Thursday, October 15, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
NetLibrary Nigeria Limited
REPORT ON A TWO-DAY NETLIBARY NIGERIA LIMITED WORKSHOP IN LAGOS, NIGERIA AT OSTRA HALL FROM 12TH – 13TH MAY, 2009
BY
CHRISTIAN KOFI (HEAD CATALOGUER, UCC LIBRARY & SECRETARY, GLA
Introduction
The two-day workshop was organized by NetLibrary Nigeria Limited in conjunction with Sabinet Online Limited of South Africa and the Nigeria Library Association. The theme for the workshop was “Transforming Nigerian Libraries into an Effective (21st Century) Information Unit with ICT”. Participants for the two-day workshop were drawn from Ghana1), Nigeria (25) and South Africa (3). NetLibrary Nigeria Limited is a development company established to support information and knowledge platforms through access. The Company provides access to scholarly materials, database of journals, article abstracts and citations, electronic journals, publishing tools and reference database, all wrapped up in a total library package and presented in a world-class digital infrastructure.
DAY ONE-12TH MAY 2009
The Director of NetLibrary Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Oyeyinka Ayo-Yusuf welcomed participants to the two-day workshop and charged participants to embrace technology fully in order to improve upon library and information service delivery. She also advised participants to approach the library profession from a business standpoint so as to make their libraries much more visible. She also urged all participants to feel free to share their individual experiences at the workshop.
The first paper titled “The National Virtual Library: Success and Impact” was delivered by Prof. Julius A. Okojie, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC). He said the National Virtual Library was established in 2001 with the mission provide in an equitable and cost effective manner, enhanced access to national and international library and information resources and for sharing locally available resources with the following objectives:
· to improve the quality of teaching and research in institutions;
· to enhance access of Nigerian users to global library and information resources;
· to enhance the access to educational materials for users;
· to enhance scholarship research and lifelong learning;
· to provide guidance for academic libraries on applying appropriate technologies used in the production of digital library resource;
· to advance the use of globally distributed and networked information resources using delivery systems such as CD ROM and Wide Area Network.
Success and Impact
On success and impact, he said over 5,000 locally digitized journal articles and robust collections of international resources dating back as far as 1937are available. There is also a full text subscription in all disciplines until February 2011. He said also available are robust collections of databases of EBSCO Host resources.
He noted that the growth of information explosion and budgetary constraints had necessitated the need for information consortia. He said NUC is thus prompting more collective movement, partnerships and consortium building initiatives in the Nigerian University system. Furthermore, he said NUC has been supportive of the Committee of University Librarians of Nigerian Universities (CULNU) and Nigerian University Librarian Consortium (NULIC).
Collaboration and Consortium Building
He stressed that their home-grown contents needed to be repackaged and deployed on the global information space noting that the National Virtual Library had presented an opportunity to address the paucity of local content on the web. According to him, there should therefore be concerted efforts to digitize local journals, theses and dissertations as well as other intellectual outputs. Prof. Okojie said the thrust now was to continue building local contents and databases.
General Assessment
On general assessment, he identified four major challenges namely developing Intranet and local databases, promoting widespread of use of the National Virtual Library (NVL),
articulating and implementing viable funding and operational strategies for sustaining the development of the NVL and lastly, sharpening end-user instruments for formative and summative evaluation of the NVL project by individual universities.
Sabinet Online Limited
The second presentation was on background to Sabinet Online Limited of South Africa by Mr. Pierre Malan, Director of Client Services. He said Sabinet was established in 1983 and based in South Africa. Mr. Pierre Malan told participants that Sabinet represents Online Computer Library Catalogue (OCLC) in Africa and partners with NetLibrary Nigeria in West Africa. He stated that Sabinet Online Limited is an established leader in the facilitation of high-level access to trusted electronic information serving both public and private organizations, as well as academic institutions in South Africa, the USA and the rest of Africa. According to him, the company’s offerings are characterized by global partnerships and information best practices that straddle the physical and electronic worlds. He said Sabinet’s roots are in library support service, where its efforts centre around setting up guidelines for, and electronically enable cataloguing, interlibrary lending and online referencing. He added Sabinet has also ventured into library and digital content management systems markets.
