Abstract
D. Litt. et Phil.
South African academic information services realise that they can no longer rely on their own
information resources to provide in the growing information needs of their users, especially after
access to the Internet and the vast number of information sources of the World-Wide Web have
become available. Access is needed to digital full-text, sound, graphics, images, multimedia and
hypermedia documents in national and international organisations. Cooperative resource sharing
between the different organisations proved to be the only solution to the growing information
problem. Academic information services are required to assist in creating digital study material,
and in the transfer of digital text, multimedia and hypermedia for research, instruction and
distance education. By implication, the development of an information technology infrastructure
within the organisation, as well as nationally and internationally, has become essential.
The purpose of this research was to examine what the current circumstances and futuristic
information technology developments and events are under which South African academic
information services have to develop an information technology infrastructure for resource
sharing.
To gather information on the current circumstances, a survey was done on initiatives taken by
South African academic information services towards the development of an information
technology infrastructure for resource sharing. Questionnaires were mailed to 37 South African
academic information services, to which 34 responded. The Delphi interviewing technique was
used to scrutinise future information technology developments and events that may influence the
planning and development of an information technology infrastructure. A panel of 10 experts was
selected to take part in the interviews. Scenario building was applied to show how planning and
decisions by management could influence the outcome of an academic information service. The
focal issue was the timely development of a digital academic information service within an
information technology infrastructure.
General conclusions of the study are:
• Current organisational and national information and telecommunications network
infrastructures cannot cope with the transfer of information sources, such as sound, image
and digital full-text documents. Insufficient bandwidth for the effective transfer of
information is a major problem.
A flexible infrastructure which conforms to set standards, can adapt to new information
technology developments and supports the business and information technology strategies
of the host organisation, must be developed for resource sharing.
The main recommendations of the research are:
Access should be provided to all digital resources of national and international
organisations irrespective of time or location. Electronic text centres can be employed to
provide continuous access to digital resources.
Development of an infrastructure for resource sharing should be a collaborative effort
between the organisations towards acquiring and employing the essential and most
suitable information technology.
All academic information services should participate in a regional or national resource
sharing cooperative. The value of cooperation and consortium membership lies in the
availability of information sources in all formats to all users of the member organisations.
Standards should be improved and maintained to ensure communication, retrieval and
transfer of information sources. Information services should plan for larger bandwidth to
cooperate within an international information infrastructure.