Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) was created more than three decades ago as a standard way to communicate data between two business entities. EDI allows two trading partners to exchange important information necessary to complete a transaction, such as sending an invoice or submitting a purchase order. e-Business isn’t an invention of the 1990s ? companies have been involved in these types of data exchanges for many years.

But with the 1990s and the explosion of the Internet, EDI got a bad rap. First, EDI was criticized for being too expensive and out of reach to small businesses. Critics also said EDI was too difficult to implement and newer solutions were easier to understand. Another drawback to EDI, they said, was that it doesn’t transmit data instantaneously but rather in ?batches? ? that is, once a day, twice a day, or as defined by the user. And finally, EDI was on the way out, and newer standards, like XML (which was supposed to be everything that EDI wasn’t), were in.You’d be foolish to invest in EDI now? they said.

As is often the case with over-hyped technology issues, the answer to the question of which is the better technology lies somewhere in the middle. The secret to success in this dilemma is looking beyond the assumption that it is an either/or proposition. Depending on the application, sometimes its EDI, sometimes XML, and other times, it’s a different standard altogether. What’s most important is making these technologies work together that will maximize investments and solve the primary challenge to e-Business growth.

While many predicted XML would be the clear winner in the standards fight, EDI is still here and it’s here to stay for a while, at least. According to Giga’s Ken Vollmer, EDI provides stability to the many organizations in a range of industries that use it. Vollmer says that the value of EDI transactions in 2002 is expected to exceed $3.2 trillion and will continue to grow to $3.7 trillion by 2005. EDI clearly isn’t going away.

EDI networks are widespread and active today. Sterling Commerce, for example, has relationships with many other EDI networks throughout the world, industry exchanges, and partners that provided value-based services. On average, 10 million transactions are processed through these networks everyday. The reach and capabilities are a key part of what makes EDI so relevant. There are few examples outside EDI networks where a customer can accomplish data transaction delivery and timing from a single connection.

Small businesses are beginning to get the same value out of EDI, even though critics said it was out of their realm. Recently, vendors have been working to meet the needs of small businesses by introducing products that make it easy for them to work with EDI through simpler software, email, and the use of the Internet.

And it turns out, EDI isn’t all that difficult or expensive to implement. Newer technologies haven’t always proven to be any easier than EDI, even though they make the claim. Businesses are finding that the return on investment for EDI solutions is well worth the cost. And those small business solutions I mentioned are very affordable and also bring in hefty, and quick, ROI.

EDI as a technology still batches out information instead of delivering it instantaneously. This may give one the sense that an EDI service is like a bank, with a posting time and a settlement daily. In reality, it is much more like a stock exchange service similar to NASDAQ. While a stock exchange has some data that is transmitted within a short time, under a minute or two, things like quotes are typically delayed 15 minutes, and reporting and settlement are done daily. In a top-notch EDI service data is typically delivered in less than five minutes 95 percent of the time. Most companies find that by triggering and timing transactions, they have a more predictable, efficient, and lower cost supply chain. Many still find that ?batch on demand? is a much more cost-effective alternative for most of their transactions.

EDI is evolving in ways its critics didn’t anticipate. They ask, ?So what about the Internet? How will it play a role in the future?? EDI vendors are meeting customer demands by introducing effective EDI over Internet solutions to leverage the general capabilities the Internet provides. To an EDI transaction service, the Internet is simply one of hundreds or thousands of destinations that a customer needs to reach. The ongoing commitment of an EDI service is to adapt to these standards, protocols and destinations in a way that leverages three decades of customer investment in infrastructure and processing. There is also a new commitment that is entering the market. That commitment is to provide customers with multiple solutions to the same problem that allows them to meet the culture and biases of their business strategy.

Finding successful ways to integrate all the various standards is the key to ROI and a fully automated business. By bridging EDI and XML, for instance, companies that rely on XML can integrate processes with trading partners that use EDI ? allowing both to automate their businesses, leverage current investments in technology and reduce their cost of ownership.

Even in a period of economic slowdown, e-Business is poised for tremendous growth. The catalyst for this growth over the next few years isn’t based on EDI, XML or any other technology, but rather the combination of the technologies, delivery methods, and corporate initiatives that create the right e-Business solution for nearly any situation. With the emerging capabilities to combine these technologies, companies no longer need to look at e-Business as an either/or technology decision. e-Business is a business decision, based on a company’s desire to operate more efficiently and improve the bottom line.

And that’s what they should have said all along.

According to survey findings from the latest global trend, companies increasingly are using the Internet to purchase direct and indirect goods and services, and they are saving money as a result. For in matter of quarterly scenario, the percentage of direct materials purchased using the Internet surpassed that of indirect materials. This visible growth is observed by lot of e-commerce experts who tracks online activity for both manufacturing and non-manufacturing organizations.

Better savings opportunities caused large firms –organizations that spend more minimum investment on procurement per year, especially those that buy more than five times greater a year — to lead in Internet adoption. Why? The size and buying power of these companies help them contain costs and secure supplier participation.

The trend also reveals that, supply management professionals purchased slightly more direct goods and materials online than indirect goods, In their case internal and external system integration is a major drawback to e-procurement adoption. This natural trend has been justified by lot of growth indicators of e-commerce sector.

