2 LINK January 2012

Cutting out the middle man?Disintermediation and the academic library

‘There are no entitlements in the world today – librariesand librarians have to prove their worth like everyone else.’(Sandler, 2005)1

To illustrate his timely warning, Sandlertakes the example of the high street and

its specialist shops – these had a belief inthemselves as having ‘better taste than theircustomers and a higher knowledge of merch -andising, value and quality’. They did not,however, pay attention to their customers’wants and desires, and have been elbowed outby the out-of-town malls. The independentbookshop is a good example (according to TheBookseller, at least 22 are currently, in October2011, for sale in the UK). The proprietorswould pride themselves on knowing theircustomers and selecting interesting stock, notsimply the best-seller lists and publishers’promotions. Their competitor, however, is nolonger just the bookshop or supermarketchain. It is Amazon, which provides its userswith the opportunity to buy not only every -thing in print but also the stock of a large partof the second-hand trade. Turning to thelanguage of disruptive technologies, the ind -ependent bookshop has taken quality beyondwhat its customer needs, and has beentrumped by the accessibility, variety, andempowerment of the new technology.

This pursuit of empowerment is alsoreflected in the proliferation of websitesenabling users to build customised holidays –trains, flights, hire cars, accommodation, etc. Atravel agent could identify a package holidayfar more quickly, but users want to be incontrol and have the satisfaction of procuringwhat they want, when and where they wantit, and at the price they are prepared to pay.

There is every reason, as Sandler writes, tosuppose that libraries and librarians will besubject to the same trends towards ‘disinter -mediation’ – the removal of the intermediary from theprocess, and creating a direct link between, variously, theproducers or suppliers of academic texts and their consumers– or readers.

The Big Deal

Organisations such as JISC Collections in theUK and the large regional consortia in the USAhave negotiated directly with publishers andobtained large amounts of e-content for pricesbased on print subscriptions – the so-called‘Big Deals’. These have been welcomed bymany: they have delivered large amounts ofcontent for our users. However, there aredissenting voices, for instance Ball2, holdingthat too much power has been ceded to themajor publishers. Big Deals can result in a largeproportion of a library’s budget, especially inthe big research libraries, being committed toa small number of publishers (Elsevier andWiley Blackwell, for example). These agree -ments typically include punitive no-canc ell -ation clauses. The latter, combined with thelength and the all-or-nothing nature of suchagreements, severely limit libraries’ freedomto make or alter purchasing decisions.

With the Big Deals, power has shiftedconsiderably in the publishers’ favour, andfreedom to make collection developmentdecis ions has been curtailed. If the trendtowards national deals and block payments,seen for instance in the Scottish HigherEducation Digital Library (SHEDL)3, continues,these decisions will be relinquished evenmore. As far as procurement is concerned, theBig Deals have simply exposed a malfunctionin the market: all publishers are monopolists,sole suppliers of monograph or journalcontent.

At the time of writing, there is a ground -swell of opinion in libraries that, mainlybecause of financial pressures, could see thecancellation of some Big Deals. However, thesewill be very difficult decisions to make, andsubject to pressure from users who havegrown used to the availability of huge amountsof material. The publishers will also play theirpart in trying to influence academics anduniversity decision-makers, and in massagingtheir offers to make them just acceptable.

Open access

A notable response to the power of the pub -lishers’ monopoly is the open access move -ment, which aims to make scholarly literaturefreely available to all.

One route (gold) is through open accesspublishing, where typically the author (ortheir institution or research funder), pays thecost of peer review and publishing. The contentis then freely available without the need forsubs cription to the journal. The journalsthemselves may be completely open access orhybrid, publishing a mixture of subscription-based and open-access content.

The other route (green) is the deposit ofpre- or post-prints of traditionally publishedmaterials in the author’s institutional repos -itory. There are also a number of subjectrepositories, such as Arxiv (which coversphysics, mathematics, and related disciplines),BioMed Central, Cogprints (a cognitive sciencearchive), and E-LIS for library and informationscience. A new type of subject repository isrepresented by Econom ists Online, whichharvests subject-specific content from instit ut -ional repositories into one subject collection.

Disintermediation at work

Ironically, in this response to the Big Deals andthe power of the publishers, we again seedisintermediation at work. Open access journ -als are freely available to all, without anyintervention. Repositories, however, are ratherdifferent, and offer a new avenue for theprofession. It has long been recognised that theelectronic age offers the potential to turnacademic library practice on its head. Univ -ersity libraries, until now, have promised tocollect or gain access to the research outputs ofall other universities and research institutions– a task that is both impossible to accomplishand costly to attempt. With the widespreadintroduction of institutional repositories,however, it is now feasible for each universityor research institution to collect all theresearch outputs of its own scholars, and makethem available to all other universities. Thistask, by contrast, is finite and achievable, andthe costs are commensurate with the researchstand ing and income of the instit ution.

Big Deals, open access, and digitisation increasingly mean that selection

decisions are being removed from librarians and transferred to the end user.

David Ball looks at the forces pushing towards this ‘disintermediation’ and

considers the future role of the academic library.

January 2012 LINK 3

The rise of e-books

In the UK, e-book usage began to take off inabout 2005, partly as a result of negotiationsby the Southern Universities PurchasingConsortium. In the early years, much of theusage was from large packages of e-booksoffered by various suppliers, such as ebrary.These packages, somewhat reminiscent of thelarge collections of journal titles offered byaggregators, were largely treated by users asdatabases: searching was by subject or keyword,rather than by individual title. They played amajor role in establishing the e-book as anacceptable medium; students were able to findhighly relevant material – now imm ediatelyavailable and in digestible chunks – on theirdesktop. However, these packages were alsoanother example of disintermediation.

The popularity of electronic forms overprint can be seen in Figure 1, which representsBournemouth University’s usage of hard-copybooks, e-journals, and e-books over the pastseven years.

Patrons as collectors

There is a mixed message here for the prof -ession. Over the past two years, many morebooks have become available in electronicform, and libraries are buying more at the titlelevel using traditional selection processes. Theselection process seems highly successful,given the mushrooming usage. However, anew form of purchase has been enabled by thenew electronic form and is now being trialledby many libraries, known by the unlovelyname of ‘patron driven acquisition’. Librariesare able to select individual titles or authors orsubjects for inclusion in the patron plan, anddeposit a sum of money with the bookseller.The e-books are freely available to libraryusers, appearing in the library catalogue andsearch tools. However, when a title is used acertain number of times, it is automaticallybought by the library, and the cost is debitedfrom the library’s account. Again, this is a formof disintermediation, where selection istransferred to the end user, whether student orstaff, and away from the librarian.

