On this day Mrs. Kay Raseroka, the Director of Library Services of the University of Botswana spoke about the challenges and opportunities for African Librarianship.
She mentioned that the challenges we faced as African Librarians are promoting the use of information, promoting the use of Information Communication Technologies, having to deal with users who have the problem of language when they have to communicate or seek information, having the problem of not knowing if the information acquired is going to be used effectively.
She mentioned the opportunities as diversification of the profession, networking and partnerships with various professions, lifelong learning of Librarians and global Librarianship.
Prof. Christine Stilwell from University of Kwa Zulu Natal talked about the way forward for Libraries in South Africa. She used the 2007 Delphi study to discuss the most pressing issues facing Librarianship.
The Participants of the Delphi Study were required to rank the top nine Library issues, the issues were Funding from government. Public access computing, Information Literacy, Social exclusion and social capital issues, Information and Knowledge commons, Role of organized profession, Education and training, ICT infrastructure and More assertive Library
The 2007 Delphi Participants ranked Information Literacy as their number priority while the 2009 ranked it is number six. Government funding was ranked number two by the 2007 Delphi Participants while the 2009 Carnegie Leadership Participants ranked it as number 0ne.
We were also asked to ranked the top seven Top issues form the 2009 Carnegie Leadership Academy Participants, in our group Modles of Public Access was ranked number one, Education and Training number two and ICT and Connectivity number three,
All the groups agreed that ICT and connectivity plays a vital role in the development of our Libraries.
This was the last day of the 2010 academy. We concluded with the presentations from different groups. Prof. Bothma and Prof. Stilwell encourage us to improve our presentation skills, we were told not to look at the Power Point Presentation when presenting, but to face the audience, and Power Point slides not too be loaded with information but only six to nine bullet points.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
25 MARCH 2010
Dr. Danny Titus talked about multiculturalism in the workplace, nowadays South African workplace is dominated by people from diverse cultures. It is therefore important for a Leader to know how to handle the issue of multiculturalism within the organization.
Leaders must promote cultural awareness or tolerance by learning factual information about the cultures and groups with different backgrounds.
Dr. Danny Titus emphasized that Leaders must not be stereotyped and biased when dealing with diversity, they must teach others about cultural differences, inherit diversity issues in staff meetings at work, recognizes differences as diversity rather than as abnormal behavior and develop skills in cross cultural communication.
In the afternoon we visited Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg.
What is the Constitution hill
The Constitution Hill precinct, located at the western end of the suburb Hillbrow in Johannesburg, is the seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. The first court session in the new building at this location was held in February 2004. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The hill was formerly the site of a fort which was later used as a prison. The Old Fort Prison complex is known as Number Four. The original prison was built to house white male prisoners in 1892.
The Old Fort was built around this prison by Paul Kruger from 1896 to 1899 to protect the South African Republic from the threat of British invasion. Later, Boer military leaders of the Anglo-Boer War were imprisoned here by the British. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The Old Fort prison was later extended to include "native" cells, called Section 4 and Section 5, and, in 1907, a women's section was added. An awaiting-trial block was constructed in the 1920s.
Both political activists opposed to apartheid and common criminals were held at the prison. Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned here in 1906, and striking white mineworkers in 1907, 1913 and 1922. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
Under the apartheid government, only whites were held in the Old Fort itself, except for Nelson Mandela, who was given a bed in the hospital section when he was as an awaiting-trial prisoner in 1962 prior to the Rivonia Trial. Joe Slovo, Bram Fischer, Albert Luthuli and Robert Sobukwe were also inmates. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The site housed prisoners until 1983, when it was closed. In 1995, the Constitutional Court justices began looking for a permanent location for the new Court. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The purpose of the visit was for us to learn more from the Constitution Library, to learn about the past history of South Africa, so that we can learn to forgive and forget and to learn more about the importance of the Constitution Law in our Country.
Useful website:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
Leaders must promote cultural awareness or tolerance by learning factual information about the cultures and groups with different backgrounds.
Dr. Danny Titus emphasized that Leaders must not be stereotyped and biased when dealing with diversity, they must teach others about cultural differences, inherit diversity issues in staff meetings at work, recognizes differences as diversity rather than as abnormal behavior and develop skills in cross cultural communication.
In the afternoon we visited Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg.
What is the Constitution hill
The Constitution Hill precinct, located at the western end of the suburb Hillbrow in Johannesburg, is the seat of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. The first court session in the new building at this location was held in February 2004. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The hill was formerly the site of a fort which was later used as a prison. The Old Fort Prison complex is known as Number Four. The original prison was built to house white male prisoners in 1892.