Most experts agree that, success in online purchasing is a matter of position, priorities, and persistence and though some small niche-marketeers and small firms are having steady growth Larger companies so far have been in a better position as they afford the available solutions and gain supplier participation more easily. Non-manufacturing companies have made e-procurement and Internet-based sourcing a higher priority than manufacturers have, which also use alternative channels like Internet based  networks. This group are more advanced in their use of online marketplaces and company-wide e-procurement tools. This group tends to consist of service companies that lack alternate channels for buying and have very specific direct purchasing needs.  Above all, though, success stems from persistence over time in making the e-marketing process more adaptable, flexible, fast and user-friendly, gaining employee and supplier participation, and linking online sourcing with high-tech e-procurement systems to create real bottom-line savings.

Sourcing will be the key to unlocking value. Tools for automating the purchase process turn out a secondary source of business value compared to the savings from negotiating and gaining employee compliance with strategic sourcing deals.

For any organization whose goal is to make information available, should patronize Internet connections; currently,  most of public libraries provide Graphical Public Access Internet Terminals (hereafter referred to as “workstations”). These workstations open up the library’s catalog, other libraries’ catalogs, electronic databases, corporate and organizational web sites…you know all of this. Librarians sometimes have a reputation for being defensive about their books, but few people in other professions have so quickly grasped the potential of the Internet and labored so hard to provide it as a tool for their clientele. Internet workstations are not easy to set up and maintain, and the very fact that so many libraries have them is evidence of their determination. We can only expect the number and importance of workstations to grow.

When I first came to my current position, the library and my direct predecessor had made a Herculean effort to provide internet connectivity to the student body and members of the public. Using gift money, they purchased a total of seventy workstations, in three separate batches, and configured them all with Windows NT and Netscape Navigator, plus a myriad of helper programs and plug-ins. The machines worked, initially their speed was acceptable, and Windows NT policies provided sufficient security. However, they were never easy to update.

In order to install an upgrade, we would have to make the change on one machine and identify every altered file and registry entry. we could then design a script to make the same change to all the others. This was time-consuming, and we usually put off upgrades until we made major overhauls to the workstations. These redesigns (or “debacles”) required us to develop brand new images for each of our three different kinds of PC. An image is what we in Systems call a compressed snapshot of all the software on a computer, which can be copied to other computers in a process usually referred to as cloning or ghosting (after Symantec’s Ghost software). Different hardware requires different software, so an image designed on one PC may be worse than useless for a PC with even slightly different components. At any rate, we had to build three workstation images almost from scratch, installing, patching, resolving conflicts, tightening security, and testing. This took weeks, and then we capped it off with an all-night cloning marathon.

Worse, our workstations had just about reached the limit of what they could do. As we upgraded software, the poor things started to drag. When we added Internet Explorer (updated version), they had reached the limits of their abilities. If we wanted to keep our current system, we were going to have to upgrade at least thirty of our computers, and we estimated that we would have to upgrade the rest within two years. We experimented with different operating systems, different browsers, and different security programs: either they didn’t offer the features we needed, or they were too slow. We simply couldn’t continue along the same lines and count on regular funds to support our increasing appetite for technology.

Our salvation was the terminal server, which brought back the benefits of the text-based terminals with all the functionality of the standalone workstations. We use Citrix Met-frame software, which works in conjunction with Windows Terminal Services, on Windows servers. The terminal server sits in a closet and runs all the programs, the individual clients (workstations) don’t do anything but connect and show the user what is happening on the server. To beat a dead analogy, it’s like riding the bus: the clients only have to hop on, and the server does the driving. Our terminal server provides the entire Windows 2000 desktop, Internet Explorer, Acrobat Reader, Office viewers, RealPlayer, QuickTime, various other plug-ins, and printers. The clients don’t need to be powerful, because they don’t do much; they have a stripped-down operating system (it can be just about anything – we use Windows (available latest version) and a program that allows them to communicate with the server. This program is like telnet with graphics. The user’s keystrokes and mouse clicks are sent to the server and processed there, and video updates are sent from the server to the client. If you’ve used remote control software like pcAnywhere or Timbuktu, you know exactly what this is like. The servers do need to be beefy, and we needed several. We determined through testing that a terminal server with two 1GHz processors could easily accommodate 20 busy clients. In practice, we’ve had thirty or more clients on one server and not noticed a significant decrease in performance. We have five servers (plus a spare) supporting 90 clients; and even the Pentium 60 clients run Internet Explorer like a GHz computer.

The terminal server allowed us to actually increase the number of our public workstations for three reasons. We could use obsolete PCs for the clients, because they no longer needed to run intensive operating systems and software. Because the client is so simple to create, we no longer had to worry about the number of images we use, so we could make use of just about any PC that came into our inventory. We could even use sexy black thin clients with flat panels and no internal moving parts, but I suppose that’s hard to justify when you have a ready supply of old staff machines. Finally, the administration is so much easier! Changes are usually made to the servers, not the clients. Citrix comes with a Package Manager that lets you install or upgrade a program and then roll that change out to all of your servers automatically. One of these days we’ll want to do something that forces us to modify the client workstations, and once again we’ll plod around to every machine, but that shouldn’t happen very often.