He mentioned the participating libraries as Nigeria (3), Ghana (1), Uganda (3) and Kenya (2). The rest are Swaziland (1), Botswana (2), Namibia (8) and South Africa (1300+).
Mr. Pierre Malan told participants that OCLC‘s Worldcat has 125 million bibliographic records and 1.3 billion holdings.
The third presentation titled “Integrated Library Systems” was presented by Johann Pienaar also of Sabinet. He defined integrated library systems (Library Management System) as “an enterprise resources planning system for a library used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid and patrons who have borrowed” and explained that Integrated Library Systems Modules cover acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation and serials. The rest are reserves and borrower management.
Mr. Pienaar pointed out that integrated library systems supplied by Sabinet are OLIB, AMLIB and KOHA. and described OLIB7 as a functionally rich, fully integrated library management system from OCLC that had been implemented in over 300 libraries worldwide and based on ORACLE database. He said AMLIB which was first released in 1994 was developed in Australia and that over 700 libraries were using the system worldwide adding that the system which is MARC21 based is suitable for small libraries. According to Mr. Johann Pienaar KOHA is an open source integrated library system created in 1999 in New Zealand and the first installation went live in 2000. He said libraries were free to install and use KOHA, if they had the expertise, or to purchase support or development services from any source and that KOHA was suitable for large academic libraries. He later went ahead to demonstrate the functionality of KOHA.
Another paper on “Sabinet Library Products Overview and Use in Academic Library” was presented by Madira Maxhubela (Mrs.) of Sabinet. In her presentation, she highlighted the need for library cooperation so that libraries could share resources to reduce cost of providing information. She told participants that it was mainly for this reason that Sabinet is helping to build an African resource in order to provide more effective products. Mrs. Maxhubela said library cooperation are in three areas of cataloguing service, resource sharing and reference service to end-users.
She said OCLC cataloguing service which uses Worldcat is the largest online cataloguing system in the world with over one million bibliographic records. According to her, over 71,000 libraries contribute to it with a record being added every 10 seconds. She said a request is made every 4 seconds and added that, the system also allowed for both original and copy cataloguing. She noted that the advantage of this cataloguing service is that it saves time and that records can also be downloaded in seconds.
On routine cataloguing, she said libraries access Worldcat via various interfaces such as Connexion web, Connexion client and Z39.50. She told explained that the sizes of the institution as well as the catalogue are the main determinants of the costing guideline for those libraries that want to access the service.
On resource sharing, she said that is being done at both regional and international levels. At the regional level, she said focus was on the low volume of critical materials not in stock hence the need to work together. Internationally, participating libraries share resources with more than 900 libraries worldwide and also benefit from end user order facility library consortia.
Mrs. Maxhubela listed full text databases as South Africa e-publications, e-Books, OCLC and Firstsearch. She informed participants that Wilson Select South Africa Online Journal was the most comprehensive, searchable collection of full text electronic Southern African Journals adding that, to date, there are 264 full text journals available, complemented by abstracts. According to her, South African e-publications are organized under six broad areas namely, Business & Finance, Health Medical Science, Religion, Law, Socials Science and Humanities and Technology & Agriculture.
Website
In conclusion, she gave out the website address at http://www.journals.co.za/ for those who want to visit there and see what Sabinet offers. Participants were told that Sabinet offers other services such as Document Delivery and Interlibrary loans.
A paper, “Globalizing Universities through Automated Digital Libraries: The Case of Nigeria” was presented by Prof. Zakaria Mohammed, University Librarian of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria. Prof. Zakaria compared the relevance of university libraries to the functions of a typical university setting. He explained the position of the library in the scheme of teaching, learning and research functions of a typical university are very conspicuous among other facilities. He said the library is the resource centre where all members of the university community have to rely upon for information on their areas of need and interests for their academic and overall development and advancement. Prof. Zakaria said university libraries by their nature and characteristics have to source, acquire and organize all relevant information resources and sources, irrespective of their types and format for easy access and use by their community members.