It is too early to tell, in Bournemouth Univ -ersity’s case anyway, how successful patron

driven acquisition will be. Early indicationsseem to demonstrate quite clearly that e-booksare much more popular than hard copy, andthat patron plan acquisitions have the potentialfor significant usage over time.

Google Books

As Dougherty (2010) notes, Google has begunnothing new with its project. JSTOR, ProjectMuse, and the Internet Archive have been inexistence longer, using the same or similartechnologies, and these projects may well alsooutlive Google. Compared to Google, however,their size, though significant, is small. TheInternet Archive, for instance, has over 1.6million texts, JSTOR over 1000 academicjournals, while Google has digitised over 13million books in over 400 languages to date.The project is encountering legal problems,but there are strong economic and societaldrivers to move it ahead.

Turning to out-of-copyright works, arecent survey demonstrates that: ‘The pre-1872 content in Google Books approximatesthat content available via the online catalogueof a generic major American research library,and indeed is probably superior for post-1800imprints… It seems likely that Google Bookswill eventually (perhaps very soon) becomethe single largest source for this content’.4 Tobe clear, Jones is saying here that perhaps verysoon there will be more (pre-1872) contentavailable through Google than in any onemajor American research library. That contentwill be available online, free at the desktop ofany scholar. The full text will also be indexedand searchable.

Turning library practice on its head

This paper has looked in some detail at themain forces pushing towards disinter med -iation in the library and information prof -ession. The Big (and national) Deals haveremoved selection decisions from librarians.The trend towards open access publishing,although a counterweight to the power ofsubscription-based journals, has and willcontinue to have the same effect. The free avail -ability of huge amounts of what was formerlyknown as ‘grey literature’ (reports, workingpapers, etc.) from organisations’ websites isanother factor. The e-book is immensely pop -ular; it, too, has the capability to removeselection decisions from the librarian andtransfer them to the end user. Finally, themassive digitisation programme of GoogleBooks and others will create a de facto researchcollection far more comprehensive and acc -ess ible than anything the profession has beenable to create in the print world.

Librarians and other information profess -ionals are facing a huge challenge. Librarycollections in the electronic age are becomingmore and more homogenous – we only needthink of the Big and national Deals. But thereis an opportunity here – for librarians toconcentrate on the special collections of localand primary material. We are already seeingthe new role for librarians – as collectors andcurators for the institutional repository. Hereis a niche, but one that turns traditional librarypractice on its head: we collect and makeavailable to the world the research outputs ofour own institutions, instead of collecting theresearch of the scholarly world to make itavailable within our institution.

David Ball is Head of Academic

Development Services, Student and

Academic Services at Bournemouth

University, UK.

[email protected]

L

1 Sandler, M., ‘Collection development in the day of Google’, Library Resources and Technical Services, 50:4(2005), pp.239-243

2 Ball, D.,‘Signing Away our Freedom: the implications of electronic resource licences’, TheAcquisitions Librarian, 18 (35-6) (2005), pp.7-20

3 Research Information Network (2010)4 Jones, E., ‘Google Books as a general research collection’, Library Resources and Technical Services, 54:2

(2009), pp.77-89

2000

1500

1000

500

02004/5 2005/6 2006/7 2007/8 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11

Books issues(000s)

e-downloadsissues (000s)e-book views(000s)

Figure 1

4 LINK January 2012

The librarian as expert in theacademy: librarian-academic partnerships

While the mission of academic instit -utions is well known and internat -

ionally recognised, the role of the librarian infacilitating these institutional goals has oftenbeen rather obscure, and sometimes consid -ered marginal. However, in any academicinstitution, information is the one commoditythat is forever being disseminated and trans -formed. The library is the ultimate institutionalinformation bank or record of these academicactivities, and the librarian is the person whomanages this.

Since 2009, and under the sponsorship ofthe Development Partnerships in Higher Educ -ation (DelPHE) scheme, Copperbelt University,the University of Botswana, and the Universityof Abertay Dundee have come together todesign a new information literacy (IL) prog -ramme. Our principal aim is to get lecturersand librarians working together to design anIL curriculum, and to implement this in theuniversities of Copperbelt and Botswana.Within this specific objective, we hope todevelop frameworks which will allow librar -ians and academics to embed IL programmesinto course curricula and thus into the univ -ersity’s formal mechanisms for the approval ofdegree programmes. Implicit in this project isthe need to recognise the complementary rolesplayed by librarians and academics, and theimportance of building a continuing partner -ship between the two professions.

Universities employ specialists to teach andto conduct research, but they also employ staffat equally specialised levels to manage theinformation resources required for teachingand learning. These people we call librarians.Thus the classroom experience is complem -ented by the existence of the library, and thelecturer by the librarian. Ultimately, therelationship between lecturer and librarianshould be a symbiotic one.

Libraries and resource-based

education

Increasingly, higher education is characterisedby arrangements to enable independent learn -ing. Unlike in primary or secondary education,tertiary education expects the learner to bepartly responsible for his or her own learning.Resource-based learning is the typical modeof HE, and encompasses all learning systems –from those which are full-time and classroom-oriented to those built around a distanceeducation approach. Libraries – in their phys -ical or online forms – are therefore indisp -ensable facilities to support learner-basededucation systems.

Of course, these learning resources are notsimply dumped in a room for students to testtheir luck in finding what they need. They areskilfully and purposefully selected; profess -ionally processed, organised, and made readyfor a student to find on their own. Collectiondevelopment in an academic library is an artthat identifies the comprehensive informationresources needed to support teaching andlearning in specified courses. It is usually acollaborative effort between teaching staff andlibrarians, while committees comprisinglecturers and librarians exist to interpret thecollection development policies of theseinstitutions.

The partnership between the librarians andacademics is clearly exhibited at this stage ofthe teaching/learning process. Whereas thelibrarian is in touch with publishers and otherdatabase producers, the academic can identifyvaluable sources specific to their particulardiscipline. The selection process of new mat -erial to be purchased, borrowed, subscribedto, or made accessible electronically is acollaborative effort. This human intermediat -ion is vital, yet the role of the librarian is oftenoverlooked or trivialised by academics andmanagement – especially in the light ofinformation available via Google.

Owing to the variety of library resources,and the various levels and formats in whichthey are produced, it is the job of librarians toenable students to link their information needsto the relevant information sources. Whilelecturers play a vital role in familiarisingstudents with key literature and sources intheir disciplines, librarians provide a crucialadditional step by helping students to developtheir searching skills – a critical skill forindependent learning.

At two bonding workshops recentlyorganised for librarians and academics atCopperbelt and the University of Botswana,some lecturers were able to recognise andappreciate this unique role of librarians. Onecommented: ‘All along I have perceivedlibrarianship as basically shelving books…ThisIL conference has clearly opened our minds asuniversity academics on the nature of IL, itscapacity to facilitate students’ quality learning,and the potential resourcefulness availableamong librarians. A joint partnership betweenus academics and librarians will definitelyfoster the quality of students learning andlifelong learning.’

