integrated Library
management software to replace Alice for Windows to manage its operation
and services. The implementation of the management software is expected to
boost the digital library services of the University. The library is using social
network system, for example, Facebook as a means of providing online
reference services to users.
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ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL LIBRARY INITIATIVES

The design and application of DL in all the six digital libraries followed
different approaches. Each project has a set objective that the digital library
was designed to achieve. Using the 5S theory to analyze these digital ini-
tiatives shows that all the projects provide streams of digital objects which
include text and audio visual resources. However, each project tailored its
digital content in line with the set objectives of the project. For instance,
The WDL digital objects and services are developed with worldwide view.
The intended societies are that of the world at large. The situation is
different in Europeana and African digital libraries that have restricted
societies and users. Europeana collection and services are tailored to meet
socio cultural needs of the European countries, while African DL collections
focused on the information needs of African countries. This is also applicable
to Harvard, Botswana and Ilorin DLs as their streams of digital objects
or contents focused on the information needs of individual university
community.
The functional services of all the digital libraries follow varied scenar-
ios. In the World, and Europeana digital libraries, digitization of contents are
wholly the responsibility of the contributing partners, who are expected to
have digitized their contents through their digitization programs. In order to
bridge the digital divide between developed and developing countries in the
area of digitization facilities, Library of Congress in collaboration with some
partner countries established digital conversion centers to produce high-
quality digital images (WDL, 2012). This approach was designed to provide
a balance representation of collection in the world digital library from de-
veloping countries and to also ensure uniformity and interoperability. In the
same light, Harvard users community can benefit from high level digitization
project of the University, the library still provides print materials in paral-
lel with digital collection. Also, in University of Botswana, the scenarios
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TABLE 2 5S Framework and digital library initiatives

DLs in Developed Nations DLs in Developing Nations

University of University of Ilorin
5S Framework World DL Europeana DL Harvard DL Africa DL Botswana DL DL

Stream Text images Text images Text images Text images Text images Text images
audio/visual audio/visual audio/visual audio/visual audio/visual audio/visual
Societies General users and Main users focus Main users focus Main users focus Main users focus Main users focus
worldwide EU countries Harvard’s African countries UB’s community Unilorin’s
community community
Scenarios Multilingual search Multilingual search Multiple search Multiple search Multiple search Multiple search
options, Links to options, Links to options, option, off- options and options
databases databases automated line reader automated Links to databases
services, etc. services services, etc.
Structures Consistent Metadata Consistent Metadata Rich metadata Rich metadata Rich metadata, Rich metadata,
external ESE HOLLIS external MARC, Alice for Windows
repository external internal repository internal repository internal repository
repository repository and
Cloud Solution
as back up
Spaces virtual virtual physical and virtual physical and virtual physical and virtual
environment rich environment virtual environment rich environment rich environment rich
interface rich interface environment interface interface interface
rich interface

77
 78 A. Isah et al.

is the same, the users’ community can access all the born digital collection
of the University and some converted analogue to digital contents such as
reserve books, past question papers, and so forth. In the case of University
of Ilorin, users’ community can access vast electronic journal and databases
subscribed to by the University, while accesses to the print collections are
still through the traditional means.
The operation of the six DLs followed varied structures; in the case
of WDL access to digital content is made easy with the use of consistent
metadata that described each item using a consistent set of bibliographic in-
formation (or metadata). In the same vein, Europeana employed Europeana
Semantic Elements (ESE), which was designed to ensure interoperability and
achieve a single common metadata standard. In Harvard Library, apart from
employing a useful catalogue system called HOLLIS to aid access to col-
lection, the library is using an external preservation storage location called
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DuraCloud to ensure longer preservation of its collection. This emerging

preservation strategy “cloud solution” is expected to provide DLs a better
platform for the preservation and dissemination of cultural heritage mate-
rials. The organizational structure of UB library is maintained with strict
adherence to MARC standards and rich metadata. University of Ilorin is
in the process of deploying Virtual Software- Integrated Library manage-
ment software to replace Alice for Windows to manage its operation and
services.
The six libraries are operating in different spaces. While the institutional
DLs, Harvard, UB Library and University of Ilorin provided their university
communities with digital services in both physical and virtual spaces, the
World, Europeana, and African DLs deployed their services via virtual space.
The virtual space enables remote users’ seamless access to the DL collection.
The websites hosting the various DLs were designed with efficient search
interfaces that enabled users to navigate quickly to their chosen targets within
a minute. World and Europeana digital libraries provided multiple language
options for users to ensure easy navigation. However, the digital contents
are presented in their original formats.
The relationship that exists between digital libraries in developed and
developing countries from the lens of 5S Framework is graphically shown in
the Table 2.

CONCLUSION

The analysis of the various DL projects has revealed the various approaches
to DL initiatives. The driving force of the various DL initiatives has been
the need to provide easy and seamless access to recorded human intellec-
tual knowledge. This was attested to by Chowdhury and Foo (2012) as they
maintained that the “digital library is created for a designated local or remote
 Analyzing Digital Library Initiatives 79

user community so that users can easily search, retrieve and use digital in-
formation that is relevant to their specific information needs” (5). As shown
from the six digital libraries examined, each DL initiative is designed to meet
the information need of a predetermined society or community. DL irrespec-
tive of community designed to serve shared some common characteristics,
as shown in Table 2.
One fundamental issue that digital library researchers are yet to fully
address is the problem of interoperability of the various types of digital
libraries. Athanasopoulos et al. (2011) viewed interoperability as a means to
“improve digital libraries, enabling wider collaborations and ensuring that
a broader spectrum of resources are available to a wider range of people
whether for simple consumption or to enhance research activities” (2).
The World and Europeana digital libraries have been making efforts
to improve interoperability between various partners. Other limitations
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observed in the development of present-day systems, which are essentially

“content-centric” and “one-of-a-kind,” that is, each system has been devel-
oped having in mind a specific content, a specific user community, and a
specific application (EC 2005). This is applicable to DL initiatives in both
developed and developing nations as shown in the Table 2. However, the
level of development of DLs in the developed nations is high compared
to what is obtainable from the developing nations and Africa, in particular.
Digitization project efforts are still low in DL practice in Africa; many
collections that can be of benefits to both immediate and remote users are
still in print format. In the present age of digital learning, digitization of old
collection in print format will avail distance learners opportunity to access
historical collection originally in print format.
Despite the various challenges facing the development of DL, the enor-
mous benefits of DL initiative cannot be over emphasized, as more li-
braries are presently building their DL repository and engaging in digitization
projects. The best practices from the theoretical and practical point of views
as captured in this research work can serve as a good prototype for libraries
that are yet to embrace DL systems in developing countries and Africa, in
particular.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Government and nongovernmental organizations in Africa and developing

countries at large should support and invest in DLs
• For easy navigation across various DLs, stakeholders in DLs need to adopt
common standards that will ensure interoperability of DL systems.
• Institutions of higher learning should consider digitization projects espe-
cially for old valuable collections in print format. This will enable “on
 80 A. Isah et al.

campus users” and “distance users” have seamless access to institutional

digital collections.
• Due to the limitation of this study, as a desktop research paper, there is
need for an in depth empirical study to check the validity and reliability
of various DLs in Africa in line with 5S framework.

REFERENCES

African Digital Library Homepage (ADL). (2012). Web. 5 Dec. 2012. http://www.
africandl.org.za/
Alemneh, D. G., and S. K. Hastings. “Developing the ICT Infrastructure for Africa:
Overview of Barriers to Harnessing the Full Power of the Internet.” Jour-
nal of Education for Library and Information Science 47.1 (2006): 4–16.
Print.
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