Enhancing African indigenous knowledge collection management in Ugandan public university libraries: lived experiences of senior library staff

Abstract

Various studies in library and information science have emphasized that indigenous knowledge management is still a neglected area and a challenge in the discipline of information management. However, the rationale for this neglect and driving challenges in university libraries has not been documented from the practitioner's perspective. This chapter shares lived experiences from experienced senior staff of public University libraries in Uganda regarding the management of African Indigenous knowledge collections. The study uses the theoretical lens of Wilson's information behavior model interpolated with participants' views to gain insight into the perspectives of the practitioners. The findings revealed challenges in lack of appropriate metadata descriptors to accommodate this knowledge, biased knowledge organization tools that are incompatible with African indigenous knowledge metadata characteristics, and limited funding in university libraries for research and indigenous knowledge collection development.