The relevance of librarians’ training

to academic environments

Information-searching skills are vital for life-long learning. If education is ‘what remainswhen everything one learnt is forgotten’, thenlibrarians have huge potential to providevaluable learning skills which will last alifetime. The DelPHE IL project has as one ofits objectives the development of toolkits thatwill present ‘a range of opportunities forlibrarians to develop their pedagogical skills asthey become more exposed to team teachingand curricula design’, suggesting that librar -ians need to have both pedagogic as well asinformation skills for the partnership to befully realised.

Librarians need to engage with lecturersand students to find new ways of deliveringtraining, by adapting to modern informationenvironments and to new teaching andlearning approaches. Such training will notonly enhance learning skills, but also curb the

Charles Lungu argues the need for greater collaboration between librarians

and academics.

plagiaristic, ‘cut and paste’ culture whichelectronic information delivery has broughtwith it. The role of the librarian in academicinstitutions has been redefined by includingteaching as an additional responsibility. Thisdevelopment makes a lot of sense becausedespite efforts to make the library a self-explanatory destination, not all students orstaff are familiar with the organisation systemsused by librarians. As part of the IL project, theneed for librarians to acquire pedagogic skillshas been established and such training isconsidered necessary to the success of theprogramme.

Distance learning and information

commons

Questions may be raised about what is‘academic’ about the work of librarians. Someprefer to consider libraries simply as teachingsupport services, for example. This opinion,however, is based on a narrow view of teach -ing and learning situations. Learning is notlimited to a classroom situation. If this was thecase, we would not have a burgeoning part-time or distance learning constituency ofstudents. Part-time education and distancelearning are modes of education that have verylimited teacher-student interaction. Most ofthe time, these students do their own learningoutside of a classroom situation. This is madepossible by sufficient and reliable access tolearning materials, and the library is oftenrelied upon to meet these needs. At CopperbeltUniversity, the Department of Distance Educ -ation and Open Learning has recently beenrebranded. With the inclusion of more resp -onsibilities and the acquisition of some coursemanagement software on one hand, and theincrease in electronic resources acquired bythe library on the other, talks have been init iated to establish better cooperation betweenthe two departments to enhance studentlearning opportunities for distance learners.

By making library services available forextended hours – remotely, physically, or byusing technologies such as mobile phoneservices and Web 2.0 applications – librariansare able to provide access of information to awide range of students. In Zambia, distanceeducation students tend to depend largely oninstruction packages from their tutors. This ispartly due to scarcity of libraries as well as thetutors’ focus on pre-packaged materials. Withthe advent of new software to manage stud -ent–lecturer interactions, however, there isgreat potential for academic libraries to servedistance learning students using electronicresources. Academic libraries can provide avital link and the necessary support to facilitate

learning outside the classroom.Leading on from resource-based education

is the relatively new concept of the learningcommons, in which the expertise ofnumerous campus specialists is available in acollaborative and integrated learning environ -ment. Again, the challenge of developing thesespecial learning spaces or student-centredlearning commons has been placed on librar -ians. Whereas some universities are redesign -ing their libraries to incorporate this new idea,others are remodelling existing buildings toestablish these services (see LINK Issue 12, May2011). Writing in Managing Information (18:8),Appleton and colleagues argue that ‘academiclibraries are able to lead on and influence theirinstitutions’ strategic direction in the areas ofteaching, learning and research…through thedesign and development of learning spaces’.The authors go on to suggest that the declinein physical library usage, particularly in devel -oped countries, is countered by the realisationthat libraries could have ‘a strong role to playin developing strategies that link physical andvirtual spaces and also in championing newapproaches to learning space design’.

Influencing strategic direction

University librarians are often also involved instrategic engagement activities, such as partic -ipating in other university policy-makingbodies. This is institutional recognition that thelibrarian has something unique to add todiscussions around academic policy issues.Most university librarians sit on senate, as wellas university boards of study committees.Theymay also be members of committees whichaddress academic issues of the institution, orrepresent their institutions when definingframeworks for the sharing of informationresources with other learning or researchinstitutions.

The way forward

Looking forward, there is a clear need for thepartnerships between librarians and academicsto grow even stronger. Librarians and academ -ics should be regarded as two sides of the samecoin, both contributing to the education of thestudents in unique but collaborative ways.These unique and complementary roles mustbe acknowledged and carefully mobilised tooptimise the students’ learning experience.

Peoplematters No. 6

Librarians as researchers – what is the roleof library research in developing the prof -

essional practices of academic librarianship?Our professional literature abounds with

articles and commentary on the virtues (orotherwise) of librarians having faculty status– where research is mandatory and seen as anessential component of the practice of prof -essional skills. However, rather than beingempirical and analytical, much of this liter -ature is anecdotal, impressionistic, self-prom -otional, and exhortatory. Much of it dwells onfaculty rights and privileges rather than onequivalent responsibilities and performanceobligations.

In answer to the question of whether ornot librarians should have faculty status,Donald E Riggs advised those interested in anacademic library career with faculty statusthat if they didn’t want the responsibilitiesthat went with faculty status, they shouldchoose their university carefully.

Commitment to a culture and climate ofresearch and scholarship among academiclibrarians is two-pronged. It touches onresponsibilities for both the institution andthe individual librarian. In the older traditionof the scholar-librarian – now recon textual -ised in new modes of evidence-based workand applied research – academic librarianshave long advocated for faculty status.

The University Library at the University ofSaskatchewan has an aggressive research agenda.Led by a strong commitment to evidence-based librarianship, the Library seeks toincrease the profile of its librarians as res -earchers, and to embrace research-engag -ement as a core professional and institutionalvalue. In doing so, it comb ines applicationand scholarship – the dem on stration of comp-etency on the one hand, and, on the other,subjecting the knowledge gained from thisapplied work to the scrutiny and assess mentof peers. Scholarly work – applied, subject ortheoretical/policy – is expected of all libr ar -ians at all ranks.

At some stage in the evolution of your lib -rary, the question of faculty status (or other -wise) for librarians has likely been raised andresolved. But I think the more pressing quest -ion is:What role does library research play inthe on-going dev el opment of your individualand institutional prof essional practices?

Dr Vicki Williamson is Dean of the

University Library at the University

of Saskatchewan, Canada.

[email protected]

L

January 2012 LINK 5

Charles BM Lungu is University

Librarian at Copperbelt University in

Zambia.