Nothing is perfect. We have had problems, some expected and some surprising:

• We thought that our network could handle this system, and as far as bandwidth is concerned, 10Mb does seem to be more than sufficient; but we discovered some wiring and a hub that needed to be replaced. Network problems that were annoying before can be disastrous with a terminal server, because when the clients disconnect, they no longer have a desktop or any applications. Likewise, if a server should go down, about fifteen clients will go down with it. They can reconnect to other servers, but it’s a dramatic interruption of service.
   

• It’s easier to fix security holes on the terminal servers than on 90 scattered workstations, but at the same time they pose more of a risk. Each user is working on your server, which is a scary thought for a network administrator. We’ve been very careful about locking things down: users have only a couple icons on the desktop and start menu, and they have very few permissions. We use Windows 2000 policies to tighten security even more, restricting Windows and Internet Explorer privileges. Still, it’s eerie.
   

• Streaming audio and video are not quite there yet. Don’t expect CD, or even radio, quality sound over RealPlayer. Video is sometimes distorted and choppy enough that a news clip can look like a scene from “They Live.” We anticipate great improvement in the near future (fingers crossed). With the increasing importance of multimedia, this could turn out to be our Achilles heel.
   

• Every once in a while, one of our servers will fail to start the Citrix service when it reboots. If we had fewer servers or more clients, this could really be a problem; as it is, we can operate at a reasonable level while down one or even two servers.
   

• There’s really nothing wrong with giving all of your clients the same computer name, it’s just that the Citrix License Server doesn’t like it. When our workstations restart in the morning, they give a very stern warning about us not having enough licenses.
   

• We run into interesting problems with vendors of web-based electronic resources who want to restrict our access to a certain number of individual workstations. The standard way to do this is by IP address, but the IP addresses that the vendor sees are actually those of our servers, not our workstations. If they allow all of our servers, they allow all of our workstations. We think we’ve found a way to deal with this from our end using proxy configuration scripts in Internet Explorer.

  These are problems we can deal with. Moving to a terminal server solution has allowed us to increase the number and speed of our workstations, and it allows us to respond faster with updates, which makes patrons and librarians happy. It also reduces the time our small Systems department spends maintaining workstations, which allows us to concentrate on making things better for other aspects of library in broad sense- the information industry.

Romantic Ideas

1 -. The letters written in your own handwriting is very nice and is increasingly being used less … leaves for a minute and mobile messages and sit with a piece of paper and a pen and putting your feelings … I bet you love getting a letter yours! In addition to perfume and can not remember you receive …

2 -. Say it with flowers, we all like to send us a good bunch, not only to girls, to them, although not say so, sure they look forward … with a flower and a card that expresses what you want is simple you get to your heart.

3 -. Prepare an album and fill it with photos of the two, add comments, phrases, words that are only yours.
Another possibility is to collect twelve pictures you have, and make them a calendar with each month illustrated with one of them. It’s nice that each of the months of the year will remind the person you want.

4 -. A romantic dinner you can prepare in a restaurant but if you have chances of making it at home or in your partner no doubt that will be excited. Give him a surprise and fills the room with candles, good wine, food and to put an end, preparing your favorite dessert … You can set background music, sure there are some special song …

5 -. A weekend somewhere lost the two of us … If you can and want to surprise your partner, looking for a hostel and do not hesitate q froze. IF your economy does not let you go so far, not bad you prepare a one-day getaway somewhere nearby, in the country and has something ready to eat and at night to watch the stars together.

6 -. Another surprise is that it can be nice to go where you meet or that I gave the first kiss and remember together.

7 -. A book dedicated to the person they want from their favorite author or your own. It is a very personal detail that always likes, much!

8 -. Surprise her one day with a lot of mysterious clues about something … stand there trying to guess riddles and clues that will put and end .. send a message that you mention how you feel about him / her ….

9 -. If you are in a house, draw a heart with cups on the table … put candles, prepare a nice dinner … .. These things are never forgotten.

The number ten I leave you to let your romantic ideas in the comments and share with the rest …

Often travel agencies in the description of hotel complexes using professional terminology. So it often happens that tourists do not understand what the living conditions, food and service offered. So compelling images from the advertising brochures are the only major argument in the choice of hotel. As a result of vacation or business trip can be spoiled. To avoid unpleasant surprises during the trip it is better to understand the criteria of hotels, their types, star and other differences.

Currently, of all temporary housing units are more frequent resort hotels, guest houses, campsites, and hotels. Thus, spa hotels are usually located in the recreation areas on the coast, not far from the attractions or shopping complexes have a wide range of services, up to 40 items. Subtropical – picturesque places, where there is heavy traffic. Camping operated normally during the summer. This light type houses, with separate corps of public services, very cheap price.

The entire hotel fund adopted to classify the five-point scale. The most frequent “star” system. Best hotels assigned to 5 stars, and hotels with low quality of services are estimated at 1 star. At present, began to appear on all systems “6″, so-called “De Luxe”, which host only the most “expensive” visitors. For the United States and other countries in North America is characterized to determine the quality of service affiliation of the hotel to the prestigious hotel chains – is, first of all, Hilton, Marriott and Radisson.
Living conditions in the residential complexes of different hotels differ significantly in the first place, the general improvement of the buildings, furnished rooms and the rules of service. Primary information about the hotel, as a rule, disclose the number of stars assigned to him.
Hotels with one star – almost extinct species. Living in her cheap solutions, but the service in such places should not wait. TV and refrigerator will be common, one per floor, bathroom and toilet – too. Of all the accessories are provided in towels and a small piece of soap. Clean room will be daily, but a change of clothes – once in five days.
In the hotel with two stars of the range of services differs only in the presence of a cafe or restaurant, suggesting the possibility of breakfast in the morning.

