Beyond the Walls: Outreach Initiatives in Library, University of Moratuwa

Kodikara, Ruvini C.; Seneviratne, Thushari M.; Punchihewa, Cnd

doi:10.4038/sllim.v5i2.7155

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(16 reference statements)

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“…According to Closson and Mullins Nelson (2009), merely being involved in community engagement can be a way of teaching social justice and consciousness. Kodikara et al (2013) articulate that the whole purpose of community engagement is to show solidarity with less privileged and vulnerable groups, hence these groups are always a common denominator in community engagement initiatives.…”

Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

South African academic libraries as contributors to social justice and ubuntu through community engagement

Bangani

Dube

2023

IFLA Journal

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The purpose of this article is to assess the role of academic libraries as social justice and ubuntu advocates, promoters and contributors within a community engagement framework. This was a qualitative study that utilised interviews with 20 library heads and 8 focus group discussions with librarians from South African university libraries to gather data. The findings reflect that South African academic libraries’ community engagement approaches can be grouped into several themes. These include contributions to quality education, health and wellness, work and employment, food security, addressing the digital divide, environmental concerns, equality and gender equality, the preservation of national heritage and food security. With regard to social justice, there were four themes that emerged from the participants’ narratives: (1) they stated that community engagement is a deliberate social justice action; (2) community engagement was associated with a contribution to the rights to education and information access, among others; (3) they pointed to the social-redress actions of their libraries as contributing to social justice; and (4) they associated community engagement with ubuntu, which they argued is itself a social justice concept. The findings support community engagement activities as a contribution to a socially just society and ubuntu. The results confirm the need for academic libraries (and universities in general) to go beyond their traditional role of teaching, learning and research support, and participate in community engagement not only as an expected social responsibility but also as a contribution to a socially just society and development. Based on the results, this article considers social justice and ubuntu as inherent to, and not an accidental notion of, community engagement.

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Section: Findings and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

South African academic libraries as contributors to social justice and ubuntu through community engagement

Bangani

Dube

2023

IFLA Journal

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“…Many university libraries initiated digitalization projects with the mission of fullfledged digital libraries because universities in Sri Lanka are at a competitive stage to upgrade their national university rank in web metrics. Therefore, most specifically universities are paying attention to create their institutional repositories to enhance their service as well as create a wider user access (Kodikara, Seneviratne & Punchihewa, 2014). Most of the university libraries implement the digital libraries using DSpace open source in Linux platform.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digitizing the Ceylon Collections: A Case Study of the Library, Eastern University, Sri Lanka

Navirathan

Jeyakananthan

2018

Jnl Univ. Librarians Assoc. Sri Lanka

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The digitization is a tactical way of preservation and it becomes an ultimate need to preserve and conserve a record for future use. Even though, the digital preservation is indeed a very challenging task for the library of Eastern University, Sri Lanka (EUSL library) and the digitization process has become a practical necessity in this digital era. Hence, the study describes an initiation towards digitization in order to preserve the precious Ceylon Collections of EUSL library which endures the value and importance of Ceylon Collections for the benefit of various users and also to avoid those collections remain ambiguous and hidden. The current research design is a case study and the research instruments such as observation and focus group interview were used. The DSpace open source software was selected for the digitization processes. The focus group interview was conducted to explore the current usage and expectation of the users and it revealed that the Ceylon Collections services are very essential for users. The study was initiated by two professionals (who are also the authors of this paper) without proper training on functioning and technicalities of DSpace. With testing server, researchers could successfully implement the digital collection and today its collection is totaling to 2000 items. Through digitization, the Ceylon Collections move to a much broader audience and therefore the Ceylon Collections could be accessed significantly through the web and preserved for future generations. Even though, there were challenges during digitization process the work has been completed successfully and the digitized Ceylon Collections could be maintained as a digital repository of Ceylon Collections which are capable to access through the library website. Thus, every user would able to access those Ceylon Collections.

