Paul Sturges

• Professor Emeritus at Loughborough University

The concept of intellectual freedom is frequently treated as if it were universally accepted and not open to question. This is not the case and challenges to intellectual freedom emerge from many cultures, and worldwide it may be disregarded more than it is respected. However, international declarations and conventions, the constitutions and laws o...

In this exploratory study, we investigate the factors affecting two opposite types of online privacy behavior: 1) online privacy paradox, i.e. a mismatch between users’ online privacy attitudes and their online privacy behavior; and 2) online privacy protection. To assess these two types of behavior, we devised a new direct scale comprising 25 item...

This exploration of the connection between the library and the broader socio-political sphere in which it functions is based on a keynote presentation originally given at the BOBCATSSS Conference in Lyons, January 2016. The freedom to seek and receive information and ideas in a secure and private environment is identified as the way in which the li...

The joke is an essential comic format, and since great volumes of jokes circulate unattributed and without explicit context, the question of their origin requires answering. The current production of jokes is explored in this article, using interviews with stand-up comedians and the current literature of comedy. Comedians reveal a serious devotion...

The idea that freedom of expression might have limits is examined in the context of the Charlie Hebdo murders. Authoritative statements including the universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19) are revisited and blasphemy laws, defamation of religion resolutions, hate speech laws and recent moves to end blasphemy laws are all discussed. The...

The attack on the weekly Charlie Hebdo by Muslim fanatics is discussed. The author argues that freedom of expression includes the criticism of religious ideas, based on Articles 18 and 19 of the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The types of problematic incidents that occur in connection with religious beliefs, such as blasphemy, defamati...

African librarians need to embrace enormous changes in technology and in social and economic circumstances during the course of their careers, but the methods that the profession should use to renew itself are not clear. At present the emphasis is on the possession of diplomas and degrees, but there is no special reason to believe that adding a sec...

The conclusions of research articles generally depend on bodies of data that cannot be included in the articles themselves. The sharing of this data is important for reasons of both transparency and possible reuse. Science, Technology and Medicine journals have an obvious role in facilitating sharing, but how they might do that is not yet clear. Th...

Insights from the recent wealth of popular books on neuroscience are offered to suggest a strengthening of theory in information science. Information theory has traditionally neglected the human dimension in favour of ‘scientific’ theory often derived from the Shannon-Weaver model. Neuroscientists argue in excitingly fresh ways from the evidence of...

Algunos elementos que aparecen en libros publicados recientemente sobre neurociencia permiten sugerir un fortalecimiento de la teoria de la ciencia de la informacion. Tradicionalmente la teoria de la informacion ha descuidado la dimension humana a favor de enfoques “cientificos” derivados a menudo del modelo Shannon-Weaver. Sin embargo ahora los ne...

Puts forward propositions for structuring principles that need to be taken into account when developing LIS training and education programmes. These are mainly intended for developing countries, but also have global applicability.

Whilst until the late 19th century most libraries were dependent on donations for their stock, since then donations have been insignificant for the majority of libraries in comparison with purchased acquisitions. There are organisations, however, which have considerable donations programmes and the Church of Scientology is a prominent example. Scie...

The Information Literacy (IL) literature generally looks no further for a rationale than the evident value and obvious practical justification of IL programmes. There is emerging a wealth of published, broadcast and online scientific popularisation of modern neuroscience, which allows the general reader to grasp the implications of the research. Fr...

Insights from the recent wealth of popular books on neuroscience are offered to suggest a strengthening of theory in information science. Information theory has traditionally neglected the human dimension in favour of 'scientific' theory often derived from the Shannon-Weaver model. Neuroscientists argue in excitingly fresh ways from the evidence of...

Funding agencies, researchers and publishers increasingly recognise that open access to research data is an academic priority. Journals have an important role to play in any system for data access, but at present there is little clarity over how they may contribute to a better sharing climate. The UK JISC funded JoRD Project was a feasibility study...

The sharing of the data generated by research projects is increasingly being recognised as an academic priority by funders, researchers and STM publishers. The topic has been discussed by national and international organisations, for example, ICSU (the International Council for Science), [1] the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Deve...