Hotel with three stars will offer the most comfortable conditions for a modest fee. Each room has a radio, air conditioning, as well as bathroom and toilet. Held daily maid service, linen changed every three days. Interior rooms can include plants and carpets, as well as sets of stationery. In the three-star hotel typically has a business center with Internet-connected computers, currency exchange, hairdresser, restaurant or cafe, room service and parking everyday. Here you can also book tickets for all modes of transport.
The hotel has four stars, in addition to all the services that are in three-star establishment, there is also a beauty salon, swimming pool, fitness club, restaurant with several rooms. Linen is changed every day, the rooms have air conditioning, telephone, TV with video-or DVD-player, satellite connection, internet. Doors open friendly hotel doorman.
The five-star hotel includes a wide range of additional services in the territory may not even be a casino and nightclub. The apartment has made good repair, there is comfortable furniture, offers higher level of service. In the bathroom, usually a bright spot, there are many mirrors, including special shaving and make-up, there is a hairdryer and ironing apparatus. Room service 24 hours a day.

However, it is worth remembering that the hotel stardom does not always reflect the true level of service in it. There are many hotels that could qualify for the highest category, but deliberately did not do so in order to minimize taxes. Therefore, travelers should not rely solely on the number of stars, often followed, if possible, to ask in detail about the hotel, for example, a representative of the tour company. Enjoy your stay

Then I got pregnant again, so clear …. again with the same. This time, the weight gain was worse. I increased the weight of my first pregnancy and more. To make matters worse, with this pregnancy I could not lose weight as in the first pregnancy.

Then, of course, came my beautiful little boy and my weight shot up. The last time I only bother to look at the balance mortified to find that I weighed over 73 kilos Say when I realized, I stopped watching the scale and even stopped going out with my friends.

So of course I did what any ordinary American girl would do … I diet. Now, was the South Beach Diet, then of course the Atkins diet and,! Ah, true! was also Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig. Nothing worked. Look, do not lie. Some of them worked, but left as diet, weight back. I do not know about you, but some of these diets are hard to follow or even worse ….¡ are too expensive!

God, I felt so frustrated. I felt like a yo-yo. My weight went up and down. To lose 20 pounds, feel barbarous increase again these twenty-something, feel horrible. I fell into depression and began to eat because they simply do not care. His way to nowhere. My weight shot up above the 80 kilos.

Now most people out there think that overweight people are so only because they are lazy. But facts are these: most of us gain weight because of circumstances beyond our direct control. C’mon, it’s a biological fact that you are fat due to pregnancy.

Then life catches up with you, and simply can not find the time to devote to the gym what really takes to lose weight. Seriously, with three children, who the hell has the time?

Who the hell wants to spend all day cooking, cleaning and washing clothes only to then have to go pick up the kids and driving around town picking up and leaving for one reason or another? Then you collect all the kids again, going at full speed all the way home to make dinner and make sure that children do their homework. By the time I finished with dinner, wash dishes and put kids to sleep, is like 8:30 or 9:00 at night. Sure, as if at this point I would run to the gym! Like most other women in America, I have responsibilities and do not have the luxury of wealth or time to idle all day and spend hours in a gym.

I’m not a lazy person! I have a life like most other people. Most of us simply do not have the time or energy to get to a gym and stay there for hours a day.

I have tried every diet program in which most people believe blindly. Honestly I’ve tried it and I followed as best I could. But it just did not work, and if it works, did not last. Honestly I reached a low point in my life, and settled depression. I felt hopeless. Then one day, fate intervened, and saw the only thing that changed my life.

It was a TV show, a famous one, and that particular program changed my life!

For hache or be had about an hour to kill before going to pick up the kids, so I sat down to relax and say the only program that changed my life. Rachael Ray. Let’s say if he had been watching the program, Rachael would not have heard talk about the most amazing superfood Acai berry again ….

The Rachael Ray spoke for an hour after this new berry from the Amazon rainforest known as Ada. It has the most powerful antioxidants found in pomegranate or red wine. Not only that, but that can be taken as a supplement in capsule form. The most important part of his speech: “Acai Berry can help you lose weight easily to reduce you appetite and increase your energy levels.”

Upon hearing this, I started to stop the ear and some research on the subject. I found more information on CNN, ABC, CBS and even the Wall Street Journal! Rachael Ray and these major TV news networks believe in this product, then at least was willing to try it!

Shortly thereafter, I came across another interview of Rachael Ray. He was in another program talking about another way to lose weight that was extremely effective. He explained how our colon requires cleaning. Disgusting, I know, but it made sense. The Rachael Ray explained that there are years of waste and rubbish being held in our colon, and to make matters worse, this stuff keeps toxins.

According to Rachael Ray, most of us have between 10 and 25 lbs. superfluous undigested food in our colon. It’s basically like a thick tar-like substance that adds inches to your waistline and unwanted pounds to your weight.

According to Rachael Ray, you can exercise all you want, but you’ll never get rid of this crap unless you take adequate supplements to purify and energizing. By Rachael Ray is credited with saying:

“Performing a colon cleanse completely eliminate waste and by doing so automatically so that you lose weight with diet and exercise can not.”

