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Digital preservation is widely recognized as a critical necessity for organizations worldwide. Archival professionals consider it a pressing issue, recognizing its central role in contemporary information management practices. This study aims to illuminate the challenges and opportunities in this field, specifically focusing on the accessibility and preservation of institutional archives in the Sultanate of Oman. Utilizing a mixed-methods research design, it includes an extensive review of relevant literature and semi-structured interviews with administrative personnel from various public organizations in Oman. A purposive sampling strategy was employed to select 10 individuals, each possessing the required expertise and experience in this field, from different government agencies to participate in these interviews. The findings indicate that professionals in Omani institutions highly value digital preservation, citing reasons such as enhanced document accessibility, improved organizational efficiency and security, and compliance with national archival regulations. Despite this, the methods used for digital preservation vary across institutions. The study identifies several obstacles, including threats to digital security, the complexity of managing vast amounts of data, the rapid outdatedness of technology, and challenges related to human resource management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study to investigate academic reading behavior among a group of Arab postgraduate students in social science disciplines. The paper also explores the difference between reading strategies used with Arabic and English text. The study deployed a qualitative research approach. A sample of 33 participants was interviewed to elucidate the reading behavior of the Arabic language speakers. The analysis of the interviews revealed that the participants use various reading strategies to familiarize themselves with the Arabic and the English scholarly content. The data showed that there is a need to train Arab postgraduates on academic reading skills. The results also indicate that reading the English text represents a challenge for the social sciences and humanities Arab postgraduates. This study was conducted on social science and humanities postgraduates. The reading behavior of science disciplines may differ as the teaching language is mainly in English. This study contributes to the field by expanding our understanding of how non-English language speakers read and comprehend the academic text. The value of the current study lies in being the first study that explores Arab postgraduate students' reading behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to explore the information seeking behaviour of scholars working at Shaqra University in both Arabic and English languages; to investigate if there are differences in the way scholars seek information while using different languages; to identify challenges while seeking information and to describe the approaches followed by the scholars to seek information. The study deployed a quasi-experimental approach. The sample of the study consisted of 20 participants who are affiliated to Shaqra University. Each participant was asked to solve five tasks, which were designed to capture participants' information seeking behaviour. Think aloud protocol was also used to gather more data from the participants to enrich the collected data and to fully understand scholars' behavior. The study found that the participants' information seeking consists of four main stages: identifying the information needs, selecting the keywords, examining the results and filtering the results. The data revealed that there is no difference between information seeking in Arabic and English languages. However, participants who are from a non-Arabic background were more accustomed to searching information in the English language. There are few studies investigating information seeking behavior of Arabic language speakers. Additionally, fewer studies have tried to explore differences in information seeking behavior while using different languages. The value of the current study lies in being the first study that focuses on investigating information seeking behavior at Shaqra University. Additionally, it is one of a few studies that examine cross-language information seeking practices of Arabic language speakers and the obstacles that face them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

هدفت الدراسة الي التعرف علي البرمجيات مفتوحة المصدر المتاحة للمكتبات وأنواعها المختلفة وخاصةالنظم مفتوحة المصدر لإدارة المكتبات بالاضافة الي البرمجيات الاخري التي يمكن أن تستخدم من قبل المتخصصين في مجال المكتبات كما هدفت الدراسة الي وضع مجموعة من المعايير التي يمكن أن تستخدم لاختيار نظام مفتوح المصدر ملائم لاحتياجات المكتبات العربية من خلال فحص 13 نظام الالي مفتوح المصدر لإدارة المكتبات . أعتمدت الدراسة علي المنهج المسحي للتعرف علي النظم المتاحة حاليا علي شبكة الإنترنت كما أعتمدت الدراسة علي المنهج التحليلي للتوصل الي قائمة معايير لتقييم تلك النظم ، حيث توصلت الدراسة الي قائمة من 115 معيار اساسي يمكن أن تستخدم الي جانب المعايير التي طرحتها دراسة رندا ابراهيم لتقييم النظم التجارية، وذلك لاختيار نظام مفتوح المصدر ملائم ويمكن الاعتماد عليه في إدارة المكتبات العربية. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]