Aminath Riyaz

The Maldives National University Library is the main academic library and the one and only university library in the small island developing state of the Maldives. The library is made up of seven branch libraries and caters to the university community located in Malé and three smaller campuses in the outer regions of the country. This chapter attempts to demonstrate the swift developmental milestones taken by the library. It also outlines the challenges in managing the library at an acceptable level to the academic community needs, given the shortage of human resources, financial resources, and lack of local information sources. Presenting this information to the international community, as shared experience for other similar developing countries, is one of the motivating factors in writing this chapter.

A robust library and information service sector is essential for any booming economy and also for an information society. The Maldives is a small island developing state that has seen swift progress within the last few decades in terms of economic development and universal education.
To reap the benefits of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and other developments, in today's information revolution, establishing a strong information culture within the society, among individuals, the community, and nation is seen as an essential component. The information culture of a developing nation can encompass seven key elements including indigenous knowledge, ICTs, information literacy, research & development and publication, library and information services, mass media, and information polices.
These elements are predominantly linked to the information service provision and level of information access. They are very closely aligned with the information sector. The collection, preservation, and dissemination of information in an organized and timely manner have greater relevance in enhancing the rest of the elements. The core group of professionals entrusted with these roles is the library and information service personnel, and the institutions that need to carry the responsibility are the libraries and information centres.
As such, keeping track of the development within this sector is an important initiative in identifying how far the country has progressed in its intellectual capacity.
The country does not have too many libraries to its credit; this necessarily is not an impediment given the size of the country and its population base of just over 300,000 people. The main libraries are the National Library of Maldives (also the one and only state owned public library) and the Maldives National University Library. There are a few research collections attached to research
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centres, government libraries attached with government offices, and a number of school libraries scattered throughout the geographically dispersed nation. A standardised central operation of libraries of the nation does not exist as of yet; theoretically the National Library has a mandate in this endeavour.
The Maldives Library Association is the self-appointed central body that attempts to establish a network of all these individual library units with the hope of improving efficiency and the quality of the library services. The Association is also the caretaker and promoter of this important sector; a sector that to the most part do not get much attention from policy makers.
Almost everyone recognizes the importance of having a library. Yet, it is disheartening to note that not much emphasis has been given to the capacity building of this sector. It appears the libraries of the nation exist in a vacuum. The country achieved universal schooling by the year 2000. Yet, to date the entire nation has only three practicing personnel with a University qualification in the area of library and information services. The records show that to date, only about nine personnel has attained a Diploma level qualification in library and information services and seven of them were not able to get their Diploma (from Sri Lanka) accredited to diploma level as stipulated in the framework of the Maldives Qualifications Authority.
With numerous efforts by the Maldives National University (MNU), the country now has an avenue to educate library and information professionals at Diploma level. The first batch of these students is scheduled to complete their studies by end of the current year. This is an encouraging development. The MNU has a long way to go in educating at least 300 more people to equip each library of this nation with at least one staff educated and trained to cater for this important sector.
The library sector faces considerable challenges in attracting promising candidates for this line of service. The society so far has not started to accept it as a reputable profession for the educated. I personally had people ask me "you are a LIBRARIAN, after your postgraduate qualifications from reputed Australian Universities?" People do not seemingly appear to understand that a library is the heart of any educational institution, and in turn educational
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institutions are the heart of the nation where the future generations, the future caretakers of the nation are made.
Also of importance is the provision of reading material to the public without exception whether they can afford to buy reading material or not. A public library is an important community centre if developed in the right manner. It is a place that can foster democratic values, by providing freedom to read and provision of equal access to a diverse collection; thereby providing individuals with the needed knowledge and access to ideas to achieve democratic ideals.
For the Maldives, there indeed is a long way to go to keep up with developed nations in information services provision. It is of utmost importance to keep pace with the developments in ICTs and to shape the services offered in a manner that attracts the younger generation to embrace a reading culture.
The purpose of bringing this book together is to document the progress the library and information sector has made over the last few decades. It is also an effort to gather support from policy makers, the public, and from prospective candidates to join this important sector where people with the right aptitude for emerging technologies can contribute to a large extent.
The book could be useful for information policy makers, for LIS students and educators, and also as a historical timeline of LIS development of the Maldives.
The idea about this book was generated over a year ago, and every effort has been made to attract as many people in the information sector to contribute to this edition in article submission. It is with appreciation that we put together this volume with contributions from almost everyone who has undergone an extended education in this field of study and currently working in the Maldives library sector.
The articles in this book can be divided into two main sections. The first one mostly reporting on the progress of the Maldives Library Association in terms of its management and administration and milestones achieved during this short period, taking into consideration the myriad challenges which can be mainly attributed to shortage of funds and qualified human resources.
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The second part of the book presents papers of scholarly nature, focussing on the area of information provision in the Maldivian context. The papers explore the areas of Library and Information Services education and its progress, the complexity of the attempts at creating a library consortia, the challenges in securing academic journal databases, the need for adhering to a common publishing standard, and the initiatives of creating and introducing local digital libraries as well as embracing library automation.
I conclude these introductory words with gratitude to all the contributors and well-wishers who helped in this process. The compilation of this book has itself been a learning journey.