The donations of books and other materials to libraries in developing countries reveal the paradox that a gift can be more of a problem than a benefit. In the post-colonial period, well meaning organisations sent boxes of discarded books to libraries. Governments send book donations for propaganda purposes and religious organisations do likewise, w...

The quality of research in information science and library science is criticized. Researchers are encouraged to use their imagination, empathy and lateral thinking skills. Choice of topic, use of existing theories and theoretical models, literature searching, application of methods and methodologies, and appraisal of results are all areas in which...

In an attempt to assess the role of libraries as contributors to the freedom of (official) information published in Alexandria in 2001, Sturges examined both the definition of freedom of information and the actual role of libraries in providing better access to official documentation. He concluded that libraries are not so much agents of freedom of...

Se puede argumentar que existe una relacion entre el derecho a la libertad intelectual (argumento pasivo) propuesto por el Articulo 19 de la Declaracion Universal sobre los Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas y la consecuente responsabilidad por parte de los gobiernos, los profesionales y los defensores de los derechos civiles de crear (argumen...

Whilst African civil conflicts are usually presented in the media as either political struggles, terrorism or mere banditry, in some at least there is a substantial spiritual element. Conflicts Zimbabwe, Mozambique and elsewhere in Af-rican have been shown to contain highly significant contributions from spirit forces intermediated by mediums, trad...

Resumen Aunque la ciencia y la religión pueden considerarse como dos métodos para buscar la verdad, en la práctica divergen en sus efectos. Este hecho tiene serias implicaciones para la teoría y la práctica profesional de la información y la documen-tación. A partir del principio del derecho humano a la libertad de expresión –que contiene el derech...

Aunque la ciencia y la religión pueden considerarse compatibles como dos métodos para buscar la verdad, en la práctica divergen en sus efectos. Este hecho tiene serias implicaciones para la teoría y la práctica profesional de la información y la documentación. A partir del principio del derecho humano a la libertad de expresión —que contiene el der...

A clear line of argument can be set out to link the (passive) intellectual freedom rights offered by Article Nineteen of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration on Human Rights, to a consequent responsibility on governments, professionals and civil society activists for the (active) creation of suitable conditions for the effective exercise of in...

The adoption of modern information and communication technologies has been predicted to have a dramatic impact on cultures and civil societies, especially in those developing countries that have been ‘isolated’ from the information society. Theories and predictions on the impact of technologies are widely available in both popular and academic writ...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the practice of comedians in relation to freedom of expression, so as to throw light on the issue of giving or avoiding offence. Design/methodology/approach – The literature of comedy, newspaper coverage of comedy in the UK in 2008, observation of comedians in performance, and a small, informal...

19 slides created with MSPowerPoint and migrated to pdf using Adobe PDF. Paper presented at the Stellenbosch University Library 2010 Symposium / IFLA Presidential Meeting. Knowing is not enough: Engaging in the knowledge economy, 18 to 19 February 2010. Predictions that the printed book, and the library with it, will have no place in a twenty-first...

The first decade of the twenty first century has seen a growing interest and intellectual debate within the information professions, focusing on issues where an ethical dimension predominates. This paper provides an overview of codes of practice, published literature, conference proceedings and educational programs that focus on information ethics,...

Closed Access until June 2011. This is an electronic version of an article published in the journal, Police and Society: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t713646669 Changes to how police forces in England and Wales are working to manage their public image in an environment of heightened accountability and transparency are explored. Th...

Reviews the activities of the Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) programme of IFLA from 2003 to 2009, based on three types of activity: intervention, education, and advocacy. FAIFE is still prepared to intervene in cases of threat to the stock, services and staff of libraries, but this was not the predominant form of activ...

This is a pre-print. A traveller (the author) arrives in a foreign city (Kampala, Uganda) for the first time and picks up a newspaper (Sunday Vision). The front-page banner headline reads ‘Minister told to give bribe’. (Abbey, 2004) The story tells how a government minister in his private capacity as a motor dealer had successfully sued the governm...

The twenty-fifth year of Information Development, the journal, prompts a reflection on what makes the concept `information development' sustainable. From the very beginning, the journal has been open to critical views of information programmes and policies in the developing world. Although the idea of `sustainability' has become something of a clic...

