Analysis and news
How can academic libraries align with sustainable development goals? Haseeb Md. Irfanullah looks at the role for Bangladesh libraries in driving the country’s evolution
Bangladesh is an economy in transition. In 2018, the country for the first time fulfilled all the criteria to become a lower-middle- income country. It now needs to maintain this gain for another five years to get out of the least-developed-country list in 2024, at the earliest. As Bangladesh progresses, its
education sector remains one of the largest areas of government expenditure. For the current fiscal year (July 2019− June 2020), this sector is receiving about 12 per cent of the country’s $62bn budget. And, the ‘secondary and higher education’ sub-sector would spend about half of it, or $3.5bn. The past decade has seen many
government initiatives promoting research and enhancing research capacity at Bangladesh’s universities. The overall public spending for research at the tertiary level is, however, small compared with the education budget or the country’s GDP ($250bn). A review of this year’s budget from the Ministry of Education shows an allocation of $3.6m for research. The Ministry of Science and Technology is another source of research funding for academic and research institutions. During 2009‒2018, it has funded around $45m in research.
Academic libraries of Bangladesh Bangladesh has 152 public and private universities, teaching around four million students and the public universities make one third of the total. Academic libraries of this country have had fantastic evolution over the past decade. My recent discussions with several university librarians and visits to 15 library websites draw some interesting pictures of Bangladesh’s academic libraries. The surveyed universities included the country’s five oldest public universities (established between 1921 and 1966) and 2019’s top 10 private universities, with the oldest established in 1992. Many libraries’ online access to global
scholarly literature was initiated through several worldwide initiatives, like the INASP-PERI and the Research4Life.
14 Research Information February/March 2020
In recent years, the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh’s UGC Digital Library (UDL) has facilitated access to greater e-resources along with individual universities’ negotiation with different publishers. Offering reference books to the students, researchers, and faculty members remains the core service of all libraries, but gradually moving towards e-books. The extent of accessing e-journals widely varies from university to university, ranging from a few thousands to tens of thousands. Most surveyed libraries now support off-campus access to e-resources through OpenAthens or RemoteXs. In recent years, Bangladeshi universities in general have become more aware of unethical practices in the academic arena. One third of the surveyed libraries now
“Academic libraries of this country have had fantastic evolution over the past decade”
provide a plagiarism-check service to their students and faculties using software, like Turnitin. In rare instances, when asked by the university administrations, libraries also run plagiarism checks on the published papers or post-graduate theses submitted by the faculty members along with job or promotion applications. Also rare, university administrations ask their libraries to check the authenticity of the journals in which staff members publish their research. Similarly, at a few universities, faculty members also ask libraries to check certain journals when the formers are not sure if those are predatory or fake. Two-third of the university libraries
surveyed have institutional repositories, often using DSpace. Anyone can openly access almost all of these repositories. In some cases, unpublished research is only accessible on-campus due to concern over potential misuse by plagiarizers.
At least one university has initiated digitisation of old newspapers, periodicals and journals under a donor-supported project.
On a limited scale, academic libraries
arrange capacity development sessions for their staff and faculty members on new technologies and access methods. On a relatively wider scale, libraries organise orientation events for new students so that they can avail of the library services.
Issues shaping academic libraries Since technology is an integral part of modern libraries, its availability, accessibility, and affordability is a crucial aspect in the Global South. Many facilities we now see in the academic institutions of Bangladesh have been established, supported or enhanced by donor-funded projects. The World Bank-supported a $205m Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) in Bangladesh, which ended on 31 December 2018. Over a decade, this project significantly changed the teaching, learning and research systems of Bangladesh’s higher education. But how to carry forward such an investment beyond the project tenure is a challenge and depends upon individual universities’ resources and commitments. Besides those surveyed, academic
libraries of Bangladesh in general sometimes show limited leadership to keep libraries relevant. Libraries and their users are not always aware of or do not have sufficient knowledge of what libraries ‘can do’ in a dynamic scholarly world. This hinders their ability to reposition themselves. The students and faculty members often do not demand enough services from the libraries, which in turn lead to less investment. A library has to constantly complete with other priorities of their host institutions for funding as academic institutions of Bangladesh are often resource constrained. To overcome technological and
resource limitations, project dependency, and a demand-supply gap, academic libraries need to show strategic leadership for their institutions. They need to collaborate with other libraries
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