Prof. Zakaria saw globalization as the “art of synergizing with others in related areas of interest to take advantage of economy of scale towards achieving the desired objective and goals. He submitted that the need to globalize universities stemmed from the fact that no one university was self sufficient both in terms of staff and teaching and learning facilities. This he said was also evident in the conduct of research where a number of specialists in different fields were needed to collaborate. Prof. Zakaria also identified the establishment of minimum academic standard for each programme, inadequacy of quality teaching and research staff to be hired especially on tenure basis, inadequacy of funds, sheer size and location of students, poor financial position of students especially in the access to relevant information resources elsewhere including the Internet and online database use, and inadequate library facilities and updated collections as some of the reasons why universities need to globalize through libraries.. He pointed out that those shortcomings presupposed that for any university with the express (exigencies) of the 21st Century or in the areas of academic and research breakthrough, the shortest cut towards meeting up to expectation was to globalize its frontiers of academic and research activities.
Globalization of Universities and Automated Digital Libraries
To Prof. Zakaria, universities can conveniently get globalised within the framework of digitized library systems and services. That library and information services provision are made faster, effective and convenient when its systems and services were automated and the information resources digitized. He said, that allowed for ease of access and use without limitation to the location of the user and time of access. To him, the impact of library and services delivery to the university community was much more felt when the library operations were fully automated and the collection and services were accessed online. Prof. Zakaria stated this also provided a better opportunity for collaboration with other libraries within and without the country especially in such areas as cooperative acquisitions and processing information, resource sharing and access, database access, construction use and management, staff training and development, etc.
On strategies for globalizing libraries, he said that it is generally agreed that an Internet ready library provided a good platform for globalizing the parent institution especially when it had its website or WebPages where all its operations and services were uploaded for public and global access and use. He submitted that for globalization of universities through automated digital libraries to be achieved, the following strategies must be pursued:
Automation of library operations
Digitization of library collections
Digital Information Resource Repository
Consortium building
Online Database subscription- A typical database could contain about 80,000 or more scholarly journal publications cutting across several subject areas.
Establishment of Electronic Libraries
Development and management of Library Websites/Pages – modern and fastest channel of communication.
In sum, Prof. Zakaria submitted that university libraries had to globalize by adopting and implementing the above strategies so they can effectively cope with the increasing demand for their services and for variety of information needed by their patrons. That the globalization of university libraries was indeed the globalization of the respective universities as they would be seen as centres of excellence, loved and cherished by all across the globe due to the possibility to access and use of their information resources and services online and remotely, without limitation to the location of the user and time of access and use.
A presentation on “The University of Cape Coast Library System” was done by Mr. Christian Kofi, Head Cataloguer and Secretary, Ghana Library Association. Mr. Christian Kofi said the University of Cape Coast Library System is made up of the Main Library, School and Faculty libraries, Departmental as well as Hall libraries. He stated that the Main Library is housed in a five-storey complex building with a total collection of approximately 227,414 volumes plus a substantial number of e-resources. He stated that the Main Library is a hybrid one that supports and service the satellite libraries.
Mr. Kofi said the Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system and the BiblioFile database to catalogue and classify its collections. He mentioned that four World Bank sponsored Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TALIF) Projects namely Library Automation, Enhanced Information Access for the Physically Challenged and Visually Impaired, Digital Library and Organization of Theses and Dissertations into Electronic Database for Multiple Access that are still ongoing. He made the point that because of reduced library budgets, librarians should learn to write proposals so as to attract additional funds to enhance their library services. He mentioned that the library has a separate account that enables the Librarian to plan ahead.
Furthermore, he highlighted the 24-hour library service rendered to the university community during examination period adding that there are the interlibrary loan/document delivery services and the electronic resources that the Library subscribes to under the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Ghana (CARLIGH).
He spoke about the Alumni Gallery which is a pictorial history of the University with generous funding from Barclays Bank, Ghana and Dr. and Mrs. Gyabaa and the Alumni. He explained the Gallery displays photographs of all the principal officers of the University since its inception, all the academic programmes, publications of faculties, memorabilia and an update of Alumni database. He said the Alumni Gallery also maintained by updating a database on all alumni.
