Publication delays and difficulties in leadership recruitment have had a hand in certain developments for World Libraries. The first is the decision to publish this, the 10 th volume of WL, as a double issue. In order to return to an on-time publication schedule, the next few volumes will also appear as double issues, with volume 11 appearing in the fall of 2002, volume 12 in spring 2003 and volume 13, fall 2003. Publication delays can also, in part, be said to be behind the almost concurrent publication of a similar article to that of Edwin Qobose about subject specialization in Botswana and South Africa, published in WL in vol. 9, no. 2 (1999), in The African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science vol. 11, no. 2 (October 2001). The abstract is available online at http://www.inasp.org.uk/ajol/journals/ajlais/vol11no2abs.html#6
Mr. Qobose has kindly provided us with a copy of the second article. This demonstrates enough differences that it can be said that this is not the same article as was published in World Libraries.
The current volume of WL takes us to Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean and Africa. There are two articles from Asia. The first is Betty Romayne's account of "Libraries at 'the end of Russia'," where she describes a unique cooperative program between the California State University, Sacramento, and the Far Eastern State Technical University, geographically at the end of Russia in Vladivostok. The second comes from India, where Anjali Gulati and R. L. Raina from the Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow discuss the role of knowledge competencies for today's library and information professionals.
The third article introduces an emphasis that we hope to develop further for World Libraries, namely library and information services among indigenous peoples. The International Indigenous Librarians' Forum was created at a conference in New Zealand in November 1999. Loriene Roy, from the Graduate School of library and Information Science at the University of Texas at Austin was one of the delegates, and has graciously agreed to adapt her paper to the 2000 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, previously published on the ALA website at http://www.ala.org/work/international/intlpprs/roy.html for publication in WL.
The remaining two articles are examinations of services in academic libraries. Reginald Clarke provides a description of how librarians can provide input into academic standards for and the preservation of theses. Betty Ifidon, in her turn, studies the development of Readers' Services in Nigerian academic libraries, hampered by an explosive increase in student numbers, and proffers some solutions that are interesting in any national context.
Johan Koren is Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University.
Email: jkoren [at] email [dot] dom [dot] edu
© 2000 Johan Koren