What I like about Rachael Ray is that they do not promote a particular product. They really just wanted to spread the word about the health benefits that brings the use of Acai berry supplements and colon cleansing.

The combo diet Acai Berry Detox and Life Cleanse fat just melted almost as if by magic!

Rachael Ray used and evaluated both Acai Berries and the colon cleansing products. These two products are typically sold separately and by two different companies. But first he wanted to try both before you spend a dollar of my own money. He must find a way to do just that.

In recent years the services of web hosting became very cheap. There are many companies offering personal website for free and get some extra few dollars a month you can have the services required to keep the personal page of a VIP. The most common are personal pages and blogs. The word blog is short for recording the best hosting service for tela6 and represents a kind of trip where you can set a new article daily. Blogs became very popular and almost every person who has access to the Internet has a blog.

Requirements for a personal page

Generally, personal hosting services website includes access to thousands of templates and images. Most personal websites get access to not require database or scripting languages and prices for a hosting account range from zero to four dollars per month. Many of the best hosting service for tela6 large hosting companies, including major search engines offer for free hosting for personal pages. The statistical features include daily and monthly visitors, the possibility to automatically publish articles from other sites with RSS, scripts for content management and many others.

Optionally, you can add a guestbook. If the hosting service personal website does not include a guestbook, you can set up a free guestbook else. The guestbook is a very important feature of any personal website, because you can read the suggestions left by visitors. Another important feature for a personal Web page is the photo gallery. Almost all personal web site hosting providers offer free scripts to store and organize photo albums. If your provider does not offer such writing, you can easily find one online.

At least one e-mail account should be included in your personal web site hosting package. If you spend the money to purchase a domain name that contains your name, you would probably have a custom e-mail. The disk space required for a personal web site depends on the size of his gallery and photo site, but is generally less than 500 MB. The monthly bandwidth required depends on the number of visitors that access your site each month. If your site receives at least 1,000 visitors each month and you have many photos and pages made with Macromedia Flash, after his personal website hosting account must include 10 GB of monthly bandwidth.

Uploading and configuring a personal page

Many web-hosting providers offer ready to run web pages. You have to choose only the colors for the design and write a few words about you. The entire process takes up to 10 minutes and you have to learn anything about the best hosting service for tela0. If you are not a VIP, this is the best way to create a web page friendly staff.

When they worked through the circumstances that have arisen their financial and plunge them started to work out of their problems, they can start thinking about obtaining their lives back together. The usefulness of financial or credit card can help them to rent a car, buying goods or services on the Internet, to settle accounts through the Internet or telephone, and they lack is not in a position to take advantage. They learn about credit cards for bad loans and begin to consider a possible solution to restore your credit rating.

Three normal types of financial resources, credit cards for bad or poor credit are:

1. Unsecured, which usually comes with high initial costs and high interest rates.

2. Prepaid credit cards.

3. Secured credit cards.

Of these three options, the prepaid credit card offers the lowest chances of restoring credit ratings, but they can give benefit and convenience, some people want the general juvenile upfront costs.

Heavy Interest rates paid Monetary Sins

Secured cards are available for almost everyone that has a poor credit rating, and perhaps most p growth strategy for someone to get credit cards for bad credit. Then all the initial fees paid to Visa or Mastercard company, etc., the account holder is required to make a minimum balance on the account with a financial company. Their starting credit limit is the amount of deposit, less the costs associated with the beginning of the account.

When you run the credit card due to bad loans, it will be treated as unsecured card with the required payments, as well as penalties for late and missed payments. Since many of the fines will be deducted from an account containing the deposit, the credit card limit is reduced each conclusion.

Credit cards for bad credit the initial outputs from a much larger and in most cases much of the credit limit, since a person can be eaten by registration fees, program fees, annual fees and various charges. Interest rates tend to peak at the end of the limit. Regardless of all the charges a significant number of people consider it a worthy financial investment to assist in restoring their credit ratings in the future.

Illiteracy is a major hindrance to the programme of human development, and the universality of the problem has led the UNESCO to declare the year 1990 “The International Year of Literacy.” To focus the whole world’s attention to it, an international education conference on the theme was organized in March 1990 in Thailand by UNESCO in collaboration with UNICEF, UNDP, and the World Bank. In doing so, UNESCO wanted to draw the attention of the whole world focusing on illiteracy, so that it can be wiped out by the year 2000.2

The situation of adult illiteracy in SAARC countries

The South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) was formally launched in Dhaka in December 1985.3 The heads of seven Asian countries jointly pledged to work together for a common future. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are the members of SAARC, which comprises one-fifth of the world’s population. Table 1 shows the distribution of illiterate population in the SAARC countries.

TABLE 1 . Illiterate population in the SAARC countries

Illiteracy in SAARC countries constitute a serious socio-economic and political problem. The figure for some individual countries is as high as 60% or more. Table 2 shows the percentage of male and female illiterate population in the SAARC countries.
TABLE 2. Situation of illiterate population in the SAARC countries in 1995 ¹

CAUSES OF ADULT ILLITERACY

In this paper, adult illiteracy means to cover the population of 15 years and above and who can not read, write or do elementary arithmetic. The causes of adult illiteracy are many. Only the major ones, i.e. economic and socio-historical causes, are highlighted here.

a. Economic causes

The economics of the countries of South Asia are among the largest and poorest in the world. They belong to the group classified by the World Bank as the ‘low-income countries’: their per-capita income is about 25% of the average for all the less-developed countries.⁴ A comparative analysis of GDP of some developed .and SAARC countries is shown in Table 3, which shows how the SAARC countries are economically weak.

