Adoption of Electronic journals in scholarly communication in African Universities: A review of the critical issues

Abstract

The advent of new information technologies, and i particular the internet offers advantages in terms of rapidity of scientific and scholarly communication and universities worldwide are fast moving from subscription of journals in print to electronic formats.However, for universities in Africa the transition to e-journals is hampered by high subscription costs as well as challenges relating to the administration, access and archiving of e-journals. This paper argues that, if African scholarship is to benefit fully from e-journals the above issues and specifically those of internet infrastructure, lack of informtion and specially those of internet infrastructure, lack of information and communication technology skills among librarians and inadequate budgetary support to university libraries in Africa have to be addressed