The use of notebooks by Bangladeshi rural women to preserve information
| Date | 22 December 2022 |
| Pages | 988-1005 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2022-0180 |
| Published date | 22 December 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Records management & preservation,Document management,Classification & cataloguing,Information behaviour & retrieval,Collection building & management,Scholarly communications/publishing,Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information management,Information & communications technology,Internet |
| Author | Viviane Frings-Hessami |
The use of notebooks by
Bangladeshi rural women to
preserve information
Viviane Frings-Hessami
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –This article uses continuum theory to analyse how Bangladeshi rural women who participated in
an information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) project accessed and preserved
information during and after the end of the project.
Design/methodology/approach–Semi-structured interviews were conducted over the phone with a sample
of the project participants two years after the end of the ICT4D project, and a survey of all the participants in
one village was conducted face-to-face by one of the project participants using a questionnaire developed by the
author.
Findings –The majority of the participants used paper notebooks to write down information that they
received in digital format during the project as a guarantee against the fragility of digital data and continued to
use them to access and preserve information after the end of the project.
Practical implications –The author suggests that the application of proactive appraisal during the planning
stage and throughout ICT4D projects can ensure that the longer-term needs of the communities for information
and their capacities to use specific formats will be considered.
Originality/value –The author applies the continuum theory concept of proactive appraisal to the use of
information in an ICT4D context and argues that it can help with assessing the information needs of
marginalised communities andthe technologies and formats that should be used to ensure that the information
provided to them will remain accessible for as long as they need it.
Keywords Analogue backup, Information access, Information preservation, Proactive appraisal
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The United Natio ns’Agendafor Sustainable Developmentaffirms that access to informationis
necessary to foster sustainable development (United Nations, 2015). Timely access to
information is needed to perform many economic and social activities. For marginalised
communities who have limited access to information, preserving previously accessed
information can ensure that individuals will be able to access important information when
they need it. However,little is known about the ways marginalisedcommunities in developing
countries preserve information. This article contributes to filling this gap by reporting on a
study that investigated how women in a remote Bangladeshi village took the initiative to
preserve information during and after an information technology for development (ICT4D)
project that providedthem with smartphones and localised agricultural information forthree
years. It usescontinuum theory to analysethe data and show how the women took themselves
the initiative to preserve the information that they wanted to keep in formats appropriate to
their context and kept using that information after the end ofthe project.
This article starts with a brief review of the literature on the information needs of farmers
and on personal information management. It then introduces the theoretical concepts from
continuum theory that are used to analyse the data before presenting the context of the
ICT4D project and discussing the methodology used for the research. Research had to be
conducted remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Semi-structured phone interviews of a
JD
79,4
988
Funding: This research was supported by a DECRA fellowship from the Australian Research Council
(DE210100012).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/0022-0418.htm
Received 21 August 2022
Revised 8 December 2022
Accepted 11 December 2022
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 79 No. 4, 2023
pp. 988-1005
© Emerald Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/JD-08-2022-0180
sample of participants in the ICT4D project were organised two years after the end of the
project, then a face-to-face survey of all the participants was conducted six months later. The
presentation of the findings focuses on the ways the participants used to access and preserve
information and specifically on their use of notebooks to preserve information during and
after the end of the project. The discussion section applies continuum theory and in particular
the Continuum concept of appraisal, which the author calls proactive appraisal, to the analysis
of the findings. The author then concludes that using the concept of proactive appraisal to
analyse the information nee ds of marginalised communities may help ensure that
information will be provided in formats that will enable the marginalised communities to
access the information after the end of the ICT4D projects.
Literature review
Information is essential to perform many economic and social activities and plays an
important role in fostering sustainable development (United Nations, 2015;Hoq, 2012). In the
agriculture sector, information can help farmers to make decisions regarding agricultural
loans, new seeds, disease and pest control, and markets for their crops (Hoq, 2012;Phiri et al.’s,
2019). Agricultural productivity can be improved by access to reliable, relevant information
(Hoq, 2012;Mahindarathne and Min, 2018;Naveed and Hassan, 2021). However, to be useful,
information must be relevant to the specific needs of farmers. Studies have shown that
content must be developed through a bottom-up approach in order to meet the information
needs of farmers (Dey et al., 2008;Case and Given, 2016).
However, individuals in marginalised communities are often unable to access the
information they need. Information access studies have identified many barriers that
prevent access to information, including the lack of information literacy skills necessary
for understanding the information and the lack of content that is relevant to the local
linguistic and cultural contexts (Potnis, 2015;McCreadie and Rice, 1999). Phiri et al.’s
(2019) literature review of the problems encountered by farmers to access information
found that the main challenges were illiteracy, the ignorance of information sources, the
lack of funds to obtain information, the cost of phones and Internet access, an insufficient
number of extension agents and language barriers. Their research in Malawi found that
the lack of money to travel to town to consult extension officers was the major problem
experienced by farmers.
ICT4D projects have been designed to help marginalised communities in developing
countries to use ICTs to access information. However, these projects commonly operate for
short periods of time and focus on technology to access information rather than on the
information itself (Unwin, 2009;Walsham, 2017). They are not concerned with planning for
the preservation of the information accessed during the projects (Anwar and Frings-Hessami,
2020). The author could not find any previous study that investigated how participants
preserved the information that was provided to them during an ICT4D project.
Personal information management research has usually been conducted in contexts
where information is plentiful and people need help to manage the abundance of information,
particularly in libraries, academic environments and workplaces (Bruce et al., 2004;Kaye
et al., 2006;Oh, 2021). These contexts are very different from those of marginalised
communities in developing countries, for whom the lack of information, rather than the
abundance of information, is a problem, and access to technology is limited. Most of the
strategies to manage information mentioned in the literature require access to a computer and
advanced digital skills which few people in marginalised communities possess. A few studies
have looked at how individuals manage their personal information through analogue means
in the context of leisure activities (e.g. Hartel, 2010), but again, those contexts are very
different from those in which Bangladeshi rural women live.
The use of
notebooks by
Bangladeshi
women
989
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