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Bridging the North—South Divide in Scholarly Communication in Africa — a library and information systems perspective

This article takes a broad, general perspective of scholarly communication in Africa, using a simple systems model based on the Lasswell formula. The model identifies and analyses the following components: Creators, Contents, Mediation, Users and Infrastructure. It recognizes that these are to be studied in their cultural, political, economic, legal and ethical contexts. Taking each component in turn, a number of critical issues and problems relevant to the North-South/South-North divide are identified and some observations are made on the position and roles of libraries. The article presents a list of desiderata and emphasizes that scholarly communication has both digital and analogue dimensions. It is a complex phenomenon that needs to be addressed holistically.