[email protected]

L

6 LINK January 2012

Talk of a global research cycle is common,but to what extent is it truly global? That

is, to what extent is this cycle open andaccessible to researchers beyond the better-resourced universities and research institutesin the north? The most common frustrationsexpressed by our members in Africa and Asiaare that they struggle to access academicpublications – journals, books and otherresources – and are locked out of the latestscientific debates as a result; and that theystruggle to get their work published in whatare commonly referred to as the ‘internationaljournals’.

The two are, of course, closely linked.Researchers who cannot access and read aparticular journal are unlikely to be able to gettheir work published in it. They won’t be ableto follow its debates, stay up to date with thelatest findings in their field, update theirmethodologies to reflect the latest knowledge,and understand the particular criteria forsubmissions. In turn, publishers who want toensure that their journals include the latestresearch, wherever in the world it has takenplace, clearly need to secure greater contrib -utions from southern academics.

It is clear, then, that in addition to theinformation professionals who ensure thatresearchers have the necessary resources,publishers also have a critical role to play instrengthening southern research. It was inrecognition of this that the Association ofCommonwealth Universities (ACU) and theInternational Network for the Availability ofScientific Publications (INASP) came togetherin 2008 to establish Publishers for Develop -ment (PfD). The initiative’s aim is to bringpublishers into conversation with researchersand librarians from the south, and to act as aforum to enable publishers to discuss andlearn more about the challenges that southernresearchers (as well as librarians and ICT prof -essionals) face, and to share examples of whatthey are already doing to address these issues.

A complex picture

In London, in early December 2011, we heldour third annual conference and were pleasedto be joined by representatives from 24

publishing houses – encompassing not-for-profit, society, commercial, and open accesssectors – as well as representatives from someof the major information access schemes.

Under the title: ‘Getting research to res -earchers in developing countries: the complexpicture of availability, access and use’, thisyear’s conference focused particularly on eastand southern Africa, with colleagues fromUganda, Kenya and Malawi joining us toprovide an insight into their own institutions.

Trying to represent the breadth and varietyof universities and research environmentsacross the world in a single day would havebeen impossible, and neither did we want topretend we could capture the great diversity ofuniversities in sub-Saharan Africa. The ACU’s2010 report, Growing Knowledge, provided uswith a useful starting point – hence our eastand southern African focus. As the reportemphasised, journal availability has improveddramatically in many universities. However,access – and ultimately use – are hampered bya complex set of interrelated factors. Research -ers and students are unaware of what is avail -able to them, while insufficient ICT facilitiesoften hamper access. Furthermore, relation -ships between librarians, researchers, anduniversity leadership often need to be strength-ened. Publishers, meanwhile, who have beencentral to the dramatic improve ment in journ -al availability in many developing coun triesover the past decade, should be encouraged torecognise that they have more to offer from adevelopment perspective than availabilityalone. To do so, new conversations are neededacross editorial, IT, sales, and marketing dep -artments – and ultimately at board level – toensure that the inclusion of developingcountry research is firmly on the agenda.

The changing landscape

While many challenges remain, we were keenthat the conference reflected the considerablechange that has taken place over the lastdecade. Richard Gedye of the STM Associationpresented the Research4Life initiative – theumbrella for the HINARI, AGORA, OARE, andARDI access programmes. Anne Powell pres -ent ed INASP’s approach to the global research

communication cycle through PERii; andSusanna Lob presented EIFL’s licensing, copy -right, open access, and free and open sourcesoftware programmes. Sarah Durrant of theAssociation of Learned and ProfessionalSociety Publishers added a perspective fromthe not-for-profit publishing sector, while BevAcreman of BioMed Central rounded up the‘access landscape’ session with the propositionthat open access ‘isn’t the end of the story, it’sjust the beginning’.

Fat chickens and fat libraries

One of the aims of PfD has been to bringpublishers into conversation with colleaguesfrom the research institutions that the initiativeis intended to benefit. This year, we were fort -unate to have colleagues from the Universityof Malawi, Uganda Martyrs University, and theUniversity of Nairobi.

Kondwani Wella, librarian at KamuzuCollege of Nursing in Malawi, suggested thatpart of the problem he and his colleagues facedwas that well-stocked libraries (which theUniversity of Malawi enjoys thanks to a numb -er of access initiatives and a strong countrylibrary consortium) are like fat chickens: i.e.not anticipated by academics and students,who expect ‘skinny’ libraries as they expectscrawny chickens. It raised a roomful oflaughter, but speaks well to the critical issue ofawareness and the need to change researchers'perceptions of their own libraries. Goodlibraries aren't just things they can access whileon fellowships abroad!

Kondwani also noted the urgent need toimprove librarians’ own understanding of thevalue of the e-resources available to them, andto ensure that universities understand theimportance of having fully qualified librariansin place to manage this. He described animportant initiative which led to the inclusionof a search skills session, delivered by thelibrarian, in a research methods class for thirdyear undergraduates, and the involvement oflibrarians in evaluating the quality of thesessubmitted.

A view from Uganda

From Uganda, Judith Nannozi introduced anewer institution – Uganda Martyrs – est -ablished in 1993. It is easy to concentrate onthe well-known ‘national flagship’ universitieswhen discussing African research but, as Judithillustrated, a truly global research cycle is not

Jonathan Harle reports on the recent Publishers for Development conference,

which explored issues of research availability, access, and use in developing

countries.

A truly global research cycle?

just international in scope, but also needs toencompass the full range of a country’sresearch institutions. Thanks to strong mark -eting of the libraries e-resources, Judithshowed that most students were aware of whatwas available to them, with a survey suggest -ing that training sessions offered by the libraryhad been particularly important in this. Closecollaboration between academics and librar -ians had also been important, with subject-specific sessions organised, and with lecturersinsisting that students cite e-resources in theirassignments.

Forging stronger relationships in Nairobi

One of the things which the Growing Knowledgereport pointed to – and something unlikely tobe a surprise to anyone working at a universityor indeed within any other type of organ -isation – is that relationships matter. What wasmore surprising, perhaps, was how much ofan impact relationships had on the discoveryand accessibility of electronic journals. AgathaKabugu, who coordinated the University ofNairobi part of the study, showed how thelibrary had developed its profile and raised theimportance of electronic resources through atargeted campaign of internal advocacy.

As a result of these efforts, the library wasfully represented at senior management levels;library staff had engaged with the ICT dep -artment and with academic faculties to ensurethat resources were technically accessible;users were aware of these resources and, as aresult, they were well used. Nurturing thelibrary-ICT relation ship yielded obviousbenefits – with improved bandwidth for e-resources, better infra struct ure, and the install -at ion of a proxy server for remote access. Thelibrary had also successfully embedded accessto electronic resources within the university’sstrategic planning process – with e-resourceaccess and use now governed by a perform -ance indicator and part of the univ er sity’sannual performance contract. A critical part ofthis campus-wide approach to e-resources hadbeen to ensure proper alloc ations within theuniversity’s annual budget.

