D-Day for presenting

Tonight some of us were up for delivering our topic presentations in class and I was glad to be part of the group that could present, so now I can focus on my next presentation; other subject, other topic, but just as interesting :)

It seems we all found it challenging to present our topics in only 5 minutes, but it was a very good exercise to make sure only the pertinent is included.

Beforehand I wished for my presentation, which I had a lot of fun with putting together, to be well received and clearly understood.   The remarks afterwards seem to indicate that I reached my goal. Good luck to those of you who will present next week!

I'm including my short presentation as promised, and hope you'll find time to read the "Making a difference" document or even just scan through it as it gives a good idea of the wonderful work that Research4Life does with their four programmes. There's also a librarian reporting how the open access information is helping him when asked for information.

 Here is the video link to Prof Mary Abukutsa-Oyango from Kenya's report on how both approaches to OA have benefited her research and community. The direct link from within the PowerPoint don't  open in the file format I had to change it to before I could upload.

Open Access

By the look of things the implementation and development of a successful Institutional Repository (IR) to Open Access (OA) research output at a university or research institution needs understanding of a lot of issues and concepts, technical knowledge of software; processes needed, for instance open source software (OSS) such as D-Space.

Added to these are knowledge of copyright issues, OA publishing models, collaboration and from practice comes the knowledge that it takes hard work, dedication, perseverance & good organising to name just a few…Would like to see a lot more hands and buy-in from stakeholders to help build and fast track development of OA in Africa!

As a faculty librarian, I play a role in raising awareness and broadening knowledge of OA in general and more specific among our campus community. In the beginning years I gave assistance to postgraduate students when preparing& and uploading their documents, as it has been compulsory from 2007onwards for our students to submit their thesis online for inclusion in the IRs. As the detail is now explained on our website, I rarely need to help with this these days. I nowadays answer questions and liaise with faculty members re. Open Access, giving advice and sharing criteria for OA journal publishing for instance.

In the few and far between spare moments when other pressing work are done, librarians and staff do their bit to help populate the repository. For instance, a few years ago I had a few days on hands before the Christmas holidays and worked flat out to upload some of our researchers' articles from a journal that has green OA clearance. This year will see another project to help populate the repository more quickly. The work is cut out for us, and it is exciting to be part of the OA development at our university, which uses open source software for two platforms that support both approaches (green and gold) to share scholarly literature: Ubuntu is used as the operating system and DSpace is used for the repository and Open Journal Systems as the publication platform. 

Sneak preview of Open Access presentation

 Background slides on Open Access 

for class presentation later this month. 

OA links

Podcast follower

Previously, when missing a good radio talk show, I took it in my stride with a 'don't worry, maybe again next week ",  but I'm excited that from now on, no more missing out...I'll just tune in to the podcasts. Best of all, this can happen in one's own time.  Many resources exist on how podcasting works.

 I've now joined PodOmatic, and although I don't know how soon I'll  need to create a podcast, at least I know where to turn to, should I need a free resource.   I have worked with and have access to Captivate, which is an electronic learning tool that can be used to create podcasts as well. I also follow a listserv where Camtasia was discussed as another such tool, which is highly recommended by the users thereof, as they feel it is more user friendly than Captivate. If small changes need to be made every so often to the podcast, Captivate is better than Camtasia apparently.

Right now I'm catching up and listening on my computer via the web page to an interesting podcast about positive thinking, while I'm visiting some of the web pages mentioned in class and also searching for a podcast I'd like to follow and maybe share with you. There is just so much out there!


If you are in need of a few more examples and tips, you might find Podcasting from the Library Success Best Practices Wiki useful. It Includes a list of libraries creating podcasts and tips for creating effective podcasts.

A few more resources

Why and how to use blogs to Promote Your Library's Services

Listen to podcasts and vodcasts of the Berlin 10 OA content.
Podcasting for researchers
First Monday podcast