Library and Information Science

PurposeTo reiterate and update previous work in this area in the light of intervening developments in educational technology; and in particular to demonstrate the value of distance education for those sections of Pakistani society who are not well served by conventional educational methods. Those in need of workplace learning and similar forms of educational outreach are an important subset of this population.Design/methodology/approachThis is a historical account of distance learning in LIS education in Pakistan, with particular reference to the role of the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU), and also some conclusions and pointers for the future drawing on developments from 1999 to date.FindingsDistance education has a unique role to play in Pakistan, where high university drop‐out rates in conventional Higher Education, the need for outreach to the remote, rural poor, and the social barriers placed between women and participation in traditional education are notable features of s...

The role of digital library resources (DLRs) in accelerating academic and research productivity has been acknowledged worldwide. To examine its impact on engineering research in Pakistan, this study empirically explored the DLRs usage as predictor of respondents' satisfaction and research productivity. Quantitative research method was adopted to solicit viewpoints from a sample (n=196 out N=707) of Master and PhD students selected randomly from the public sector engineering universities in KPK, Pakistan. After the initial data screening, 177 questionnaires were processed as usable for statistical data analysis while five questionnaires with some missing values, erroneous or insufficient data were rejected. The response rate was computed as 90%. The findings of this empirical study show that the frequency of DLRs usage and purpose of DLRs significantly contributed to users' satisfaction and research productivity. In addition, a significant relationship was found between the independent variables IVs (DLRs Purpose, DLRs Frequency) and dependent variables DVs (users' satisfaction and research productivity). Outcomes of the study also supported all the four hypotheses between the variables. Major findings of this study could lead to further change in the provision of information sources by university libraries in order to support research efforts and make a scientific knowledge based society in the country. These outcomes are also helpful for HEC authority, university library administrators, LIS professionals / Information providers to develop e-resources, formulate effective DLRs usage policies through which they could make best use of these resources. This study empirically examines the impact of DLRs usage on engineering research in the context of engineering universities in Pakistan.

The ranking of universities and journals have been the focus of the scholarly community. These
rankings are used as a marketing tool for attracting new comers to the universities and for authors to the
journals. As a consequence, ranking of authors/faculty in a field of study has also become popular which
can be used as a useful tool for awards, promotion, recruitment, recognition, etc. Citations to scholarly
writings have been used to develop a number of quantitative measures to determine their impact on the
literature of a topic. This paper investigated the impact of 53 LIS faculty from eight Pakistani universities.
The data were collected during July 2011 using Google Scholar database. Only 11 out of 53 faculty
members contributed 118 publications which received 536 citations. The h-index, g-index, hc-index, hInorm,
and e-index, were used to determine the impact of these authors. The scatter of their publications in
various journals was determined and the most cited publication of each author was identified. The number
of faculty members who received citations is small and their scores in various indices are generally low.
There is a need for these faculty members to publish in impact factor journals in order to get more
citations and higher scores.

The pattern of collaborative authorship (extent of international collaboration and
degree of collaboration) and institutional affiliation in the papers of the Pakistan
Development Review were determined by using bibliometric techniques. The sample used
was the papers published during 1973-2009. Of the 1627 papers, 723 (44.44%) were the
result of collaborative effort. International collaboration was observed only in 94 papers.
The degree of collaboration was 0.44 as a whole and the year-wise calculated degree
ranged between 0.13 and 0.76. The year 2009 was the most productive year in terms of
collaborative research.

A bibliometric study of the articles published in journals shows the status of advancement and research in a subject field. Economics is an important area of interest for social scientists. Therefore, there is a need to analyze the journal literature of economics to determine its research patterns. This study analyzes the papers published in the Pakistan Development Review during 1973-2009 to determine the authorship patterns (productivity, collaboration, and affiliation), the topics covered, number of references per paper and size of the papers in terms of pages. A total of 1066 authors contributed to the journal during this period. Single-authored articles (55.56%) were predominant followed by two-authored articles and three-authored articles. The collaborative works accounted for 44.44 percent. Most of the authors (55.81%) came from Pakistan; with the second and third positions occupied by USA and England. The most favourite subject was Agriculture with 15.12 percent of the articles. Demography, Family Planning, Fertility, Gender issues and Behaviour was the second most popular topic. The average number of references per article was 20.14 and the average length of the articles was 16.34 pages.

Emotional intelligence is an important area of psychology, which has gained acceptance in almost every academic discipline. It also seems to influence the various academic activities undertaken by students. This article, which is part of a larger study, reviews the literature on emotional intelligence, and its relationship with the academic and nonacademic characteristics of students with an emphasis on the significance of this relationship. This review shows that emotional intelligence of students is a key element for them while handling a stressful situation. It also illustrates that emotional intelligence can be supportive in managing library anxiety among students leading to better academic performance. This article will assist the academic librarians to recognize the role of emotional intelligence in library-related activities of the patrons. It is recommended that future research should give more attention to this area.