Discovering the content

The need to improve search skills is a familiarrefrain, but approaches to doing this often takean equally familiar lecture-style approach, andunder the well-worn banner of informationliteracy. Siobhan Duvigneau of the BritishLibrary for Development Studies (BLDS)showed how an innovative approach to teach -ing search skills had been developed as part ofa partnership between BLDS and ITOCA, theInformation Training and Outreach Centre for

Africa. Learners need to be involved in theirlearning for training to be successful, Siobhanargued, and developing the pedagogical skillsof trainers was therefore important. So, too,was finding ways of teaching when the powerwent off – a familiar occurrence for many, butone which could be overcome by using simplevisual aids and by placing greater emphasis onunderstanding a search strategy – somethingwhich is often best done offline in any case.

Going loband

Perhaps the greatest practical success of PfD todate has been introducing our publishingcolleagues to Alan Jackson of Aptivate, the ITand development NGO. Alan’s focus over acouple of PfD sessions has been to show howsimple improvements to a website’s design canmake it load much faster (important whereconnectivity is less good) and dramaticallyimprove the user experience. But the break -through came when the connection was madebetween the mobile sites which many pub -lishers are developing for use on mobiledevices, and low-bandwidth design. The two,as Alan showed, were pretty much the same,therefore the work was often already beingdone. Cambridge University Press (CUP) werequick to capitalise on this: Caroline Kerbysonexplained that by intervening in the designprocess at the right time, it was relativelystraightforward to get CUP’s developers toproduce a parallel low-bandwidth version oftheir CJO Mobile site. As Alan showed – usingthe results of tests run in Uganda, Kenya andMalawi – this not only made the site loadmuch faster and made it much moreaccessible, in some cases it also enabled it toload where it otherwise wouldn’t.

Question time

Central to PfD is the idea that new forms ofdiscussion – which bring together publishers,access initiatives and users – are needed inorder to continue to improve availability andaccess and to strengthen the research andpublishing cycle. We therefore wrapped up thisyear’s conference with a panel session, invitingparticipants to submit questions throughoutthe day. It was a good chance to return to someof the themes raised during the day, and wehope that discussions can continue throughour website and through future events. Ournext event is planned for June 2012, so makesure you join our mailing list to stay in touch.

Taking things further

There were a number of key messages that theconference aimed to convey, and that wehoped delegates would take home with them:

● Availability needs to be sustainable andequitable, and any support needs to havethis firmly in mind.

● Publishers need to encourage the inclusionof developing country research in theirjournals, and to support authors to enablethis.

● Publishers need to use their own networksto promote awareness of what is alreadyavailable.

● Promotional materials can be valuable inhelping librarians to make their staff andstudents more aware.

● ‘Local’ publishers and publishing areimportant parts of the picture, and theirrole in national and regional researchsystems needs to be recognised.

We hope that all delegates will use Pub lishersfor Development as an advocacy tool withintheir own organisations, ensuring that theinclusion of developing country research is onthe agenda and that vital links are made acrossall the departments who have a practical roleto play.

Following the example set by CambridgeUniversity Press, we’ve also launched a call toaction for publishers to ‘think low-bandwidth’and to provide options to increase accessibility.In the future, we hope to see many morepublishers taking up this challenge, with manymore lighter, faster websites as a result.

January 2012 LINK 7

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Publishers for Development is

coordinated by Jonathan Harle,

Programme Officer (Research) at the

ACU, Lucy Browse, Head of

Information Delivery at INASP, and

Anne Powell, Programme Officer

(Information Delivery) at INASP.

To find out more, visit www.pubs-

for-dev.info or add your details at

http://eepurl.com/cBoao to receive

our newsletter.

To access the ACU’s report, GrowingKnowledge: Access to research ineast and southern Africa, visit

www.acu.ac.uk/growing_

knowledge

The ACU and INASP are grateful to

the Biochemical Society, IOP

Publishing, Springer, and Taylor and

Francis for their generous

sponsorship towards the cost of this

year’s PfD conference.

CARDIN is the Caribbean Disaster Inform -ation Network. Its mission is to provide

timely disaster information from the Caribb -ean, with a view to providing wider access to,and coverage of, disaster information in theregion.

The Caribbean is prone to natural disasterssuch as hurricanes, volcanic activity, and mudslides. There have also been infrastructuralproblems and chemical disasters from indust -rial sites. Information on these occurrences,however, is not widely available to assist withpre-disaster preparedness or post-disastermitigation. Reports and publications aregenerated as a result, but governments andresearchers are not always aware of these.

Caribbean disaster agencies are concernedwith their mandate of disaster relief andresponse. Information needs are often not seenas ‘core’ to the work of these organisations.With the exception of CARDIN, only theOffice of Disaster Preparedness and EmergencyManagement in Jamaica and the CaribbeanDisaster Emergency Management Agency(CDEMA) have computerised databases onCaribbean disaster information.

Bridging the gap

CARDIN’s goals are broadly fivefold:● To provide wider access to, and coverage of,

disaster information in the region, partic -ularly through its website: www.mona.uwi.edu/cardin

● To create a database of disaster-relatedinformation, available in both electronicand print format, which will provide anessential resource for policymakers, pract -itioners, researchers, and the public

● To facilitate the dissemination of disaster-related information to the public

● To establish and maintain relationshipswith other agencies for effective coord -ination of disaster information activities

● To create full text documents and scannedimages on disaster related information, andmake these available on the internet

The CARDIN database

The early development of the CARDIN data -base was accomplished as part of the Caribb -ean Disaster Mitigation Programme, supportedby the US Agency for International Develop -ment and the Organisation of American States.Through this funding, the Unit for DisasterStudies, housed within the Department ofGeography and Geology at UWI, was able tocollaborate with CARDIN in producing theNatural Hazards and Disaster database(NATHAZ). This database, along with anotherin-house database at the Science BranchLibrary at UWI Mona, provided the nucleusfor the CARDIN database. Further support andexpertise came from the Regional DisasterInformation Centre for Latin America and theCaribbean (CRID), CDEMA, the Disaster Prep -ar edness Programme of ECHO, the Pan Amer -ican Health Organization (PAHO), the Officeof Disaster Emergency and Preparedness inJamaica, and the UWI Mona Campus Library.

In 2000, CARDIN’s bibliographic disasterdatabase was made available on the internet.This was a great accomplishment since mostorganisations did not have online records atthat time. In 2006, the Virtual Disaster Librarywas launched as a response to requests for full-text documents from people working in thedisaster management field. The library is acollaborative effort – involving the Unit forDisaster Studies and CRID – and provides fulltext documents, presentations, maps, andaudio and video clips, related specifically tothe region.