The Old Fort was built around this prison by Paul Kruger from 1896 to 1899 to protect the South African Republic from the threat of British invasion. Later, Boer military leaders of the Anglo-Boer War were imprisoned here by the British. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The Old Fort prison was later extended to include "native" cells, called Section 4 and Section 5, and, in 1907, a women's section was added. An awaiting-trial block was constructed in the 1920s.
Both political activists opposed to apartheid and common criminals were held at the prison. Mahatma Gandhi was imprisoned here in 1906, and striking white mineworkers in 1907, 1913 and 1922. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
Under the apartheid government, only whites were held in the Old Fort itself, except for Nelson Mandela, who was given a bed in the hospital section when he was as an awaiting-trial prisoner in 1962 prior to the Rivonia Trial. Joe Slovo, Bram Fischer, Albert Luthuli and Robert Sobukwe were also inmates. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The site housed prisoners until 1983, when it was closed. In 1995, the Constitutional Court justices began looking for a permanent location for the new Court. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
The purpose of the visit was for us to learn more from the Constitution Library, to learn about the past history of South Africa, so that we can learn to forgive and forget and to learn more about the importance of the Constitution Law in our Country.
Useful website:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Hill,_Johannesburg
24 MARCH 2010
We learnt about Digital Preservation on this day, the Presenters were Ria Gronewald and Heila Pienaar of the University of Pretoria.
Digital Preservation is the management of digital information over time.
The Client Service Presentation, was done by Hilda Kriel of the University of Pretoria, made me think about the service we provide in our Library.
I have learn that in order to provide a better service within our Library we must be committed to providing efficient and prompt service to our users, interact with them in order to determine what are their needs, review users complaints and feedback.
Ms. Christa North, head of quality assurance from the University of Pretoria talked about Quality assurance.
Quality assurance is defined set of activities that are carried out to set standards and to monitor and improve performance so that the care provided is as effective and safe as possible. http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/CityHealth/QualityAssurance/Pages/QualityAssurance.aspx
The Presenter for the second session was Dr Nisha Sewdass from University of Pretoria, she talked about Competitive Intelligence.
Competitive Intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_intelligence
Competitive intelligence is not industrial espionage; it is the process of finding information about your competitors so that you can improve on the service you provide.
Competitive Intelligence is important in organizations because it makes them to strive for excellence service and to produce highly quality products, retain intelligent and hard working staff members.
The organizations compete for Products, Finance, Technology, People Reputation and Image.
She also mentioned that we must be able to indentify our competitors.
In the Library sector our competitors are Publishers, Booksellers, other Institutions for example in Pretoria; University of Pretoria Competitor will be Unisa.
Digital Preservation is the management of digital information over time.
The Client Service Presentation, was done by Hilda Kriel of the University of Pretoria, made me think about the service we provide in our Library.
I have learn that in order to provide a better service within our Library we must be committed to providing efficient and prompt service to our users, interact with them in order to determine what are their needs, review users complaints and feedback.
Ms. Christa North, head of quality assurance from the University of Pretoria talked about Quality assurance.
Quality assurance is defined set of activities that are carried out to set standards and to monitor and improve performance so that the care provided is as effective and safe as possible. http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/CityHealth/QualityAssurance/Pages/QualityAssurance.aspx
The Presenter for the second session was Dr Nisha Sewdass from University of Pretoria, she talked about Competitive Intelligence.
Competitive Intelligence is the action of defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support executives and managers in making strategic decisions for an organization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competitive_intelligence
Competitive intelligence is not industrial espionage; it is the process of finding information about your competitors so that you can improve on the service you provide.
Competitive Intelligence is important in organizations because it makes them to strive for excellence service and to produce highly quality products, retain intelligent and hard working staff members.
The organizations compete for Products, Finance, Technology, People Reputation and Image.
She also mentioned that we must be able to indentify our competitors.
In the Library sector our competitors are Publishers, Booksellers, other Institutions for example in Pretoria; University of Pretoria Competitor will be Unisa.
23 MARCH 2010
Johan Greef from Treetops organization, talked about organizational culture.
Organizational culture is the personality of the organization.
Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. For example if at a certain Library, the photocopy machines or the printers are always out of order, people from the outside will know about this and they will never come to the Library because they know that the service is very poor.
It is therefore important that we as leaders provide our client with a good service which is efficient because first impression lasts.
