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In-House Indexing of Periodical Literature: a Study of University Libraries in Kenya

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In-House Indexing of Periodical Literature: a Study of University Libraries in Kenya IN-HOUSE INDEXING OF PERIODICAL LITERATURE: A STUDY OF UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES IN KENYA By PETER HEZRON MARISIA MATANJI Submitted in accordance with the requirement for the award of MASTER OF INFORMATION SCIENCE at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: PROF. O.B. ONYANCHA CO-SUPERVISOR: MRS. M. BURGER 2012 DECLARATION I declare that The study In-house indexing of periodical literature: a study of university libraries in Kenya is my own work and that all the sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. Signed: MR. P.H.M. MATANJI Date (STUDENT) As the candidate‟s supervisors, we have approved this thesis for submission Signed: 25 March 2012 PROF O.B. ONYANCHA Date (Promoter) Signed: 25 March 2012 MRS M. BURGER Date (Co-Promoter) ii DEDICATION With love, This work is dedicated to my wife Lynnette Your love, patience, support and encouragement have been the source of my inspiration And in the memory of my late Father Rev. Hezron Marisia and the late mother Margaret Lumiti Marisia who always encouraged me to keep adding to my knowledge whenever I had the opportunity iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my gratitude to my two supervisors, namely: Mrs. M. Burger and Prof. OB Onyancha who guided me throughout the study. Without their thoughtful suggestions and comments, this project would not have met the required standard. Special thanks go to Ms. Marika Tucker, reference librarian, Unisa Library for conducting literature searches and e-mailing the resources to me at various stages of the study; and to the Unisa Library staff for obtaining and posting selected articles and books, whenever I requested for them. Without their assistance, it would have been difficult for me to get the periodical articles and books that eventually formed the basis of my literature review. The efficient and professional service and effective retrieval and document delivery mechanism of Unisa library provided outstanding contribution towards informational requirements of this project. I am greatly indebted to my wife, sister, brother and other relatives for their selfless support throughout this course. Special heartfelt thanks to the following: Lynette, Terry, Milkah, Beatrice, Unicef, Lucy and other lovely friends and relatives for being there all the time; Mr. Otiwi, Mr. Alubala, Mr. Z. Maleche, for your assistance and constant encouragement respectively; Beatrice, Ruth and Eunice for typing and retyping the project. They did a commendable job and showed a lot of patience; and Mr. Khayundi for reading through the script and making useful comments and offering professional guidance. Finally, special appreciation to the Department of Information Science, Unisa for accepting my candidature and offering the much needed guidance during the study. To God be the Glory for great things He has done. MAY GOD BLESS YOU ALL iv ABSTRACT The present study investigated identification, access and usage of periodicals in university libraries in Kenya, with a view of recommending a tool for assisting users to identify information. Using questionnaires completed by 316 university library users and 27 librarians, backed with participant observations, document analysis as well as interviews, it was found that usage of periodicals was low as most users browse through periodicals to identify information, a method that is not effective. In-house indexing was investigated and found to be an effective tool in facilitating access to relevant information. The study recommends establishment of in-house indexing programs and databases in university libraries; formulation of consistent indexing policies to achieve quality indexing; and that indexing should be focused on both content and user requirements by specifying points- of- view, and study methodologies to enhance retrieval of relevant information. Keywords In-house indexing; University libraries; Periodicals indexing; Indexing; Information processing; Access to information; Periodical literature. v DEFINITION OF TERMS This study accepts and adopts the standard definition of terms as they are presented in key authority sources (e.g. dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc). Bibliographic apparatus Bibliographic apparatus refer to: title, subtitle, abstract, paragraph headings, and initial paragraphs. Compound subject A compound subject refers to a text with more than one central concept. Explicit subject Information Information which is expressed in the terminology applied by the document producer. Implicit information Information which is not directly expressed by the author but which is readily understood or interpreted by a (human) reader of the document. Index