Network model

To meet CARDIN’s aims, we established anetwork model, with the UWI Library as thehub. The UWI Mona Library was selectedbecause it is a regional institution and offersdistance-learning to most of the Caribbeanislands. Partners forming the nucleus of thenetwork are identified as focal points on thebasis of technical capability and expressedinterest. All persons and organisations whohave disaster-related information can become

members of the network by contacting theCARDIN Secretariat.

The model is unique in that it incorporatesall the language groups and involves the majorplayers in Caribbean disaster management. Inaddition to CDEMA and PAHO, these includethe International Federation of the Red Crossand Red Crescent Societies, the UniversitéAntille Guyane (representing the French-speaking Caribbean), and the Center for LatinAmerica Disaster Medicine (responsible forCuba and the Dominican Republic).

Recent developments

Education and the adoption of preventativemeasures can considerably alleviate the dam -age caused by natural disasters. CARDIN playsa pivotal role by providing a central isedlocation for Caribbean disaster inform ation.Our work was recognised in 2006 by theAssociation of Caribbean Univ ersity andInstitutional Libraries (ACURIL) who awardedus with the Albertina Pérez de RosaInformation Units Alliances and CollaborativeProjects in the Caribbean award.

In June 2011, a disaster-related learning/research commons for the Caribbean waspresented at the ACURIL conference. Thislearning commons provides the avenue forfurther discussion on Caribbean disasterissues. Another initiative is the CaribbeanKnowledge and Learning Network (CKLN).This network has been working on the designand implementation of a research and educ -ation network for the Caribbean which willconnect all universities and tertiary-levelinstitutions in the region. The network willsupport collaboration on the development ofeducation and research activities in the regionand connect these to knowledge networks inEurope, North America, and Latin America.

8 LINK January 2012

Library profile: CaribbeanDisaster Information Network,University of the West Indies

L

Beverley Lashley introduces the Caribbean Disaster Information Network at

the University of the West Indies.

Beverley Lashley is Coordinator of

the Caribbean Disaster Information

Network and Head of the Science

Branch Library at the University of

the West Indies, Mona Campus,

Jamaica.

[email protected]

Guidelines for Open

Educational Resources

(OER)

Guidelines to help integrateOER into higher education,the aim being to raise teach -ing standards and reduce

costs. The ‘explosion in the generation andcollective sharing of knowledge’ has introd -uced opportunities for new ways of learning,but also responsibilities. Guidelines areincluded to guide those involved in policy andaccreditation, as well being directed at HEIs,staff, and student groups.[Commonwealth of Learning; UNESCO;2011]http://bit.ly/uaMy6E

Code of Ethics for Librarians and other

Information Workers (draft)

A draft outline of the principles which shouldguide information professionals and theirwork. The code acknowledges the precedent ofnational guidelines and that local contexts vary,but it is valuable nevertheless as an inclusivestatement of priorities and particularly inshowing the significance of ‘informationrights’. [IFLA; 2011]http://bit.ly/t7LLJ9

Digital Humanities (SPEC Kit, 326)

A report on digital scholarship centres orservices in the humanities, and the supportwhich they receive from ARL libraries. Muchlibrary-based support for the digitalhumanities is ad hoc, though there is also a‘strong desire’ for such projects to be closelyaffiliated with the library. The survey notes thatmany of the ‘technical skills required fordigital humanities projects are ones commonlypossessed by professionals working intraditional fields of librarianship’.[Bryson, T.; Posner, M.; St Pierre, A.; Varner,S.; ARL; 2011]http://bit.ly/sSHzLU

Libraries at Webscale

A discussion documentwhich explores the impactof the web and its relatedservices on libraries. It coll -ates opinion on trends

shaping information use, identifying partic -ularly the specialisation or expansion resultingfrom the unprecedented reach of the internet.For libraries, ‘working together at Webscaleoffers substantial new advantages for both thediscovery and delivery of library resources andthe management of library operations’. Shareddata and infrastructure are practical goalsenabling greater efficiency, but the report alsorefers to the increased visibility and influenceof libraries which collaboration may help. [OCLC; 2011]http://bit.ly/tvG90X

OhioLINK-OCLC Collection and

Circulation Analysis Project 2011

Research on the circulation, use – and sofuture purchase – of material within one USstate’s academic library system. Predictably,circulation rates varied widely according tosubject, language, institution, and age ofmaterial, but the concentrated use of a smallproportion of the holdings was marked. Theassumption that 80% of a library’s circulationis driven by some 20% of its collection (the‘80/20’ rule) was demonstrated more prec -isely – based on this research,‘80% of the circ -ulation is driven by just 6% of the collection’.[OhioLINK Collection Building Task Force;OCLC; 2011]http://bit.ly/xqWiOG

Information Handling in Collaborative

Research: an Exploration of Five Case

Studies

The context and problems of informationsharing and its use in collaborative researchwork. Some issues relate to policy and infra -structure; good information management andeffective data storage, for example, show howthe expertise of librarians can support research.Others reflect perceptions and expectations,whether externally (‘limited awareness of thefull range of services provided by library andinformation services within universities’), orfrom librarians themselves (opportunities toact as advocates in ‘safeguarding the long-termvalue of new information’). [TNS-BMRB for RIN and British Library;RIN; 2011]http://bit.ly/vQznR2

The Role of Research Supervisors in

Information Literacy

Recommendations to better promote inform -ation literacy by supporting and trainingsupervisors. Supervisory roles and styles vary,but it suggests that the retrieval, analysis, andstorage of information should complement theacknowledged responsibility of supervisors tocultivate critical analysis and support thedissemination of research. [Curtis+Cartwright Consulting with CardiffUniversity for RIN; RIN; 2011]http://bit.ly/tzrmhf

Revenue, Recession,

Reliance: Revisiting the

SCA/Ithaka S+R Case

Studies in Sustainability

A review of digital contentprojects (principally UK andUS-based) since 2009. Sev -

er al involve university archives and libraries.Increasing support from host institutions, andthe importance of aligning projects withinstitutional missions were key findings,though much interest concentrated on howrevenue could be maintained following initialproject funding. Sustainability is understood torelate to resources ‘of all types’ not just directfunding, while growth and innovation simil -arly refers not to a uniform process but onbeing responsive to changing user needs.[Maron, N.; Loy, M.; JISC. Strategic ContentAlliance; Ithaka; 2011]http://bit.ly/xadppm

How to Get Published: a Guide to

Publishing in Scholarly Journals

An outline of the process involved in writing,editing, and circulation of an article for an(Elsevier) academic journal.[Elsevier; 2011]http://bit.ly/wI7Y3zWays to Use Journal Articles Published by

Elsevier: A Practical Guide

The use and re-use of journal articles – therights and obligations involved from a pub -lisher’s perspective.[Elsevier Global Rights Team; 2011]http://bit.ly/t60xTr

January 2012 LINK 9

L

Recent publicationsNick Mulhern, ACU Librarian, summarises.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

at WebscaleLibraries

JISC Content Produced and funded by the Strategic Content AllianceJISC C t t P d d d f d d b th St t i C t t Alli

Revenue, Recession, Reliance: Revisiting the SCA/Ithaka S+R Case Studies in Sustainability

How twelve digital content projects fared during the economic crisis

Nancy L. Maron & Matthew Loy

10 LINK January 2012

News round-upNick Mulhern, ACU Librarian, sums up the latest news.