The conflict in northern Uganda between government forces and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has created an information seeking environment with deep and unusual problems. This study is based on the literature, enriched by informal interviews in Uganda. Government neglect of the region and the LRA's communication through spirit messages and the s...

The legal, regulatory, administrative and policing structures of censorship and related forms of information suppression are well known and widely discussed. The much more insidious phenomenon of self-censorship is paid less attention, but it arguably prevents greater volumes of information, argument and comment from being openly expressed. Self-ce...

Campaigners against corruption advocate transparency as a fundamental condition for its prevention. Trans-parency in itself is not the most important thing: it is the accountability that it makes possible. Transparency itself is, in fact, a metaphor based on the ability of light to pass through a solid, but transparent, medium and reveal what is on...

The proposition that provision of some form of ICT could assist the population of the urban slums of developing countries to obtain the access to public services to which they are entitled is being widely tested through experimentation. The particular programme of experiments in Croatia, India, Nigeria and Pakistan described here was funded by the...

Histories of libraries have tended to focus on buildings and books, with people mainly introduced in the character of librarians. However, it could be argued that public libraries are much more about people than they are about books. Few British public libraries have sought to develop “great” collections in the way that research libraries have, the...

The distress and anger caused by the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons containing satirical depictions of the Prophet Mahommed is the starting point for an exploration of the dimensions of the right to freedom of expression contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Related rights and duties to the community are examin...

Examples of seemingly irrational responses to information delivery in the developing world are explored and the underlying rationality considered. Witchcraft, tribal loyalties and tradition, along with very local economics are some of the legitimate components of the filter through which new information must pass to be accepted. Better attempts to...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Namibian liberation struggle, 1966‐1990, as an information war rather than a military conflict, so as to explore the dimensions of information activity under conditions of conflict. This builds on the idea, expressed by participants in earlier struggles of this kind, that the contest for “hearts...

The Namibian liberation struggle against South African rule, 1966–1990, can be looked at as an information war rather than a military conflict. The author has previous elaborated a model that incorporates information and communication activity by both contestants in such struggles, at their command centres, in the field and in the media. Here, the...

Purpose – As part of a series to mark the 60th anniversary of the Journal of Documentation, the aim is to review a 1956 article by Barbara Kyle. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review and analysis. Findings – The theme of Barbara Kyle's 1956 Journal of Documentation article “Privilege and public provision in the intellectual welfare stat...

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Purpose Aims to explore an alternative approach to library and information service in multicultural communities, based on the principles of IFLA's Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Committee. Design/methodology/approach Literature‐based analysis of current approaches to multicultural services and the basis for a di...

Information and communication in times of war is an area that has been much written about, but one which has not often been treated as a topic in its own right from an information science perspective. The national liberation struggles of the second half of the 20th century offer possibilities for the development of an information and communication...

In continental Europe, ‘public’ libraries developed along different lines than in Great Britain. In countries such as, in particular, Germany and France, there is a clear distinction between the academic public library, rich in research materials for scholars, and the general public library, which concentrates on lending and information functions....

The absence of a formal code of ethics for librarians in Britain until 1983 meant that ethical values were passed on by example rather than precept. Increased interest in ethical issues in the 1970s, when the profession was seen as in crisis, resulted in discussions within the Library Association and a draft code was issued in 1981. Despite strong...

With digital technology libraries can archive considerable resources of detailed information about their users. This data is generally regarded as confidential between the library and the individual, but it has potential interest for commercial organisations, law enforcement and security agencies, and libraries themselves, to assist in marketing th...

The amount of unreliable information and actual misinformation available via the Internet makes its use problematic for academic purposes, particularly for data-intensive disciplines such as archaeology. Whilst there are many sources for reviews of websites, few apply the type of criteria most appropriate to archaeology. Information and library pro...

In one of the written versions of netiquette, the first rule is “remember the human”. This is intended to encourage more tolerant and considerate behaviour amongst Internet users. It could also be taken as a reminder to librarians that they should not let the attractions of new technology cause them to forget the human dimension. A major aspect of...

Libraries & Culture 37.4 (2002) 385-386 Voices. This book is full of the sound of voices. We hear the testimony of domestic servants, weavers, wheelwrights, coal miners, factory hands, farm laborers, shepherds, and hosts of others, telling in their own words of the lives they have lived in their minds. The sources are approximately two thousand aut...

