CD-ROM for African research needs

CD-ROM publishing is evolving so fast that there is no way that African users can keep pace with the new developments. As a result, African universities are hard-pressed to make appropriate decisions concerning the best allocation of scarce resources, which means that many of them are subscribing to databases that are inappropriate to their needs. These databases can be very expensive, taking the major share of a library's budget and leaving it little room to acquire other types of materials. Moreover, although database acquisition might be underwritten by donor funding at the outset, grants inevitably expire, leaving librarians with the dilemma of finding money to pay for subscription renewals - thus calling into question the long-term sustainability of CD-ROM utilization at their institutions. To meet these needs, the AAAS Sub-Saharan Africa Program decided to embark on an initiative to evaluate CD-ROM databases in the sciences and social sciences for their relevance to African teaching and research needs. The assessments were carried out in seven universities, two of which were in South Africa. An evaluation workshop was organized to assess the collected data. This book contains abridged versions of reports presented at the workshop and, although the book is about CD-ROM, it is not devoted to CD-ROM entirely. There are chapters on document delivery, current awareness services and on-line searching. CD-ROM for African research needs: guidelines for selecting databases edited by Lisbeth Levy 1996 157pp Sub Saharan Africa Program, American Association for Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005, USACD-ROM for African research needs: guidelines for selecting databases edited by Lisbeth Levy 1996 157pp Sub Saharan Africa Program, American Association for Advancement of Science, 1200 New York Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20005, US