Jeffrey Lawrence D’Silva

Mapping the patterns and problems in using rural library services among rural youth in Malaysia

This study attempts to discover the pattern of rural library usage among rural youth in Malaysia and to determine the problems that are associated with such usage. The findings of this study provide an insight into youth usage of rural library services. The most obvious pattern that resulted from the findings is the connection between library usage and the availability of reading materials. Furthermore, it was found that some of the respondents raised their concern with regard to rural libraries being congested with children. A number of recommendations have been highlighted and it is expected that these can be used by concerned parties to further improve and develop rural library services.

Investigating Rural Library Usage among Rural Youth in Malaysia: Its Corresponding Determinants and Impacts

The demands for information are increasing nowadays, providing adequate sources of information for the community is a crucial agenda as it is an essential part of community development particularly the youth; the future leader of our community. As information and communication technology (ICT) play significant roles as sources of information, similarly, the rural library in Malaysia can play the same roles in offering updated and needed information of the community. The main objective of this paper is to know the potential factors, benefits and problems in using the services provided in the rural library. Discussion of this paper is based on applied documents and literature analysis. Based on the analyses done, a number of potential benefits offered by the rural community have been identified and certainly information offered is the main benefit available. Potential problems faced by the rural community in using the rural library services need to be overcome to ensure the rural community will profits from the benefits offered. Besides, a number of related factors and theories have been further discussed.

Holistic well-being of Japanese retirees in Malaysia

The current era of extensive use of information and communication technology and globalization brought the mankind to pay attention to the wellbeing of people as it is paramount for sustainable development of communities. Accordingly, numerous discussions were put forward to conceptualize well-being as such. Judging from the literature, holistic well-being is deemed as a better form of measuring well-being as it incorporates both objective and subjective dimensions. The aim of this study is to examine the holistic well-being of Japanese retirees residing in Malaysia. Data were collected from 278 retirees via a pick-and-drop method as well as face-to-face interviews. The findings show that the holistic well-being of Japanese retirees in Malaysia is 56.3%. Besides, the study has identified that these retirees scored as the highest the dimensions of communication technologies and lifestyle. On the other hand, the lowest scores got the dimensions of political and physical facilities. It is proposed that to further enhance the international retirement migration, particularly in the Malaysian context, political stability and good physical facilities are the pertinent factors that need to be emphasized.

Family Leadership for Development of Rural Malay Herbal Entrepreneurship in Malaysia

The aim of this study is to highlight on the role of rural family leadership in the development of herbal entrepreneurship. Majority of the Malay entrepreneurs failed in the development due to lack of entrepreneurial leadership. This is a qualitative exploratory research using phenomenology approach as it gave an in-depth explanation on the issues regarding rural Malay family-based herbal entrepreneurship development. This study was conducted in Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) during a herbal products promotional exhibition at Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) with eight rural Malay herbal entrepreneurs in different highly populated Malays state of northern peninsular Malaysia namely, Kelantan, Kedah, Pahang, Perlis and Trengganu. The result showed family leadership is the major factor for the development of rural Malay herbal entrepreneurship and also suggested that the herbal development planners, government authorized agents need to focus on issues such as education, training, financial resources for development of rural Malay family based herbal entrepreneurship.

Rural Malay Youth Leadership and Malaysian Herbal Entrepreneurship Development

Malay youth leadership is the key factor for the development of rural Malay herbal entrepreneurship. This herbal entrepreneurship has been running by the elderly family members since start up it. As a result, the involvement of youth leadership for their entrepreneurship development is very limited and decreased their entrepreneurship growth day by day. This study was employed using a phenomenological qualitative research approach with ten rural Malay herbal entrepreneurs in Peninsular of Malaysia through in-depth interview of individual’s life experience. It is revealed that youth leadership is the major issue for the development of rural Malay herbal entrepreneurship. The findings suggest that human and financial capital, technical knowledge know-how and government policy are important to increase the involvement of rural Malay youth in herbal entrepreneurship.