We were privileged to be visited by Karin Kitching of the United States Embassy and Rene Schoombee, the 2007 Librarian of the year, from Laerskool Rustenburg; they addressed us on Library advocacy.
They define Library Advocacy as the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea or policy, active support.
Rene Schoome mentioned that Librarians are the Library advocates, Library advocates belief that Libraries and Librarians are vital to the future of information Literate.
She also mentioned that we must be passionate about our profession, be enthusiastic and positive about being a Librarian , join Library associations , offer our services to the community and accept invitations to deliver presentations and develop and empower ourselves by applying for grants and scholarships.
She mentioned that we as Librarians must be proud to be Librarians and market our services.
I ‘m going to practice what I have from her, I now know that everywhere I go I must talk about our Library and tell people about the unique service we offer. I must not act like just a Librarian, I must talk about our services at the Faculty boards meeting, Library committee meetings and make our voice heard.
I have learnt a lot from Rene, in order to show that I’m a good leader ,from now on
I’m going to make sure that I become an active member of LIASA, contribute towards the development and empowerment of the people in my community and I’m applying for Full Bright Scholarship in order to further my Masters Degree.
The Director of Library Services University of Pretoria, Mr. Robert Moropa talked about: Is your Library well positioned in the minds of decision makers?
We learnt that as Leaders we must see ourselves and our Libraries adding value in the entire organization, for example many institutions of higher education and municipalities don’t value Libraries, therefore as Librarians we must be Library Advocates, learn to market our services, speak well about our Libraries and not act like just Librarians, we must not allow them to cut Library budgets and they must learn to value Libraries.
Useful website:http://www.liasa.org.za/advocacy/advocacy.php
Organizational culture is the personality of the organization.
Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. For example if at a certain Library, the photocopy machines or the printers are always out of order, people from the outside will know about this and they will never come to the Library because they know that the service is very poor.
It is therefore important that we as leaders provide our client with a good service which is efficient because first impression lasts.
We were privileged to be visited by Karin Kitching of the United States Embassy and Rene Schoombee, the 2007 Librarian of the year, from Laerskool Rustenburg; they addressed us on Library advocacy.
They define Library Advocacy as the act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea or policy, active support.
Rene Schoome mentioned that Librarians are the Library advocates, Library advocates belief that Libraries and Librarians are vital to the future of information Literate.
She also mentioned that we must be passionate about our profession, be enthusiastic and positive about being a Librarian , join Library associations , offer our services to the community and accept invitations to deliver presentations and develop and empower ourselves by applying for grants and scholarships.
She mentioned that we as Librarians must be proud to be Librarians and market our services.
I ‘m going to practice what I have from her, I now know that everywhere I go I must talk about our Library and tell people about the unique service we offer. I must not act like just a Librarian, I must talk about our services at the Faculty boards meeting, Library committee meetings and make our voice heard.
I have learnt a lot from Rene, in order to show that I’m a good leader ,from now on
I’m going to make sure that I become an active member of LIASA, contribute towards the development and empowerment of the people in my community and I’m applying for Full Bright Scholarship in order to further my Masters Degree.
The Director of Library Services University of Pretoria, Mr. Robert Moropa talked about: Is your Library well positioned in the minds of decision makers?
We learnt that as Leaders we must see ourselves and our Libraries adding value in the entire organization, for example many institutions of higher education and municipalities don’t value Libraries, therefore as Librarians we must be Library Advocates, learn to market our services, speak well about our Libraries and not act like just Librarians, we must not allow them to cut Library budgets and they must learn to value Libraries.
Useful website:http://www.liasa.org.za/advocacy/advocacy.php
22 MARCH 2010
On this day, Prof Ronel Rensburg talked to us about Marketing, branding and effective communication in our organizations.
We learnt that Informal and Formal communication are the very important means of organizational communication.
It is also vital for organizations to market their services in order that their client and customers must have knowledge of the products available and changes affecting them.
Branding defines what your organization is, What you stand for, what makes you unique, how do people perceive your organization, whether you could change peoples’ perception about your organization and if your organization can live up to the new brand it has created for itself.
useful websites:www.brandidentityguru.com/corporatebranding.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-is-corporate-branding.htm
We learnt that Informal and Formal communication are the very important means of organizational communication.
It is also vital for organizations to market their services in order that their client and customers must have knowledge of the products available and changes affecting them.