He concluded by highlighting the Information Literacy course that is taught undergraduate students by a team of professional librarians. The course objective is to enable the students to acquire the skills of information search, quality and use. He further explained that it is examinable and therefore a requirement for the award of a degree at the University.
DISCUSSIONS
As a sequel to the presentations, participants at the workshop engaged in a lively discussion by sharing their experiences and also answering questions. A host of issues were raised during this session. One of the participants stressed the need for librarians of the second and third generations to undertake self-education in the area of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). This is because these librarians did not benefit from courses in computer literacy while pursuing their library qualifications so these librarians and others who do not have computer literacy skills should undertake self-education in this regard. He ended by stating that once the way we do things had changed as a result of technology, librarians should also change accordingly.
Another participant stressed the need for librarians to approach corporate organizations for funding of library projects which have to do with capacity building. She mentioned such organizations like MTN, ZAIN, Vodafone, among others. She stated that the NetLibrary Nigeria workshop that was currently ongoing was being sponsored by MTN Network Services. She, however, hinted that most corporate organizations do not fund such projects because of the bureaucratic tendencies in their institutions.
The issue of proposal writing came up strongly during the discussion. It was highlighted that as a result of reduced library budgets, librarians should acquire the skill for proposal writing so that they can attract some funding into their libraries.
A call was also made for University Librarians to equip themselves on a wide range of issues in order to be able assert themselves in their universities.
Participants at the workshop also noted that since technology had changed library and information work, librarians should therefore learn to co-exist with IT personnel at their workplace. This is so because librarians need IT personnel as partners to be able to function effectively.
The poor state of Public Libraries in Nigeria was discussed at length. Finally, it was suggested that since Nigeria is a federal state, there is the need for the various states to pull their resources together towards the growth an effective public library system.
The last point for discussion was poor Internet connectivity and heavy traffic on the Internet. Here various institutions should endeavour to formulate policies on Bandwidth management. It was noted that such a policy would spell out what could be done and what could not be done on the Internet at a given period of time. Such a policy, it was believed would lead to the maximization of Internet connectivity. Some participants called for, not only a policy on Bandwidth management but a more holistic one on ICT.
BY
CHRISTIAN KOFI (HEAD CATALOGUER, UCC LIBRARY & SECRETARY, GLA
Introduction
The two-day workshop was organized by NetLibrary Nigeria Limited in conjunction with Sabinet Online Limited of South Africa and the Nigeria Library Association. The theme for the workshop was “Transforming Nigerian Libraries into an Effective (21st Century) Information Unit with ICT”. Participants for the two-day workshop were drawn from Ghana1), Nigeria (25) and South Africa (3). NetLibrary Nigeria Limited is a development company established to support information and knowledge platforms through access. The Company provides access to scholarly materials, database of journals, article abstracts and citations, electronic journals, publishing tools and reference database, all wrapped up in a total library package and presented in a world-class digital infrastructure.
DAY ONE-12TH MAY 2009
The Director of NetLibrary Nigeria Limited, Mrs. Oyeyinka Ayo-Yusuf welcomed participants to the two-day workshop and charged participants to embrace technology fully in order to improve upon library and information service delivery. She also advised participants to approach the library profession from a business standpoint so as to make their libraries much more visible. She also urged all participants to feel free to share their individual experiences at the workshop.
The first paper titled “The National Virtual Library: Success and Impact” was delivered by Prof. Julius A. Okojie, Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission (NUC). He said the National Virtual Library was established in 2001 with the mission provide in an equitable and cost effective manner, enhanced access to national and international library and information resources and for sharing locally available resources with the following objectives:
· to improve the quality of teaching and research in institutions;
· to enhance access of Nigerian users to global library and information resources;
· to enhance the access to educational materials for users;
· to enhance scholarship research and lifelong learning;
· to provide guidance for academic libraries on applying appropriate technologies used in the production of digital library resource;
· to advance the use of globally distributed and networked information resources using delivery systems such as CD ROM and Wide Area Network.
Success and Impact
On success and impact, he said over 5,000 locally digitized journal articles and robust collections of international resources dating back as far as 1937are available. There is also a full text subscription in all disciplines until February 2011. He said also available are robust collections of databases of EBSCO Host resources.
