Monthly Archives: December 2017

Trends in Academic and Research Libraries in Ivory Coast / Côte d’Ivoire

ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND INTERNET

Universities and high private or public schools in Côte d’Ivoire are increasingly creating libraries to support teachers and students in their university studies and research. The creation of these academic and research libraries encourages the employment of professionals in the information sciences.

Côte d’Ivoire has a national association which is the APSID-CI (Association of Professionals of the Information Sciences of documentary of Cote d’Ivoire). This association is made up of a section that brings together libraries and documentation centers for academics and researchers. This section is nothing more than the Association of Specialists in Documentary Information of Research and Higher Education of Côte d’Ivoire (ASIDRES-CI).

All the universities and public schools of Côte d’Ivoire have a library in their midst. Concerning universities and high private schools, some have them and others, no. Interviews and visits to some of these establishments indicate that the budget allocated is insufficient to cover all expenses (subscriptions to online periodicals, acquisition of new documents, office equipment and air conditioning, catering fund … ). In most of these libraries the staff is inadequate in proportion to the work to be done. But in spite of these means and conditions of work, the brave professionals of the information sciences apply themselves to do their work by aiming the satisfaction of their users who are the teachers (Professor, Doctor, Engineer) and the students.

It should also be noted that in Côte d’Ivoire, most of the library holdings in academic and research libraries are mostly composed of dissertations and often internship reports and doctoral dissertations. Today, it is difficult to access information because of document retention concerns. Some documents are not accessible due to poor storage conditions. In addition Internet access is always a luxury for developing countries like ours. University libraries and research libraries are not immune to this situation.

The ASIDRES-CI struggles to stabilize because it does not communicate sufficiently about its existence and activities, which makes it unknown to most professionals in the field of academic and research libraries.

Another remark we made is that the academic and research libraries in Côte d’Ivoire do not exchange sufficiently on documentary techniques and practices in order to facilitate collaboration between them in order not only to be more efficient and to participate in decision-making in our country. It is in this respect that library professionals, particularly those in the academic and research sectors, will be able to make progress on their level and participate in the sustainable development of our dear country of Cote d’Ivoire.

AKE Jonas F…
Bibliothécaire – archiviste
l’Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l’Action Culturelle
firsy@live.fr / firsyl86@gmail.com

Call for Applications: IFLA ARL Attendance Grants for IFLA 2018

The Academic and Research Libraries Section (ARL), with generous sponsorship by Ex Libris and SAGE, is offering THREE (3) Attendance Grants for the IFLA Congress in Kuala Lumpur 2018 to an information professional from each of these regions:

• Africa
• Latin America
• Asia/Pacific region

What does the Attendance Grant Cover?

Each grant covers the early registration fee of Euro 500 which expires on 15th May 2018. The Attendance Grant will also provide support for travel and/or accommodation of up to Euro 700.

Applicants must be able to attend the Congress and will be responsible for all other costs associated with Congress attendance. Please see the Conference website for further details about the Congress.

What is expected from the grant holders?

The successful candidates will be required to be onsite at the Congress and participate actively for the duration of the Congress.

The winners will also be required to attend the IFLA Awards session to receive their certificates, and also attend the ARL’s Hot Topics session.

They will also be required to take part in various publicity events during the conference, such as photo shoots and events organised at the two sponsors’ exhibition stalls. Their essays may be published on the ARL Section blog before the conference.

Recipients will be required to write a brief article about their Congress experience (approximately 500 words) for publication on the ARL Section blog within 3 months of the end of the Congress.

Eligibility
• The applicant must be a paid-up member of his/her national library association
• The applicant should not have attended the IFLA Congress before
• The applicant must be willing to share their experience at the IFLA Congress with their national library association
• The applicant must be eligible to obtain a visa for travel
• The applicant must declare that she/he is able to fund all other costs beyond the grant that are involved in attending the Congress, e.g. all other hotel, travel and subsistence expenses NOT covered by the Grant
• Those who have previously received this Grant (formerly known as Essay Contest) are not eligible to apply again.