TABLE 3. GDP of some developed and SAARC countries in 1995⁵

NA= Not available

Poverty, slow economic growth rate, low per-capita income, unequal distribution of wealth, unemployment, and heavy dependence on the external assistance are some of the common economic problems of the SAARC countries.⁶ All the SAARC countries are deeply engaged in solving the problems of food, hunger, cloth, etc., and/or required to give maximum attention to solve these problems.

2. Socio-historical causes

Before the advent of Europeans in this subcontinent, emperors were the custodian of the society. Then Madrasha and Maktabs were the centre of education. The arrival of the Europeans drastically changed the way of life of the people of the Indo-Pak subcontinent. The white man superimposed his way of life and culture upon that of the indigenous culture. To understand the white man’s new culture and, of course, his government and language, the people had to acquire the ‘magic’ of writing and reading. To do this, a new system of education, the formal school system, was introduced by the missionaries and later on by the colonial government. But the people did not gladly accept the education policy of the Europeans. Some people, especially Muslims, thought that to learn English is sin. The people who acquired the skills and mastery of reading and writing through the alien education system became known as an educated or literate person, but those who failed to acquire the skills of reading and writing remained illiterate.

ROLE OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES IN ERADICATING ILLITERACY

The traditional public library system in the SAARC countries has not yet been able to satisfy the needs of the neo-literates by providing adequate and suitable reading materials. Although most people in the SAARC countries live in rural areas, most public libraries are, however, located in urban areas.

Even the public library system has not made any meaningful impact on the population living in urban areas. This is so because in the first place public libraries do not stock suitable reading materials for the neo-literates. Secondly, no conscious efforts arc made to relate the public library system to literacy campaigns.

In the SAARC countries, public libraries arc not well organized, and their collections arc also not rich. As a result, the libraries can not meet the requirements of the literate population. As for the new-literates, where they exist, they arc mostly left to fend for themselves.

Obviously because of their inadequacies and funding, the public libraries in the SAARC countries have not done much to help neo-literates to retain their literacy. This situation can be partially overcome if the governments of the SAARC countries tackle the problem seriously and with a sense of purpose. During this decade, public libraries must review, and the governments of the SAARC countries must be prepared to allocate more money to their public libraries to enable them to contribute meaningfully to eradicate illiteracy.

NA= Not available
¹⁺ Data for the rest of countries are not available, so the information is not presented here.

PUBLIC LIBRARY SITUATION IN BANGLADESH
The area of Bangladesh, which came into existence as an independent state on 16 December 1971, is 143,998 sq. km.⁷ The public library movement in Bangladesh dates back to the mid-19th century. In 1854, four non-government public libraries were established in the important district headquarters of this region. These four libraries arc: Woodburn Public library (Bogra), Jessore Public Library, Barisal Public Library, and Rangpur Public Library. But the establishment of government public libraries started with the opening of the Bangladesh Central Public Library in 1958.⁸

The Government of Bangladesh has been trying to develop public libraries in the country. During the first, second, third and fourth five-year plans, public libraries have received an increasing attention. The government allocation front the first to fourth five-year plans is shown in Table 5.

TABLE 5. Government development allocation from 1st to 4th five-year plans
(figures in lac) ⁹‘¹²

Till now, the Government of Bangladesh has allocated an amount of Taka 22,49,01,000 for the development of public libraries and the training programme for the library personnel. At present, 66 government¹³ and 883 non-government¹⁴ public libraries are in existence in the country. In spite of all these efforts, till now, the government did not take much initiatives to eradicate illiteracy through public libraries, although public libraries can play a vital role in eradicating illiteracy from the country.

THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT AND NGOS

The government, however, took a programme named INFEP (Integrated Non-Formal Education Programme) in 1991 to educate the country’s illiterate persons. This organization, located in Dhaka, had been converted into a Directorate of Non-Formal Education (DNFE). DNFE has set up 735 Gram Shikkha Milon Kendras (Village Continuing Education Centres) in 69 thana project areas. DNFE considers these centres as rural libraries, which maintain follow-up materials, national dailies, weeklies, monthlies, wall magazines, a radio, and indoor sport items, like ludo, carom, etc. A full-time librarian is appointed for each centre. To supervise the learning activities and operation of the library, a supervisor is assigned for every ten libraries. Other than helping neo-literates, each librarian is entrusted with the responsibility of making ten literates a year.¹⁵

In Bangladesh, some NCOs have been playing a vital role in eradicating illiteracy by organizing resource centres at the community level. These include: Community Development Library (CDL), Action aid Bangladesh, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), Gono Shahajjyo Sangstha, Rangpur- Dinajpur Rural Services (RDRS), etc. BRAC has already established some rural libraries on an experimental basis, and has plans to establish 350 libraries in the rural areas by the end of 1998.¹⁶

The Community Development Library (CDL) maintains 30 Rural Information Resource Centres (RIRCs) throughout the country. One of the main objectives of these RIRCs is to provide facilities for continuing education of the local community. The RIRCs organize seminars, workshops, and discussion meetings every month, followed by video shows. Students from the community are regularly taken to the RIRCs for orientation visits, to accustom them to continue to visit in future.¹⁷

The Library Association of Bangladesh (LAB) has already been working vigorously to create awareness and active interest among the various sections of people, including policy-makers, and has been making all-out efforts to socialize and materialize the concept of grameen library and information centres, through organizing meetings with policy-makers, organizing seminars, meeting the people concerned with the development of the rural community, and writing articles and disseminating these through seminars and the newsletter  Upatta. A 7-day training programme on how to provide information support to the village people was organized in January 1996 to train 60 young people of three villages.

