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LIBRARIANS ATTENDING THE
LIASA CONFERENCE
Librarians of Stellenbosch University
attended the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA)
15th Annual conference held on 7-11 October 2013 at CTICC. "The exciting
theme Libraries in Dialogue for Transformation and Innovation
challenges librarians to be pro-active and facilitate dialogue amongst
themselves as well as with their clients," said Ujala Satgoor in her
opening speech as the LIASA president. Libraries as hubs of information
and knowledge must connect people to information who wish to change
their thinking and transform the quality of life for all. In fact, the
“transition to the current democracy requires librarians who drive
access to information for knowledge production, innovative thinking and
transformation,” she said.
Academic libraries pushing the boundaries
via research librarianship was one of the dialogues. Delegates had to
share insights and experiences. Lucia Schoombee, Research Support
librarian from Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service
pointed out that “reports and literature have provided a clear
understanding of how research support has evolved and how services
should look like, but the absence of standards to evaluate research
support services, becomes a challenge for one to know what with-it is”.
Naomi Visser and Elbie Van Wyk, librarians from Stellenbosch, presented a
paper “The undergraduate student through the maze virtually: A
step-by-step guide" to show that Stellenbosch University Library and
Information Service is already on track with the use of virtual tools.
Rosa Pardros’ and Clara Riera’s
presentation highlighted skills and competencies needed by
research librarians in a virtual environment. They highlighted that new
research services and activities require a research librarian to have knowledge
of bibliometrics, interpersonal skills in a virtual environment and
social networking. Prof Mary Nassimbeni from UCT agreed that there is a
need for South African schools of librarianship to redesign the
curriculum to teach these new skills. UCT School of librarianship has
taken initiative to re-design the postgraduate curriculum to include
scholarly communication, data curation and research librarianship.
Ned Potter (also known as Wikiman, from
University of New York) reminded librarians about their purpose in the
communities they serve. “We need to brand ourselves, enjoy what we do and
let people know about us. We need to start a blog, get online, publish
something, organise something, share something and present something”.
Ned also re-emphasised the point that librarians are highly
qualified professionals who are capable of using sophisticated tools to
assist users with their information needs, therefore librarians must be
pro-active.
Zine Sapula
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The opening of the LIASA
Conference.
Ujala
Satgoor, LIASA President.
“From what I have gathered at this year’s conference by either engaging
with colleagues from other institutions or by attending presentations, it
is clear that we at Stellenbosch are in a good space in terms of service
delivery to our users.” Yusuf Ras
“An
opinion of Ned Potter that struck me as so true is that we should market
the library’s services and resources continuously and persistently. A
big marketing bash once a year is not effective. It should be an
on-going never-ending process." Delene Pretorius |