He noted that the growth of information explosion and budgetary constraints had necessitated the need for information consortia. He said NUC is thus prompting more collective movement, partnerships and consortium building initiatives in the Nigerian University system. Furthermore, he said NUC has been supportive of the Committee of University Librarians of Nigerian Universities (CULNU) and Nigerian University Librarian Consortium (NULIC).
Collaboration and Consortium Building
He stressed that their home-grown contents needed to be repackaged and deployed on the global information space noting that the National Virtual Library had presented an opportunity to address the paucity of local content on the web. According to him, there should therefore be concerted efforts to digitize local journals, theses and dissertations as well as other intellectual outputs. Prof. Okojie said the thrust now was to continue building local contents and databases.
General Assessment
On general assessment, he identified four major challenges namely developing Intranet and local databases, promoting widespread of use of the National Virtual Library (NVL),
articulating and implementing viable funding and operational strategies for sustaining the development of the NVL and lastly, sharpening end-user instruments for formative and summative evaluation of the NVL project by individual universities.
Sabinet Online Limited
The second presentation was on background to Sabinet Online Limited of South Africa by Mr. Pierre Malan, Director of Client Services. He said Sabinet was established in 1983 and based in South Africa. Mr. Pierre Malan told participants that Sabinet represents Online Computer Library Catalogue (OCLC) in Africa and partners with NetLibrary Nigeria in West Africa. He stated that Sabinet Online Limited is an established leader in the facilitation of high-level access to trusted electronic information serving both public and private organizations, as well as academic institutions in South Africa, the USA and the rest of Africa. According to him, the company’s offerings are characterized by global partnerships and information best practices that straddle the physical and electronic worlds. He said Sabinet’s roots are in library support service, where its efforts centre around setting up guidelines for, and electronically enable cataloguing, interlibrary lending and online referencing. He added Sabinet has also ventured into library and digital content management systems markets.
He mentioned the participating libraries as Nigeria (3), Ghana (1), Uganda (3) and Kenya (2). The rest are Swaziland (1), Botswana (2), Namibia (8) and South Africa (1300+).
Mr. Pierre Malan told participants that OCLC‘s Worldcat has 125 million bibliographic records and 1.3 billion holdings.
The third presentation titled “Integrated Library Systems” was presented by Johann Pienaar also of Sabinet. He defined integrated library systems (Library Management System) as “an enterprise resources planning system for a library used to track items owned, orders made, bills paid and patrons who have borrowed” and explained that Integrated Library Systems Modules cover acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation and serials. The rest are reserves and borrower management.
Mr. Pienaar pointed out that integrated library systems supplied by Sabinet are OLIB, AMLIB and KOHA. and described OLIB7 as a functionally rich, fully integrated library management system from OCLC that had been implemented in over 300 libraries worldwide and based on ORACLE database. He said AMLIB which was first released in 1994 was developed in Australia and that over 700 libraries were using the system worldwide adding that the system which is MARC21 based is suitable for small libraries. According to Mr. Johann Pienaar KOHA is an open source integrated library system created in 1999 in New Zealand and the first installation went live in 2000. He said libraries were free to install and use KOHA, if they had the expertise, or to purchase support or development services from any source and that KOHA was suitable for large academic libraries. He later went ahead to demonstrate the functionality of KOHA.
Another paper on “Sabinet Library Products Overview and Use in Academic Library” was presented by Madira Maxhubela (Mrs.) of Sabinet. In her presentation, she highlighted the need for library cooperation so that libraries could share resources to reduce cost of providing information. She told participants that it was mainly for this reason that Sabinet is helping to build an African resource in order to provide more effective products. Mrs. Maxhubela said library cooperation are in three areas of cataloguing service, resource sharing and reference service to end-users.
She said OCLC cataloguing service which uses Worldcat is the largest online cataloguing system in the world with over one million bibliographic records. According to her, over 71,000 libraries contribute to it with a record being added every 10 seconds. She said a request is made every 4 seconds and added that, the system also allowed for both original and copy cataloguing. She noted that the advantage of this cataloguing service is that it saves time and that records can also be downloaded in seconds.