With the support of UNESCO, three gramecn library and information centres have been organized and maintained jointly by the Bangladesh National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre (BANSDOC) and the Library Association of Bangladesh (LAB) in three villages (Hajipara, Kakrain, and Tetulia) of Dhamrai thana, about 40 km from the Dhaka City.¹⁷ LAB had also organized a one-day National Seminar on “Development of a Grameen Library System for Providing Information Support to the Rural People of Bangladesh.” A concept paper on a gramecn library system was presented by Mr. M. Shamsul Islam Khan, the President of LAB, at the seminar.¹⁶

ACTIONAID is an international development organization based in London. It has both urban and rural programmes, and most are centred around the samity. In the education sector, this organization promotes both non-formal primary education for children, as well as adult literacy classes, stressing functional and practical literacy.

The Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service (RDRS) is one of the largest rural development agencies in Bangladesh. It has been working in 28 thanas of six northern districts. It also works for Non-Formal Primary Education (NFPE) which meets the needs of non-school-going children. NFPE is a national initiative of the government’s Primary and Mass Education Division, funded by the World Bank.

The Gonoshahjjo Sangstha (GSS) is a well-reputed NGO working in Bangladesh in eradicating illiteracy and in other fields. It has two programmes in this regard. These arc: (i) Adolescent Literacy Centre (ALC), and (ii) Adult Literacy Programme. The Adolescent Education Programme of CSS commenced in 1993 with a suitable two-year curriculum in 434 groups. This programme is aimed at helping those in the 11-15-year age group who have cither dropped-out, or have never been exposed to formal (or any) school system, to acquire any literacy and numerical skills. In phase II (1994/5-1996/7), there were 2170 groups in operation with approximately 30 students per group. It was found from experience that students did not achieve learning targets. So, the curriculum was extended to three years. For the programme to work properly the community is encouraged, through active participation of village committees, to participate in decision-making and cost-sharing in setting up these centres.

The Adult Literacy Programme was started since 1983. It patronizes 46 adult literacy centres, and also maintains 300 Gram Shikha Milon Kendras of DNFPE (Directorate of Non-Formal Primary Education). If a centre is continued for two years, a library or reading centre is established there. At present this NGO has set up 234 reading centres for students, adult persons and others. This centre is open to all, and they also supply 60 books and magazines per year for collection development.

Moreover, the Islamic Foundation is also trying to increase the literacy rate among the rural people by the help of mosque-based libraries. In this regard, the Foundation offers training to the Imams of mosques.

PROGRAMME OF ACTION

The adult literacy programmes and policy-makers in Bangladesh have so far virtually left public libraries out of their scheme of things. All their efforts and the huge amount of money being pumped into their literacy programmes have been and will continue to be of little consequence so long as they fail to make suitable reading or learning materials available to their neo-literates through a well-conccivcd rural library system. However, to eradicate illiteracy from Bangladesh, I would like to emphasize the following programme of action at the national level:

1.      A public library grid should be established all over the country with their branches in all the villages; the establishment of libraries for all villages should be completed within five years.

2.     NGOs may take a vigorous and integrated programme jointly with the government to establish and maintain village libraries and information resource centres. A favourable government policy relating to library may encourage NGOs in this regard.

3.    The village library should run a night school and impart adult education and literacy. The librarian should be entrusted with the responsibility of creating reading habits among the village people, especially among the children and school-going students.

4.      Separate budget should be allocated for library service under the Adult Education Programme Funds. In this regard, the government should give more funds for the development of pubic libraries.

5.     The Primary and Mass Literacy Directorate, Non-Formal Education Directorate, Rural Development and Co-operatives Division, Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD), Islamic Foundation Bangladesh, and the Social Welfare Directorate may prepare their own action plan for using their own potentiality in the promotion of mass education and mass literacy.

6.     The Primary and Mass Education Division may also consider to institute a separate plan for using the maktabs as feeder schools where the Imams and Muazzins can teach children and which may be helpful to increase the literacy rates.

7.     The government should set up publishing houses to produce cheap, plentiful and suitable reading materials which can be distributed free of charge that may be helpful to be literate.

CONCLUSION

The Government of Bangladesh has given top priority to mass literacy. So, different activities and programmes for promoting literacy are being implemented through the government agencies and NGOs. The government should take necessary steps to involve public libraries in the literacy movement. Public library services should be strengthened, and support services, like the radio, television and film vans, should be introduced in the adult education programmes. Without these ancillary services, the neo-literates will soon relapse into illiteracy.