Term The verbal representation of a concept. A term may consist of one word (e.g. globalization) or more words (e.g. stock markets). Index terms are used for retrieving the documents described. Index terms are also known as descriptors. Indexer Anyone (e.g. cataloguer, indexer, classifier) who would be doing subject organization (i.e., analyzing the subject of an item, describing the subject in his/her terms, and translating it into a specific system‟s language). Indexing The process of creating subject data, i.e. subject entries or descriptors for documents in an information retrieval system. vi Indexing consistency A measure of the similarity of different human beings processing the same information. Indexing consistency in a group of indexers The degree of agreement in the representation of the essential information of the document by certain sets of indexing terms selected independently by each of the indexers in the group. In-house indexing The process of assigning subjects/terms to articles or contributions in periodicals held in the library or information center by the holding library or information center, aimed at assisting library users to quickly locate relevant information contained in the indexed works. Inter indexer consistency The extent to which two or more people agree in their description of a body of information. It refers to the phenomenon of conflicting indexer decisions. If several different indexers are asked independently and individually to index the same document, a great deal of inconsistency is likely to be apparent in the results. In other words, the judgment and selection of terms to represent the subjects of the document will vary considerably from indexer to indexer. Periodical publication A publication that comes out periodically at regular intervals in a definite sequence without a foreseen end, usually containing information that depicts on the state of the art. Also known as serial publication. Precision The capacity of the system to withhold non-relevant documents. vii Precision ratio The number of relevant documents out of the total number of documents retrieved by the index. Reading To an extent which varies with length and importance of text, and the time available, reading means mentally incorporating the structure and content of a text not in and for itself, but as it is of value to the user of the text base. Recall Recall is the retrieval of relevant documents by the system as a result of a search inquiry. Recall ratio The number of relevant documents among the total relevant documents which has been retrieved by the indexing system. Search Strategy The formulation of a statement of the user‟s information need in a formula appropriate to a retrieval system. Subject The totality of epistemological interests that one document may serve. Subject analysis Deriving from a document a set of words that serve as a condensed representation of it. This representation may be used to identify the document, to provide access points in literature searches, to indicate its content, or as a substitute for the document. Also known as conceptual analysis. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Declaration ii Dedication iii Acknowledgement iv Abstract v Definition of terms vi Table of contents ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 1 1.1 Background to the study and contextual setting 1 1.2 Statement of the problem 4 1.3 Purpose and objectives of the study 7 1.3.1 Purpose of the study 7 1.3.2 Objectives of the study 7 1.3.3 Research questions 8 1.4 Motivation for the study 9 1.5 Significance of the study 10 1.6 Scope and limitations of the study 11 1.7 Deliminations of the study 11 1.8 Organisation of the dissertation 12 1.9 Dissemination of the findings 12 1.10 Summary of the chapter 13 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 15 2.1 Introduction 15 2.2 Indexing principles 16 2.2.1 Aims and objectives of indexing 16 ix 2.1.2 Need for indexing 17 2.1.3 Functions of an index 18 2.1.4 Indexing characteristics and retrieval performance 19 2.2 Development of periodical indexing 38 2.2.1 Early development of Periodical indexing 38 2.2.2 Contemporary printed periodical indexes 40 2.2.3 The development of database indexing 43 2.2.4 Automatic indexing 45 2.2.5 The future of the human indexer 50 2.3 Indexing practice and usage of periodical literature 55 2.3 1 Indexing practice and information needs of researchers 59 2.3.2 Non-use of indexing services 63 2.3.3 Indexing for users 64 2.4 In-house indexing 66 2.4.1 Introduction 66 2.4.2 The need for in-house indexing in university libraries 67 2.4.3 Factors necessary for success of an in-house indexing project 70 2.5 Summary of the chapter 81 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 84 3.1 Introduction 84 3.2 Research design 84 3.3 Identification of population and sampling procedures 86 3.3.1 Target population 86 3.3.2 Sampling procedures 87 3.4 Data collection
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