A full news and publications briefing, includ -ing items not listed here, is sent out by email.You can also download it fromwww.acu.ac.uk/libraries

2010 Academic Library Trends and

Statistics

The Association of College and Research Lib -raries (ACRL) issues a detailed annual analysisof academic libraries in North America. Itsindicators include e-resources and facultyrank, as well as collections and expenditure.http://bit.ly/rUucRW

Higher education and development in

Africa – Centre for Higher Education

Transformation

Detailed evidence/profiles of HE systems inAfrica, as part of a wider project on highereducation and development. Information oncomparative research strengths – gauged bypublications and staff qualifications – isincluded, as well as references to ‘knowledgepolicy coordination’.http://bit.ly/x99c12

Botswana – Building Strong Library

Associations (BSLA)

The IFLA-sponsored initiative continued, inNovember 2011, with a workshop to developcommunication and strategic plans. Repres -entatives from relevant ministries, as well asthe library profession and LIS students, wereinvolved over the workshop’s three days. TheBotswana Library Association has more thandoubled its membership since the launch ofthe BSLA project. A concluding evaluation isplanned for May 2012.http://bit.ly/vTL3V0

British Library – Framework Licence

Agreement

A Framework Licence Agreement was signedby the British Library with academic journalpublishers (Elsevier; Taylor & Francis). It setsout the conditions for the delivery of articlesfrom the British Library’s Document SupplyService to ‘non-commercial end users via not-for-profit libraries outside the UK’.http://bit.ly/rqlJsl

Library and Information

Association of New Zealand

(LIANZA)

Centenary: LIANZA have published their2010/11 Annual Report, covering in parttheir centenary yearhttp://bit.ly/yz69v3Conference proceedings

Information literacy, open access, socialmedia, demonstrating value and influence,circulating library-specific information asa staff resource, and a future challengesdebate were among its themes.http://bit.ly/xFwckcStrengthening our Profession survey

A survey was commissioned by theLIANZA Council to identify priority actionsfor its current strategic plan.http://bit.ly/xhmevL

College & Research Libraries – recent

articles of note

72:6 (November 2011) Academic libraries infor-profit schools of higher education – Davis,J.; Adams, M.; Hardesty, L.http://crl.acrl.org

College & Research Libraries News –

recent articles of note

72:9 (October 2011) What are we doing here,anyway? Tying academic library goals to inst -it utional mission – Cottrell, J.72:9 (October 2011) The case for preservingacademic branch lib raries: fostering campuscommunities – Howes, B.; Zimmerman, M.72:10 (November 2011) Creative collab or at -ion: using the library to promote scholarship– Thiel, S. G. 72:11 (December 2011) Is free inevitable inscholarly communication? The economics ofopen access – Sutton, C.http://crln.acrl.org

Ethnographic Research in Illinois

Academic Libraries (ERIAL)

Further information on a book produced aspart of the two-year ERIAL research project:College Libraries and Student Culture: what we now know(Duke, L.; Asher, A.; ALA; 2012).http://bit.ly/fCNuAz

International Network of Emerging

Library Innovators (INELI)

A network of leading public library staff whichaims to help develop and redefine publiclibraries for future needs.http://bit.ly/vGbgfW

Institutional Repository Communication

Platform – Institutional Repository Toolkit

The Toolkit explains how an institutionaldigital repository may be set up.www.ir-africa.info/toolkit

Library value

Building Capacity for Demonstrating

the Value of Academic Libraries – anACRL project with other US research andeducational associations to ‘address thelibrary profession’s need to develop theskills to document and communicate lib -rary value in alignment with the missionsand goals of their colleges and universities’.Conferences and related publications areplanned. The ACRL already has a wider‘Value of Academic Libraries’ initiative.http://bit.ly/yDJeiMInformation Outlook (SLA)

Two relevant articles (15:6, September 2011)include:Interacting with senior management –Sullivan, C.Advocating for yourself – Abram, S.http://bit.ly/qFWhI5Advocacy Tools Portal – set up byLIANZA, the portal incorporates resourcesand statistics to show the value of libraries.http://bit.ly/ooWICU

OAPEN

A new JISC/AHRC project is to consider issuesrelated to scholarly journal publishing.http://bit.ly/wwUXRt

OCLC- WorldCat Local; SABINET

(South Africa)

OCLC, working with SABINET, is to provideWorldCat Local to the National Library ofSouth Africa and many of the country’s acad -emic institutions. It will help to enable bettercoordinated access to library materials nation -ally, including links to SA’s inter-library loansystem and, from a library management persp -ective, will allow for more detailed statisticson the use and demand of certain resources.http://bit.ly/vMRDkJ

January 2012 LINK 11

Open Access

Berlin Declaration on Open Access to

Knowledge in the Sciences and

Humanities

Berlin 9, the first of the Berlin Open AccessConference Series to be held in NorthAmerica, took place last November inWashington. The Declaration ‘promotes theInternet as a med ium for disseminatingglobal knowledge [and aims] to makescientific and scholarly research moreaccessible to the broader public by takingfull advantage of the possibilities off ered bydigital electronic communication’. Amongexamples of recent signatories is the Lib -rary and Information Association of SouthAfrica (LIASA), which confirmed itscomm it ment at its 2011 Annual Con fer -ence.http://bit.ly/sWhkM5

JISC CORE initiative (Connecting

Repositories)

http://bit.ly/p9aiF7

Latindex Portal of Portals

Providing access to scholarly journals inopen access digital collections in LatinAmerica, Caribbean, Spain, and Portugal.http://bit.ly/cDnXiZ

Open Access Africa

The Open Access Africa conference washeld in October 2011 at Kwame NkrumahUniv ersity of Science and Technology,Ghana.http://bit.ly/l4sqGn

Open Access Week

http://bit.ly/rMIrv8

UNESCO Global Open Access Portal

Resources on open access, includingnational and regional profiles.http://bit.ly/suUeZW

Pan African Conference on Access to

Information (PACAI)