This chapter discusses the Maldives information culture as observed and defined from the results of a research project undertaken as a Master of Philosophy at Curtin University in Australia. A survey of one rural Maldives community and one urban Maldives community collected data on their information use, access and awareness. Additional qualitative in-depth interviews with key information stakeholders in the Maldives sought supplementary information on the prevailing information situation. We present a conceptual model of the Maldives information culture including seven key elements: indigenous knowledge, ICTs, information literacy, research and publication, libraries and information services, mass media and information policies. The Maldives information culture is ‘paperless’, not in the modern online sense, but more in terms of the Maldives population’s high reliance on verbal information interchange for their everyday information needs. In the Maldives, broadcast media and verbal information exchange predominate over print media. In the Maldives, reading as a leisure activity is present to some degree, but reading as an intellectual activity is limited. Libraries are not commonly used as an information source. Adoption of ICTs is swift and promising. However, even if the Maldives population is literate in the local language, a significant group lacks the English language literacy to benefit from the online information environment. There are no major differences in the use of information between the rural and
urban community; the difference is in the level of access to information sources and the respondents’ information literacy skills.

Koha Pilot project initiated by the Maldives Library Association in January 2011, with administrative support from the National Library, aims to assist libraries of the Maldives in materializing automation of library services, thereby improving the overall service provision within and among the libraries . This project is facilitated by the Education Development Centre [Ministry of Education], Maldives National University Library, Maldivian Greenstone Network, and Nepzilla Solutions-Nepal.

Assalaam A’laikum.

Welcome to the second issue of MLA newsletter meet.learn.acquire for 2011.

The months between the last issue and this has been considerably quieter in terms of the ‘bang’ effect. However, very important initiatives have been taking place that will have a lasting impact on the Maldives LIS sector.

The automation and digitization initiatives taken by the MGN in 2010 has been embraced by the MLA, with plans in place to automate 10 libraries throughout the country  by end of 2011. This issue’s library profile page has been replaced with brief information about  the libraries selected for the project.

On page 4, read profile on our very hardworking LIS personnel Fathimath Nashath, followed by a bibliography of LIS and related publications on the Maldives. This highlights the opportunities and the information gaps in the Maldives’ LIS sector. We have also included highlights from international conferences and workshops attended by MLA members, including CDNL conference held in Soul, EIFL General Assembly held in Belarus, LIS leadership program held in various states of US, and International Workshop on Health Information Literacy held in Dhaka.

The library day of the year was marked on 12 July at various libraries throughout the country.  Further, Read a new topic on OH&S series as well as from classification series. Also read an informative article on LIS’s interdisciplinary approach.

I take this opportunity to thank all our readers, members, & contributors for the continued support in article contribution and for the encouraging feedback for the newsletter.

Please do let us know how we are doing by leaving a comment on our blog @ http://infomalias.wordpress.com

Thank you.