Marginalized Knowledge: An Agenda for Indigenous Knowledge Development and Integration with Other Forms of Knowledge

2. Problem statements
Gregory and Medford (2006, par. 6) observes that there are a number of reasons why academic librarians should consider publishing as part of their work. Among these is that publication leads to certain professional advantages, such as promotion, being invited to speak, hearing more about the profession, the creation of new ideas, and also gaining an understanding of the research process.

Librarians have always been considered custodians of information and publishing or the creation of information has not been part of their work. Furthermore; publishing has not been considered a requirement for promotion and tenure in their field as librarians. In some institutions librarians are required to publish, yet in others they are not. Since academic librarians publishing output is not uniform and therefore, there is no uniformity in the requirement for publishing. Not much is known about the nature and patterns of publication of academic librarians in Kenya and South Africa.

The aim of the study was to compare the publication pattern and output of academic librarians in selected public university libraries in Kenya and South Africa between 1990 to 2005.The aim was achieved through the following objectives;

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  To examine what academic librarians publish
  
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  To establish why academic librarians publish
  
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  To study the publishing trend of academic librarians
  
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  To determine where academic librarians publish
  
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  To determine the level of collaboration
  
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  To establish the quantity of publishing