A meeting, held in September 2011, convenedby the Windhoek +20 Working Group andsupported by UNESCO and the African UnionCommission among others. Access to inform -ation and the legislation to secure it, inform -ation and equality, and information literacywere among the issues addressed. The AfricanPlatform on Access to Information was agreed.http://bit.ly/zgeKkj

Library and Information Association of

South Africa (LIASA) – Annual

Conference

The LIASA Annual Conference 2011 includedpresentations on leadership, information

literacy, open access, advocacy, and speciallibraries.http://bit.ly/yNhgDw

Society of College, National and

University Libraries (SCONUL) –

Autumn Conference

The UK society’s conference included a comp -arative perspective from Australia.http://bit.ly/zFOik1

Stress Survey

The Canadian Association of UniversityTeachers (CAUT) is undertaking a stress surveyof academic librarians in Canada, having com -pleted comparable surveys of faculty.http://bit.ly/zwtANx

IFLA

Association Affiliate membership

A new category to enable ‘emerging andsmall library associations’ to be represented.http://bit.ly/AdUcJe

Building Strong Library Associations

A conference in February is to assess theimpact of this IFLA initiative in participatingcountries, with projects due for completionmid 2012; member surveys and focus groupdiscussions are being used to evaluate needsand plans.http://bit.ly/rBeZDQ

Copyright

New webpages have been set up by IFLA asguidance for libraries on copyright limit -ations and exceptions, though it still rec og -nises the need for many copyright state mentsto be updated for electronic resources. It isalso working with WIPO countries to ’gainsupport for a binding international instru -ment on copyright limitations and except -ions to enable libraries to preserve theircollections, support education and research,and lend materials’. A related ‘Treaty prop -osal’ has been drafted.http://bit.ly/tTl9ez

IFLA Journal 37:3 (October 2011)Articles on digital preservation in India andNigeria, and library/information scienceeduc ation in Nigeria.http://bit.ly/ttBJ7t

Open Access Task Force

The new Task Force will promote theadoption of open access policies, cooperatewith other organisations for coordinatedapproaches, and consider how generic bestpractice can apply nationally and locally.Several academic/research libraries are rep -res ented on its international panel.http://bit.ly/qfFVcb

World Library and Information

Congress

The Congress, which is also the IFLA GeneralConference and Assembly, will be held inHelsinki, Finland from 11-17 August 2012.Its theme is ‘Libraries Now! Inspiring, Surp -rising, Empowering’.http://conference.ifla.orgVarious conferences and meetings precedethe main Congress, including: ‘Library’sEffic iency, Impact and Outcomes: StatisticalEvaluation and Other Methods as Tools forManagement and Decision-Making’ (University of Turku, 9 August 2012).http://bit.ly/mRAEej

LIB

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S& I N FORM

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NE T W O R K

Editorial team

Jonathan HarleDorothy Garland [email protected]/libraries

Design

Chris Monk

Printers

Innovative Output Solutions,London

LINK is the magazine of the ACU’s Libraries andInformation Network,published by the Association ofCommonwealth Universities.

Woburn House20-24 Tavistock SquareLondon WC1H 9HF Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7380 6700Fax: +44 (0) 20 7387 2655

LINK is published for inform -ation purposes only and noliability is accepted for itscontents by the ACU or by anycontributor to it. While allreasonable efforts have beenmade to ensure that theinform ation contained in LINKwas correct at the time ofcomp il at ion, it should not beregarded as definitive and noresponsibility is accepted forthe inclusion or omission ofany particular item or for theviews expressed therein.

© The Association ofCommonwealth Universities2012

12 LINK January 2012

The ACU Libraries and Information Network is open to librarians in all ACU member universities, andis completely free to join. Members receive a free copy of LINK, the Network’s regular magazine, and benefitfrom opportunities to share professional expertise, know ledge, and best practice. To request a registrationform, email [email protected]

ACU Titular Fellowship

The Jacky McAleer Memorial Fellowship has beenawarded to Dr Michael Kasusse at Makerere Univ -ersity in Uganda. Dr Kasusse’s Fellowship is tenable atSwansea University, UK, and will investigate the waysin which information science specialists are changing– from custodians of knowledge to making an impactin supporting public health research.www.acu.ac.uk/member_services/fellowships_mobility/acu_titular_fellowships

Award for health librarians to attend 2012

HLG Conference

The Health Libraries Group, in partnership with ILIGand Partnerships in Health Information (Phi), isaward ing a grant of a maximum of GBP 1,500 tosupport a health librarian working in a HINARI-eligible country to attend the HLG Conference,(Glasgow, 12-13 July 2012), and to benefit from aunique learning experience in the UK. The deadlinefor applications is 24 February 2012.http://bit.ly/yeorh2

Blog round-up

The Ubiquitous Librarian blog

(http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/theubiquitouslibrarian)Are academic libraries too big to fail?http://bit.ly/suzL6O

SLA blog (www.sla-europe.org/blog)Future ready (including professional skills, anduser access)http://bit.ly/v3JcVTLibrarians: Agents of social changehttp://bit.ly/w1Ug70Applying new technology (including raisingawareness of holdings of e-resources)http://bit.ly/yGH7Z1Accessing information, and information skillshttp://bit.ly/roNILrSocial media – use by organisationshttp://bit.ly/z6zaV8Information work – change and the future http://bit.ly/yGJN75

Speculative Diction

(www.universityaffairs.ca/speculative-diction)The Canadian-based HE blog linked to theAUCC’s University Affairs has included coverage of:Academic blogginghttp://bit.ly/qmlBcyAcademic publishinghttp://bit.ly/qllA1a

Critical Women: Women as Agents of

Change through Higher Education

‘Critical Women: Women as Agents of Changethrough Higher Education’ is the theme of animportant conference which the ACU is co-hosting with the University of Kelaniya from 6-8March 2012, in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The ACU has been working for some 25 yearsto help develop the career profiles of, andprospects for, women in higher education, but thiswill be the first time we are focusing a fullconference – for men and women – on anexamination of the benefits to the individual, tothe university sector and to society, of app roach -ing teaching, research, and community engage -ment from a gender-sensitive perspective.

Some of the questions we shall be exploringare: Why are there so few women leaders, andwhy does that matter? What difference would itmake to the health, development, and economicsof society if gender were mainstreamed through -out university curricula and if research were moregender sensitive? Why is it important that womenengage in research? Why are educated womencritical to economic development, health, andpeace-building? Where are the examples of good,gender-equitable practice? How can universitiesand the community work more closely togetherin addressing gender-related issues?

This is a significant conference for the ACU,and one which we hope will serve to demonstratevery clearly the importance our members attachto promoting (and being seen to promote) theadvancement and monitoring of progress towardsgender equity and equality not only in the highereducation sector but also in the wider community.

Please visit the conference website at www.acu.ac.uk/conferences/gender_2012 for more information.

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