Information Science and Library Management

Background: The study attempted to understand rural Bangladesh's health information, awareness level, and preventive measures in the Coronavirus disease -19 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional survey by face-to-face interview was conducted with rural people from 14 June 2020 to 13 August 2020. An ordered logistic regression model was employed for data analysis. A total of 3,007 people (Female = 55.97%; Male = 44.03%) participated in the survey who met the inclusion criteria. Results: The demography of respondents revealed that a significant portion of villagers were within the ages 21-30 (26.80%), had primary education (23.88%), unemployed (31.73%), and middle class (56.17%). The most common and influential used media to know about the Coronavirus disease were electronic media and relative/family/friend/neighbors. Change of demography created a spectacular difference in public awareness level and hygiene practice. Female, illiterate, poor, and age above 60 were compa...

The ICT led agricultural development has opened up an opportunity for accelerating
knowledge dissemination. The Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) in Agriculture
are the valuable research documents that are generated from the various experiments by
the research scholars and scientists of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS)
of the respective countries. As it is rightly said by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru that, ‘anything can wait, but not agriculture’, the knowledge generated
from the agricultural research should be openly available for the prosperous agricultural
growth and public good. Owing to the importance of ETDs, there is a need to create more
awareness among the researchers and the research managers in making ETDs publicly
available. Therefore, we prepared this paper by undertaking a study on ETDs in
Agriculture in India and Bangladesh. It was found that due to growing global awareness
and interests about free and open accessibility and knowledge sharing (Open Access)
among the researchers and research managers, till date about 100 research repositories
have been established in India and 10 in Bangladesh respectively. However, when
compared to the amount of research taking place in agriculture, very few online ETDs
have been established in India and Bangladesh. The only popular ETDs in agriculture in
India is KrishiPrabha (now part of KrishiKosh) and in Bangladesh, Digital Archive on
Agricultural Theses and Journal (DAATJ). These repositories are now primarily being
made available online for the academicians and research community. This paper
discusses and presents the status of the ETDs in Agriculture in the NARS of India and
Bangladesh and tries to suggest a way forward for making them openly available for the
public to use, re-use and build upon. The paper also presents the results of a survey
undertaken regarding ETDs awareness and usage among the NARS of India and
Bangladesh.

Agricultural is the key contributor to the national GDP of Bangladesh.  Agricultural productivity is still lower than potential yield. The production system has a limited access to the appropriate knowledge and farm technologies to enhance productivity. The gaps in supply of demand of information and production enhancing skills inhibit the farmers from effectively utilizing and adopting modern technologies. This paper seeks to find out the role of recent innovation of agricultural information delivery systems developed by the government initiative, started with 20 Agriculture Information and Communication Center (AICCs) that increased to 95 till 2012 in different parts of the country and planned to increase further to cover most of the Agro Ecological Regions of the country. AICC developed recently with the participation of local community through the experiences of functioning IPM/ICM clubs in 1995. The paper also describes how the AICCs have impacted on the dissemination of agricultural information and modern technologies opened business opportunity and social integration. It further examines how and to what extent the rural innovations in the rural community engage themselves in the development of information society. It also analyzes those factors associated in further development of such initiative in the country or elsewhere and at the same time points out dynamics of the development process in the diverse agro-ecological situations. Assistance in supervision and monitoring in the development stage of the AICC by the sponsoring agency helped them grow as potential change agent.

The paper describes the present information services of the National Agricultural research system (NARS) of Bangladesh, comprising thirteen national Agricultural Research Institutes. Agricultural development is very much dependent of science and technological support undertaken by the NARS. So far the NARS has developed huge number of production technology from research generated endeavor applied to the field. The investigator took several visits to the different institutes of National Agricultural Research System in order to know the existing facilities, strength and weakness of agricultural information services in connection with this research work

Priority of agriculture today has been shifted towards nutritional security of its growing population. Demand for diversified food items is a newer challenge to agriculture. On the other hand development of climate smart agriculture added to the development agenda that the science is focusing today. Pulses are considered the protein of the poor as they have lesser access to animal proteins. Thus, pulses are the essential components of the daily diets of the people of Bangladesh, and supplies of pulses are met by importing and local production in the country.
Bangladesh has been deficit in pulses for considerable years though recent development of short duration high yielding varieties of pulses mostly Mung, Black gram (mashkalai), and Lentil (musur) by the research institutions namely Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) and Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) made it possible to reduce the local production deficiency. Technology generated by BARI and with overall coordination of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) helped to introduce one leguminous crop between rice in the rice based cropping pattern. These short duration varieties are not only high yielding but also resistance to major pest and disease. During 2007-2013, total seven varieties of pulses were released by BARI and BINA, mostly known as climate smart options. There has been so far 68 varieties released so far by BARI, BINA and university. Collaboration with the international agencies viz., International Crops Research Institute for the Semi Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) played important role in the development. This breakthrough has helped the farmers to grow one additional crop and enhance farm income. Pulse based value chain has emerged as a better production environment in major pulse growing areas.

Agricultural development cannot be understood without the use of modern technologies like Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The recent developments in ICTs offer a unique opportunity to bring the production enhancing tools and technologies to the growers with much cost effective manner. Worldwide, many studies were published on the role of application of ICTs in agricultural production. However, only a few studies were carried out to know the impact of ICT based service delivery system on agricultural production aspects in Bangladesh. Therefore an attempt has been made to find the impact of ICTs on agricultural production, especially in the food crops. Using a randomised survey with a questionnaire, interviews and focus group discussion, a study was carried out with a sample of 1990 farmers from a population comprises farmers all over the country. The findings from the study after counterfactual analysis and difference in differences analysis as well showed that wit...

The investigator evaluates the present information services of the National Agricultural Research System (NARS) Libraries and Agricultural Information Center, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC). Agricultural development is dependent to some extent on scientific services provided by NARS library and information professionals. The present study is a case study in nature. Judgmental random sampling was used to collect the data from the library professionals and staff and library users. Two sets of semi-structured questionnaire were distributed among them. Besides, field visit, interviews and FGDs were employed in the study to find the qualitative results. The existing facilities, strength, and weakness of agricultural information services are identified in the study. The survey result indicates that the respondents desire for improving the quality of information services in the NARS libraries and information center. The study ended with recommendations for making the libra...

The study assessed some factors that determine agricultural production and income in Bangladesh. The factors that were addressed in the study were land, labour, capital, ethnicity, gender etc. It aimed to analyze the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers in Bangladesh, to investigate the level of agricultural production activities and to identify the agricultural production problems in Bangladesh. The target population was the farmers of eight divisions in Bangladesh.  The data were obtained from structured questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and FGD. Multiple linear regression of model fourteen explanatory variables was used to analyze the characteristics of the factors mentioned above in context of farm production and income. The result of data analysis showed that the variables such as gender, age, years of schooling, service area, operational farm size, cow-shed, electricity, radio, mobile phone, television, computer, bicycle, motorcycle etc. affect farmers’ produ...

Out from standpoint of the student, the purpose of an internship is to aid in professional growth by offering real-world work platforms that allow students to find their passions while also broadening their occupational skills and abilities. Every student from the Department of Information Science and Library Management has to undertake the internship program as a course called BISLM-428: Internship in Libraries and
Information Institutions for partial fulfillment of the B.A. (Honors) 4th year 8th semester
examination. The mission of this program is to develop students' pragmatic understanding of what they come to know in the classrooms, allowing them to be better equipped for their chosen fields after graduation.