ACBF Virtual Library on Capacity Development (VLCD)
The VLCD is a one stop shop digital library that offers fast, well-structured and unified interface to access free full-text copies on capacity development produced and published by the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), its networks and partners. The VLCD collections comprise books, occasional papers, working papers, reports, development memoirs, lesson notes, conference papers etc. Other online reference sources that can be accessed via the VLCD are various relevant databases, gateways, portals, e-journals, e-books and e-news.
The ACBF’s flagship publication, the Africa Capacity Indicators Reports (ACIR) is featured on the VLCD. The 2013 edition focuses on the capacity development for Natural resources Management in 44 Africa countries. The report outlines that, “If countries are to better address the nexus of fragility, agricultural transformation and food security and natural resource management, then more countries need to invest in strategy, training and innovation.” The previous two reports of 2011 and 2012 focused on Fragile States and Agricultural Transformation and Food Security respectively.
Only the final, peer-reviewed versions of publications are captured into the virtual library. The VLCD is designed to meet the needs of the research community based in Africa and beyond. Its value lies in the quality and convenience of its publications database. Each article, book, paper or report is enriched with semantic and bibliographic metadata, including topics, abstracts and keywords using a controlled vocabulary. Users save time with use of the search facility that allows searches across and within publications and return highly relevant results across all content types. In addition, a user of is able to retrieve publications by browsing subjects, titles, authors, publishers and can also use a free text search facility.
The VLCD is unique and offers several advantages:
- It is not limited by physical boundaries
- It is accessible around the clock
- It provides multiple accesses
- Information is retrieved instantly
- It preserves and conserve institutional knowledge
- No challenges of physical space
- The publications cannot be easily destroyed
- The publications are downloadable and printable
VLCD resources are copyright protected and users are encouraged to attribute the work in the manner specified by the copyright holder. Access URL to the virtual library is http://elibrary.acbfpact.org. For further information on the VLCD please contact the ACBF Librarian at a.gumbwa@acbf-pact.org.