References

1.     Unesco statistical yearbook 1996. Paris: Uncsco, 1996

2.     Kedem KA. Libraries as partrers in the fight to eradicate illiteracy in sub-Saharan Africa.  IFLA ] 1990;16(4): 447-57

3.     India Q 1996;1&2:73

4.    Asian Development Bank. Key indicators of developing Asian and Pacific countries, 1991:20

5.    The World Bank. World development report 1997. New York: Oxford, 1997: 214-5

6.    Naqash NA. SAARC: challenges and opportunities. New Delhi: Ashish, 1994:11

7.    Statistical yearbook of Bangladesh, 1995. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, 1995

8.    Ahmad SU. Librarianship and the state of libraries in Bangladesh. Dhaka : Lutfun Nessah Begum, 1994:53

9.    Bangladesh. Planning Commission. 1st Five Year Plan, 1973-78

10.   Bangladesh. Planning Commission. 2nd Five Year Plan, 1980-85

11.   Bangladesh. Planning Commission. 3rd Five Year Plan, 1985-90

12.   Bangladesh. Planning Commission. 4th Five Year Plan, 1990-95

13.   Bangladesh. Department of Public Libraries. Bangladesh Central Public Library: introducing. Dhaka, “1996

14.   National Book Centre. Pathagar nirdeshika (Directory of libraries) Dhaka: National Book Centre, 1995

15.   Bangladesh. Directorate of Non-Formal Education. Let there be light. Dhaka: Directorate of Non-formal Education, 1995:9

16. Khan MSI. Development of a grameen library system for providing information support to the rural people of Bangladesh. Paper presented at the Seminar on Development of a Cramcen Library System for Providing Information Support to the Rural People of Bangladesh, Dhamrai, 2 May, 1997. Dhaka: The Library Association of Bangladesh, 1997.

17.   Harun-ur-Rashid. Community information services in rural Bangladesh. DevPrac 1996;6(4):358-62

Dr. Md. Hanif Uddin

Assistant Professor ,Dept. of Information Science and Library Management,
University of Dhaka
Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh

]]> http://infosciencetoday.org/type/research-type/role-of-libraries-in-eradicating-illiteracy-in-bangladesh-with-special-reference-to-the-situation-in-the-saarc-countries.html/feed 0 http://infosciencetoday.org/information-network/marketing-facts-definition.html http://infosciencetoday.org/information-network/marketing-facts-definition.html#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:58:56 +0000 admin http://infosciencetoday.org/?p=488 Following are the some marketing glossary:

Global Marketing (global marketing) - the further development and deepening of international marketing. Global Marketing is used by global organizations that are trying to conduct its production and sales activities, considering the whole world as one big market, where its regional and national differences do not play a decisive role.

Marketing differentiated (differentiated marketing)-type of marketing, in which the organization seeks to develop multiple market segments with a specially developed products for them and specific marketing policy. Offering a variety of products and marketing mix, the organization expects to achieve more sales and gain a stronger position in each segment of the market than its competitors.

Integrated Marketing (integrated marketing)-type of marketing, based on the unity of external and internal marketing. Purpose of integrated marketing – to put at the service of consumer activity across the organization. Integrated marketing is a two-tier system. The first level – the coherent and coordinated the functions of marketing, carried out with the position of consumers. The second level provides with the same position alignment of all parts of the organization.

Interactive marketing (interactive marketing) - kind of marketing, ongoing service organization, understands that the quality of the service depends largely on the quality of the relationship between seller and customer service. The client considers the quality of services not only from the technical side (master auto service station quality repaired vehicle), but also in terms of functional quality of service (whether master attentive and polite).

Marketing concentrated (concentrated marketing) – kind of marketing that is used when an organization has a greater market share in one or more small market segments, as opposed to concentrating efforts on a small percentage of a large market. Marketing concentrated effective for organizations with limited resources, small businesses. To implement it requires a deep study of small segments of the market and high reputation of the product organization on these segments.

Marketing mass (mass marketing) - kind of marketing undertaken by the organization for the mass production of a product intended immediately to all buyers. This market segmentation study of consumers and are not held. For example, at one stage of its activity the company “Coca-Cola Company produces one type of drink, implementing it in all markets. This approach allows you to sell products at the lowest prices. However, the implementation of mass marketing requires high marketing costs, resulting primarily from the fact that the promotion of a product designed and those who never buy the product.

Multichannel marketing (multichannel marketing) – the form of marketing, in which the organization creates two or more distribution channels to service one or more market segments. For example, sales of building materials will be brought directly to construction organizations, and through wholesalers and retailers.

Multilevel marketing - the same as network marketing.

Marketing undifferentiated (undifferentiated marketing) – the form of marketing, in which the organization, although it had a segmentation of the market, ignoring the specifics of the individual segments of the market and goes on the entire market or the largest of its segments with one product. Organization rather focuses on what is common to the needs of consumers, rather than on what they differ from each other. They are developing products and marketing plans, designed for the greatest number of potential consumers. When used an undifferentiated mass marketing of goods movement system and massive advertising campaigns, which aim to create in the minds of a favorable image of the product. Thus the cost savings achieved due to mass production of the same product, low levels of supplies and transportation costs, using the same type of advertising campaigns. A disadvantage of this approach is that the most powerful segments of trying out many producers, resulting in a high level of competition. As a consequence, often is the preferred development of smaller segments.