On routine cataloguing, she said libraries access Worldcat via various interfaces such as Connexion web, Connexion client and Z39.50. She told explained that the sizes of the institution as well as the catalogue are the main determinants of the costing guideline for those libraries that want to access the service.
On resource sharing, she said that is being done at both regional and international levels. At the regional level, she said focus was on the low volume of critical materials not in stock hence the need to work together. Internationally, participating libraries share resources with more than 900 libraries worldwide and also benefit from end user order facility library consortia.
Mrs. Maxhubela listed full text databases as South Africa e-publications, e-Books, OCLC and Firstsearch. She informed participants that Wilson Select South Africa Online Journal was the most comprehensive, searchable collection of full text electronic Southern African Journals adding that, to date, there are 264 full text journals available, complemented by abstracts. According to her, South African e-publications are organized under six broad areas namely, Business & Finance, Health Medical Science, Religion, Law, Socials Science and Humanities and Technology & Agriculture.
Website
In conclusion, she gave out the website address at http://www.journals.co.za/ for those who want to visit there and see what Sabinet offers. Participants were told that Sabinet offers other services such as Document Delivery and Interlibrary loans.
A paper, “Globalizing Universities through Automated Digital Libraries: The Case of Nigeria” was presented by Prof. Zakaria Mohammed, University Librarian of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria. Prof. Zakaria compared the relevance of university libraries to the functions of a typical university setting. He explained the position of the library in the scheme of teaching, learning and research functions of a typical university are very conspicuous among other facilities. He said the library is the resource centre where all members of the university community have to rely upon for information on their areas of need and interests for their academic and overall development and advancement. Prof. Zakaria said university libraries by their nature and characteristics have to source, acquire and organize all relevant information resources and sources, irrespective of their types and format for easy access and use by their community members.
Prof. Zakaria saw globalization as the “art of synergizing with others in related areas of interest to take advantage of economy of scale towards achieving the desired objective and goals. He submitted that the need to globalize universities stemmed from the fact that no one university was self sufficient both in terms of staff and teaching and learning facilities. This he said was also evident in the conduct of research where a number of specialists in different fields were needed to collaborate. Prof. Zakaria also identified the establishment of minimum academic standard for each programme, inadequacy of quality teaching and research staff to be hired especially on tenure basis, inadequacy of funds, sheer size and location of students, poor financial position of students especially in the access to relevant information resources elsewhere including the Internet and online database use, and inadequate library facilities and updated collections as some of the reasons why universities need to globalize through libraries.. He pointed out that those shortcomings presupposed that for any university with the express (exigencies) of the 21st Century or in the areas of academic and research breakthrough, the shortest cut towards meeting up to expectation was to globalize its frontiers of academic and research activities.
Globalization of Universities and Automated Digital Libraries
To Prof. Zakaria, universities can conveniently get globalised within the framework of digitized library systems and services. That library and information services provision are made faster, effective and convenient when its systems and services were automated and the information resources digitized. He said, that allowed for ease of access and use without limitation to the location of the user and time of access. To him, the impact of library and services delivery to the university community was much more felt when the library operations were fully automated and the collection and services were accessed online. Prof. Zakaria stated this also provided a better opportunity for collaboration with other libraries within and without the country especially in such areas as cooperative acquisitions and processing information, resource sharing and access, database access, construction use and management, staff training and development, etc.
On strategies for globalizing libraries, he said that it is generally agreed that an Internet ready library provided a good platform for globalizing the parent institution especially when it had its website or WebPages where all its operations and services were uploaded for public and global access and use. He submitted that for globalization of universities through automated digital libraries to be achieved, the following strategies must be pursued:
Automation of library operations
Digitization of library collections
Digital Information Resource Repository
Consortium building
Online Database subscription- A typical database could contain about 80,000 or more scholarly journal publications cutting across several subject areas.
Establishment of Electronic Libraries
Development and management of Library Websites/Pages – modern and fastest channel of communication.
