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Exploring Information Needs and Search Behaviour of Swahili Speakers in Tanzania

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Maturity and Innovation in Digital Libraries (ICADL 2018)

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Abstract

Studies investigating the information needs and search behaviour of Swahili speakers are rare, and this correlates with little Swahili information available online and few tools to support its access. In this study, we explored the information needs of Swahili speakers to understand their search behaviour – search language and preferences of language of information among professional and ordinary citizens. We interviewed 11 library/information experts and Swahili language specialists from Tanzania. The results indicate that Swahili speakers are increasingly searching for information from the Web. Despite the fact that many of them are not competent in English, they preferred English to Kiswahili as their search language due to the relevant results they get. They claimed, furthermore, that outdated Swahili information and scarcity of Swahili documents on the Web were other reasons for them to prefer English.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partially funded by the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa (Grant numbers: 85470 and 88209) and University of Cape Town. The authors acknowledge that opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are that of the authors, and that the NRF accepts no liability whatsoever in this regard.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, 7700, South Africa

    Joseph P. Telemala & Hussein Suleman

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  1. Joseph P. Telemala
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  2. Hussein Suleman
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Correspondence to Joseph P. Telemala .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University College London Qatar, Doha, Qatar

    Milena Dobreva

  2. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Annika Hinze

  3. University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Maja Žumer

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Telemala, J.P., Suleman, H. (2018). Exploring Information Needs and Search Behaviour of Swahili Speakers in Tanzania. In: Dobreva, M., Hinze, A., Žumer, M. (eds) Maturity and Innovation in Digital Libraries. ICADL 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11279. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04257-8_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04257-8_18

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04256-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04257-8

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