User privacy has taken on a fresh importance as digital resources and systems become increasingly important in libraries. Public and professional concern has been aroused by numerous instances of the privacy-threatening effects of current technical and legal developments. Not only do loan and other transactions leave traces in library management sy...

It is through freedom of information legislation that states come closest to providing the full mechanism for access to files. Because the library holds information resources and provides services that promise access to information, it seems natural to suggest that the library, particularly the national library, is an agent for freedom of informati...

The countries of Anglophone Africa, consisting of former British colonies and protectorates, almost all provide public library facilities in the form of national library services (also including traditional national library facilities). The idea is first found in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia) in 1928. Evelyn Evans developed it fully in Ghana as...

Ever since Information technology was introduced into the work of some special libraries in the 1960s, there have been predictions that the end-user searching of online databases would make librarians unnecessary. The enormous developments in automated information retrieval since then, and the coming of the internet and the World Wide Wed in the 19...

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Rural information services on a less formal plan than conventional library service have been advocated in Africa since the early 1980s. Since then considerable experimentation with such services has taken place in many countries, for example Tanzania and Zimbabwe. So far, little formal assessment of such services has been attempted. Performance mea...

The article has been published in the journal, Collection Building [© Emerald]. The definitive version: STURGES, P., 1999. Social intelligence for developing countries: the role of grey literature. Collection Building, 18, pp. 114-125, is available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/cb/cb.htm. The necessity for social intelligence, bro...

The challenge that faces Schools of Library and Information Studies is to identify what is distinctive about the LIS curriculum that can be used both to strengthen Library and Information Studies (LIS) education and to make sure that it is attractive to students who are not future librarians. Perhaps the chief barrier to positioning LIS education t...

European public libraries frequently have to reconcile the continuance of a traditional scholarly role with the provision of modern public library services. In Britain the great city libraries share this dilemma. Official policy has not offered useful solutions to the problems of two decades of financial pressures, social change and the demands of...

The importance of power relationships in defining information, governing its availability, and prestructuring its effect are illustrated from the experiences of Kamuzu Banda's Malawi. Attempts to develop a national information policy were rendered irrelevant by official suppression of information and the surveillance of the population to prevent di...

The importance of power relationships in defining information, governing its availability, and prestructuring its effect are illustrated from the experiences of Kamuzu Banda's Malawi. Attempts to develop a national information policy were rendered irrelevant by official suppression of information and the surveillance of the population to prevent di...

This article appeared in the journal, International Information and Library Review [© Elsevier]. The definitive version: STURGES, P. and CHIMSEU, G., 1996. The chain of information provision in the villages of Malawi: a rapid rural appraisal. International Information and Library Review, 28, pp. 135-156, is available at: http://www.sciencedirect.co...

Quantitative methodology dominates the thinking of students planning dissertations and theses to such an extent that there is a comparative neglect of alternative approaches. The potential of qualitative approaches to provide either an informed critique of quantitative data, or studies offering a much richer understanding of motivation and attitude...

The organisers of the annual Electronic Public Information Provision seminar at Loughborough University regularly ask participants about the topics they would wish to be included in the programme. Among the topics they most frequently ask for are copyright and other legal issues. This article is a version of a presentation given at the 1995 seminar...

There are increasing numbers of experiments (in countries as diverse as Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Benin, Senegal, Botswana and Zimbabwe) with informal community information services dealing with health, hygiene, child care, cultivation, stock-rearing, trades, crafts and repair work, in the way in which surveys show that citizens require. Conventional...

When you admit that you do research on information and communication in the humanities disciplines, a common response is ‘Why on earth do you do that? Surely there is nothing worth knowing that isn't already obvious.’ What the sceptical listener is telling you is that he believes humanist research and scholarship are still firmly wedded to methods,...

The early decades of British public libraries were characterized by a definite prejudice against fiction reading. This article presents a study of the roots of the nineteenth-century public library's difficulties in coming to terms with the relationship between the realities of user demand and a more theoretical view of a library's true function. T...

The difficulties which arise from selecting students and preparing them for research in the Department of Library and Information Studies when applicants are almost exclusively from overseas countries have led to the preparation of a Research Degree Preparation Pack. The content and intended use of the Pack are discussed.