In sum, Prof. Zakaria submitted that university libraries had to globalize by adopting and implementing the above strategies so they can effectively cope with the increasing demand for their services and for variety of information needed by their patrons. That the globalization of university libraries was indeed the globalization of the respective universities as they would be seen as centres of excellence, loved and cherished by all across the globe due to the possibility to access and use of their information resources and services online and remotely, without limitation to the location of the user and time of access and use.
A presentation on “The University of Cape Coast Library System” was done by Mr. Christian Kofi, Head Cataloguer and Secretary, Ghana Library Association. Mr. Christian Kofi said the University of Cape Coast Library System is made up of the Main Library, School and Faculty libraries, Departmental as well as Hall libraries. He stated that the Main Library is housed in a five-storey complex building with a total collection of approximately 227,414 volumes plus a substantial number of e-resources. He stated that the Main Library is a hybrid one that supports and service the satellite libraries.
Mr. Kofi said the Library uses the Library of Congress Classification system and the BiblioFile database to catalogue and classify its collections. He mentioned that four World Bank sponsored Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund (TALIF) Projects namely Library Automation, Enhanced Information Access for the Physically Challenged and Visually Impaired, Digital Library and Organization of Theses and Dissertations into Electronic Database for Multiple Access that are still ongoing. He made the point that because of reduced library budgets, librarians should learn to write proposals so as to attract additional funds to enhance their library services. He mentioned that the library has a separate account that enables the Librarian to plan ahead.
Furthermore, he highlighted the 24-hour library service rendered to the university community during examination period adding that there are the interlibrary loan/document delivery services and the electronic resources that the Library subscribes to under the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries of Ghana (CARLIGH).
He spoke about the Alumni Gallery which is a pictorial history of the University with generous funding from Barclays Bank, Ghana and Dr. and Mrs. Gyabaa and the Alumni. He explained the Gallery displays photographs of all the principal officers of the University since its inception, all the academic programmes, publications of faculties, memorabilia and an update of Alumni database. He said the Alumni Gallery also maintained by updating a database on all alumni.
He concluded by highlighting the Information Literacy course that is taught undergraduate students by a team of professional librarians. The course objective is to enable the students to acquire the skills of information search, quality and use. He further explained that it is examinable and therefore a requirement for the award of a degree at the University.
DISCUSSIONS
As a sequel to the presentations, participants at the workshop engaged in a lively discussion by sharing their experiences and also answering questions. A host of issues were raised during this session. One of the participants stressed the need for librarians of the second and third generations to undertake self-education in the area of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). This is because these librarians did not benefit from courses in computer literacy while pursuing their library qualifications so these librarians and others who do not have computer literacy skills should undertake self-education in this regard. He ended by stating that once the way we do things had changed as a result of technology, librarians should also change accordingly.
Another participant stressed the need for librarians to approach corporate organizations for funding of library projects which have to do with capacity building. She mentioned such organizations like MTN, ZAIN, Vodafone, among others. She stated that the NetLibrary Nigeria workshop that was currently ongoing was being sponsored by MTN Network Services. She, however, hinted that most corporate organizations do not fund such projects because of the bureaucratic tendencies in their institutions.
The issue of proposal writing came up strongly during the discussion. It was highlighted that as a result of reduced library budgets, librarians should acquire the skill for proposal writing so that they can attract some funding into their libraries.
A call was also made for University Librarians to equip themselves on a wide range of issues in order to be able assert themselves in their universities.
Participants at the workshop also noted that since technology had changed library and information work, librarians should therefore learn to co-exist with IT personnel at their workplace. This is so because librarians need IT personnel as partners to be able to function effectively.
The poor state of Public Libraries in Nigeria was discussed at length. Finally, it was suggested that since Nigeria is a federal state, there is the need for the various states to pull their resources together towards the growth an effective public library system.
The last point for discussion was poor Internet connectivity and heavy traffic on the Internet. Here various institutions should endeavour to formulate policies on Bandwidth management. It was noted that such a policy would spell out what could be done and what could not be done on the Internet at a given period of time. Such a policy, it was believed would lead to the maximization of Internet connectivity. Some participants called for, not only a policy on Bandwidth management but a more holistic one on ICT.
Friday, September 11, 2009
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