Branding defines what your organization is, What you stand for, what makes you unique, how do people perceive your organization, whether you could change peoples’ perception about your organization and if your organization can live up to the new brand it has created for itself.
useful websites:www.brandidentityguru.com/corporatebranding.htm
www.wisegeek.com/what-is-corporate-branding.htm
20 MARCH 2010
We visited the National Library on this day; the main purpose of the visit was to celebrate the Launch of Library week. Library week is celebrated annually during the month of March, in order to coincide with the opening of the first Public Library in Cape Town Library on the 18 March it was an honored to celebrate the occasion with the likes of Nadine Gordimer, South African writer, political activist and Nobel laureate. She donated some of her books to the Library.
The theme for 2010 Library week, is Reading Changes Lives. The President of Library Association of South Africa (LIASA), Mrs. Rachel More, encouraged parents to buy book as a birthday present for their children instead of buying them toys.
After the LIASA library week program, we took the tour of the National Library of South Africa is one of the biggest and technologically advanced Libraries in the country. Their study carrels are sound proofed so that the students discussing in the Library don’t disturb others.
They have started a Project called Deacidification, which is a process of treating paper documents for the purpose of neutralizing acids within the paper and to create an alkaline buffer. High acidity levels contribute to the deterioration of paper, causing yellowing, brittleness, and instability.
This is a very good project; it will make the books to be used for a long period without losing its original color and tearing easily. It will be wise if other libraries can follow in the footsteps of the National Library
The theme for 2010 Library week, is Reading Changes Lives. The President of Library Association of South Africa (LIASA), Mrs. Rachel More, encouraged parents to buy book as a birthday present for their children instead of buying them toys.
After the LIASA library week program, we took the tour of the National Library of South Africa is one of the biggest and technologically advanced Libraries in the country. Their study carrels are sound proofed so that the students discussing in the Library don’t disturb others.
They have started a Project called Deacidification, which is a process of treating paper documents for the purpose of neutralizing acids within the paper and to create an alkaline buffer. High acidity levels contribute to the deterioration of paper, causing yellowing, brittleness, and instability.
This is a very good project; it will make the books to be used for a long period without losing its original color and tearing easily. It will be wise if other libraries can follow in the footsteps of the National Library
19 MARCH 2010
The main topics for presentations were Knowledge Management, Knowledge Society and Innovative thinking for contemporary Librarians.
The Presenters were Marietjie Schutte and Judi Sandrock. Their Presentations focused on the importance and implementation of Knowledge Management in the workplace.
Knowledge Management involves connecting people with people, as well as people with information. (Daikir, 2005:20)
I have also learnt that Knowledge Management helps people to do their jobs and save time through better decision making and problem solving, help people to be abreast and helps institutions to stay ahead of the competition.( Daikir, 2005:20)
Prof. Johannes Cronje presentation was on Innovations and thinking outside the box for South African Libraries, this was the most interesting session, the presenter was full of energy and it was an interactive presentation. We were asked to be creative for example, to create a door mat out of paper, to name five uses of paper clip and to draw an elephant.
The main purpose of the session was to show us how important is team work in the workplace and we must learn to think out of the box, must learn to substitute for example using a paper clip as an ear bud.
The four Learning styles were discussed namely Accommodator, Diverger, Converger and Assimilator.
Useful websites :www.media-access.com/whatis.html(knowledge management)
www.dlsu.edu.ph/conferences/etfp/papers/estacio.pdf -(km)
The Presenters were Marietjie Schutte and Judi Sandrock. Their Presentations focused on the importance and implementation of Knowledge Management in the workplace.
Knowledge Management involves connecting people with people, as well as people with information. (Daikir, 2005:20)
I have also learnt that Knowledge Management helps people to do their jobs and save time through better decision making and problem solving, help people to be abreast and helps institutions to stay ahead of the competition.( Daikir, 2005:20)
Prof. Johannes Cronje presentation was on Innovations and thinking outside the box for South African Libraries, this was the most interesting session, the presenter was full of energy and it was an interactive presentation. We were asked to be creative for example, to create a door mat out of paper, to name five uses of paper clip and to draw an elephant.
The main purpose of the session was to show us how important is team work in the workplace and we must learn to think out of the box, must learn to substitute for example using a paper clip as an ear bud.
The four Learning styles were discussed namely Accommodator, Diverger, Converger and Assimilator.
Useful websites :www.media-access.com/whatis.html(knowledge management)
www.dlsu.edu.ph/conferences/etfp/papers/estacio.pdf -(km)
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