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“…Materi Community Outreach (CO) adalah kegiatan praktikum pada mata kuliah Biokonservasi yang dilakukan dengan mengambil setting kegiatan di luar kampus dan menekankannya adanya interaksi antara mahasiswa (praktikan) dengan masyarakat secara langsung. Hal ini disesuaikan dengan pengertian CO itu sendiri, yaitu kegiatan yang ditujukan untuk memberikan pelayanan kepada individu atau kelompok di masyarakat yang mempunyai kekurangan atau keterbatasan langsung pada lokasi individua tau kelompok tersebut (Kodikara et al 2013).…”

Section: Pendahuluanunclassified

Kegiatan Community Outreach Pada Biokonservasi Di Bidang Sains

Janra

2018

hilirisasi

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ABSTRAKKegiatan Community Outreach (CO) adalah salah satu objek pembelajaran di dalam praktikum Biokonservasi (BIO 4012) yang baru saja ditambahkan ke dalam materi praktikum sejak tiga tahun yang lalu. Praktikum ini dilakukan oleh mahasiswa semester 5 di Jurusan Biologi Fakultas MIPA Universitas Andalas. Tulisan ini menganalisa secara deskriptif pelaksanaan kegiatan CO ini sebagai salah satu bentuk kegiatan pengabdian kepada masyarakat yang dilaksanakan secara mandiri pada tingkat jurusan. Analisa dilakukan pada pelaksanakan kegiatan CO yang ketiga di tahun 2017 kemaren dengan membandingkan antara proposal dan laporan kegiatan yang diberikan oleh mahasiswa, serta dilengkapi dengan data yang diperoleh melalui Focus Group Discussion dengan kelompok yang telah selesai melaksanakan kegiatan CO-nya masing-masing. Kegiatan CO tahun 2017 mengangkat tema konservasi dan aplikasi ilmu biologi dengan menargetkan kelompok masyarakat dan siswa sekolah dasar sampai menengah. Respon balik yang diberikan oleh kelompok target kegiatan menyatakan bahwa kegiatan ini mampu melengkapi kekurangan aspek konservasi yang tidak terdapat di dalam kurikulum pembelajaran sekolah. Di samping itu, kegiatan ini berpotensi meningkatkan kesadaran akan perlindungan lingkungan pada masyarakat secara umum. Penelitian ini merekomendasikan keberlanjutan kegiatan ini di masa datang, dengan memperhatikan kekurangan-kekurangan dan kesulitan teknis yang mungkin terdapat dalam pelaksanaan kegiatan kali ini. ABSTRACTCommunity Outreach (CO) activity is an object taught in the Bioconservation Lab (BIO 4012), which since three years ago added as part of lab materials. This lab is mandatory for students at fifth semester in Biology Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Andalas University. This paper descriptively analyzes the conducts of CO as it may be considerable as part of the community services independently performed on the department or study program level. The analysis focused on the 2017's CO activities, by comparing the proposals and reports given by the students who conducted the CO and then complemented with data gained through Focus Group Discussion on each student group. The 2017 CO activities brought up conservation and applied biology as their main topics, and targeted groups in society as well as students in elementary and middle schools. Feedbacks given by the targeted audiences complimented the CO activities as it complements the school curriculum by adding conservation and applicative biology aspects. Moreover, these activities retain potential to generally improve people awareness on the protection of environment. This study recommends the continuity of CO activity, by paying attention on some weaknesses and technical difficulties recorded on 2017 CO activities and improving it in the future.

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Beyond the Walls: Outreach Initiatives in Library, University of Moratuwa

Cited by 5 publications

References 13 publications

South African academic libraries as contributors to social justice and ubuntu through community engagement

South African academic libraries as contributors to social justice and ubuntu through community engagement

Digitizing the Ceylon Collections: A Case Study of the Library, Eastern University, Sri Lanka

Kegiatan Community Outreach Pada Biokonservasi Di Bidang Sains

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