This paper uses 601 cited papers of Pakistani LIS researchers with the purpose to examine the individual performance of these Library and Information Science (LIS) researchers in terms of their research output and its impact on the LIS (national/international) literature by using various bibliometric indicators. A list of 139 authors was compiled with the help of the Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts (LISTA) and some other sources. Data were collected from Google Scholar and SPSS version 20 was utilized in order to identify the relationship between self-citations and various performance indices of the authors. The average citations received per paper vary from 1.80 to 10.08. About half of the papers were single-authored whereas less than one-fifth were by three or more authors. The authors who worked in collaboration produced more papers and received more citations. The h-index, g-index, hI-index, hI-norm, and e-index were used to determine the rank for each author. The intra-group citations grid revealed the volume of self-citations and a small group who cite each other more due to close academic and social relationships. The correlations between self-citations and the impact indices used revealed significant differences. Findings are useful for concerned institutions regarding award, promotions, etc. Further, future research should seriously consider the self-citations and social networking of authors while examining their citations-based research performance.

The pattern of collaborative authorship (extent of international collaboration and degree of collaboration) and institutional affiliation in the papers of the Pakistan Development Review were determined by using bibliometric techniques. The sample used was the papers published during 1973-2009. Of the 1627 papers, 723 (44.44%) were the result of collaborative effort. International collaboration was observed only in 94 papers. The degree of collaboration was 0.44 as a whole and the year-wise calculated degree ranged between 0.13 and 0.76. The year 2009 was the most productive year in terms of collaborative research.

The ranking of universities and journals have been the focus of the scholarly community. These rankings are used as a marketing tool for attracting new comers to the universities and for authors to the journals. As a consequence, ranking of authors/faculty in a field of study has also become popular which can be used as a useful tool for awards, promotion, recruitment, recognition, etc. Citations to scholarly writings have been used to develop a number of quantitative measures to determine their impact on the literature of a topic. This paper investigated the impact of 53 LIS faculty from eight Pakistani universities. The data were collected during July 2011 using Google Scholar database. Only 11 out of 53 faculty members contributed 118 publications which received 536 citations. The h-index, g-index, hc-index, hInorm, and e-index, were used to determine the impact of these authors. The scatter of their publications in various journals was determined and the most cited publication o...

The ranking of universities and journals have been the focus of the scholarly community. These rankings are used as a marketing tool for attracting new comers to the universities and for authors to the journals. As a consequence, ranking of authors/faculty in a field of study has also become popular which can be used as a useful tool for awards, promotion, recruitment, recognition, etc. Citations to scholarly writings have been used to develop a number of quantitative measures to determine their impact on the literature of a topic. This paper investigated the impact of 53 LIS faculty from eight Pakistani universities. The data were collected during July 2011 using Google Scholar database. Only 11 out of 53 faculty members contributed 118 publications which received 536 citations. The h-index, g-index, hc-index, hI-norm, and e-index, were used to determine the impact of these authors. The scatter of their publications in various journals was determined and the most cited publication ...

The protection of sensitive data from illegitimate users is one of the main challenges in today's technological era. To handle prevailing security-related problems and challenges amicably, cryptographic techniques are applied for the fortification of data. State-of-the-art cryptographic ciphers generally use substitution-boxes (S-boxes) that help in accomplishing robust sanctuary of data. Provision of data security by a cipher is proportionate directly to the cryptographic strength of an S-box employed in the respective cipher. This research paper proposes to project a simple and innovative scheme for the generation of dynamic S-boxes by employing a novel cubic modular transformation along with the trigonometric sine function. A pioneering optimization phase, dynamic in nature, is also suggested that improvises the nonlinearity of the initial configuration of S-box. The overall proposed scheme possesses the potential to spawn a large count of strong S-boxes by smearing a minute variation in input parameters used in initial and optimization phases. Cipher key is used to employ values to the input parameters for the creation of dynamic S-boxes. A specimen S-box is presented, and its performance has been achieved through standard criteria of S-box evaluation along with the comparative analysis with some existing Sboxes. Recital and comparative investigations validate that the anticipated S-box possesses the real capability for its usage in cryptosystems for much needed data security.

This study investigates the use of the library by the Bachelor level students of Government Girl's colleges of District Peshawar. The prime aim of this study is to know about the current usage of the library by the readers. The effective library use is also a point of discussion of this paper. The population of this study consist of the Bachelor level girls students of three Government Girls' Degree colleges of Peshawar. Thirty (30) students of Bachelor level were selected randomly as a sample from each college. A self-developed questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. A total of ninety responses were collected. It was concluded that the majority of the students hesitate to use the library because of the problem they faced during its use. Lack of books, lack of organizational setup, lack of space and other physical facilities were the major factors associated with the less use of the library. Provision of latest collection, implementation of technological infrastructure commencement of library science classes at college level and awareness campaigns can be used as readership enhancement tools.