Role of Academic & Research Libraries and International Collaboration on Civil Engineering Education and Its Continuous Professional Development

Abstract

This paper shows new developments and describes future perspectives about the necessity of international collaboration and the role of academic and research libraries in engineering education and its continuous professional development. Academic and research libraries are expected as a role to provide new functionality while holding traditional library functions, due to the rise of the Internet and digitization of information. Over 90% of journal articles have been digitized for the last 15 years. Meanwhile, open access (OA) initiatives and the provision of "open courseware (OCW)" via the Internet have been advanced. As part of OA activities for digital contents, institutional repositories (IR(s)) have been rapidly proliferating over the past several years to disclose intellectual or scholarly outputs and information created by the institutions. This paper discusses the trends will have a major impact on the engineering education and its continuous professional development.

Proceedings of the 2nd International Civil Engineering Conference on Civil Engineering and Sustainable Development, "modernizing our infrastructure", 23rd-25th September, 2008, Mombasa, Kenya (CE2008)