Application Procedures

Your application will include the following:
(A) A covering letter providing:
• your contact details (e.g. name and email address)
• short summary of your employment and/or student status

First-time IFLA attendees, young professionals, students of Library and Information Studies (LIS) and those working in LIS jobs for the first time will have an advantage in the assessment of applications, so make sure you mention this if you belong to one of these categories.

(B) A written statement of up to 500 words, on
• how attending IFLA will benefit you in a personal and/or professional capacity, with
reference to the 2018 theme of the conference;
• how you intend to apply the benefits that you have outlined in a practical way after the Congress, either for you personally or for the library/information unit you work in;
• a budget/cost estimate for travel and hotel up to Euro 700, that would not normally be funded by other grants or your place of work.

(C) A declaration that you are able to fund all other costs beyond the Grant when attending the Congress, and that you are eligible to obtain a visa for travel.

(D) A statement indicating that you have approval from your employer, that if you are a recipient of this Grant, that you have their support to attend the IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Submission
Your application must be received by 9 March 2018.
All applications will be acknowledged upon receipt.
All applicants will receive notification of award status no later than 1 May 2018.

Please send your application with your address, telephone number, and email address no later than 9 March 2018, to:
Liz State
Email: lizstate@gmail.com

Please note
Our grant is possible because of the generous sponsorship by Ex Libris and SAGE. Our sponsors want to offer all our grant applicants an opportunity to receive news and announcements of their products and services, and we will be sharing your contact details with them. If you do not wish to have your contact details shared, please indicate your preference in your submission document.

Call for Papers: Theme: “Digital Scholarship and Knowledge Management: Building Confidence in the Digital World”

Knowledge Management Section Joint with Academic and Research Libraries Section and Rare Books and Special Collections Section are
pleased to invite you to submit a paper for their Open Session.

Deadline: 2 February 2018.

Full details are available here: https://2018.ifla.org/cfp-calls/knowledge-management-with-academic-and-rare-books-section

National Plan Open Science

Access to information and data is a pre-requisite for development and a fundamental human right which can support sustainable development. Greater availability to information and data will also lead to more informed decision making and improved allocation of resources. Without access to information and data we risk wasting money and effort by reinventing the wheel when we repeat research that has been done already.

It is important that research results are available for people everywhere in the world. Also for people who cannot afford to pay expensive access to information and data and for whom the research results could be very important and maybe even could benefit the most out of it.

In the Netherlands, we have a special situation since our former State Secretary of Education took the position that publicly funded research should be freely available.

He aimed to have open access to 60% of Dutch scientific publications in 5 year’s time (2019) and 100% in 10 year’s time which is 2024.

But it even turned out better.

In May 2016 the European ministers of science, innovation, trade, and industry decided that from 2020 all scientific articles must be freely available to everyone. This goal is part of a broader set of recommendations that has been done to promote open science. The Ministers also decided that research data, if possible, should be published as open data and that the data must be made available to third parties.

This European decision for fully open access of scientific articles in 2020 was ahead of the position of State Secretary of Education

After this European statement, our State Secretary of Education took the next step. He sends a letter to the Dutch parliament on Open Science. He wants a broad coalition of stakeholders to develop a National Plan of Open Science. The stakeholders started working on this and in February 2017, they presented the National Plan Open Science (NPOS), The Netherlands, to our government.

In the report three important key issues are identified by the different stakeholders for the coming years:

  1. aim to publish 100% open access
  2. make possible the optimal reuse of research data and
  3. develop matching evaluation and reward systems for researchers

The motto of the report is: as open as possible, as closed as necessary. A platform of stakeholders will monitor the progress of the key issues mentioned in the report.

I am very happy with and proud of the fact that in The Netherlands Open access to publications and optimal reuse of research data are becoming the standard for all knowledge institutes and research areas.

The full report can be downloaded from the website Open Science

 

Marga Koelen

Research Support Coordinator Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation, University of Twente

November 2017