Friday the 25th of March 2011

INTERNATIONAL VS. AFRICAN LIBRARIANSHIP

By Buhle Mbambo-Thata

In this session Dr. Mbambo-Thata was very critical of notion that African libraries are poor and do not have books. She noted that it is because we always this less of ourselves. She continued by encouraging the young librarians to stand up and contribute to their work environment.

THE VISION FOR LIBRARIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

by Puleng Kekana

This speaker could not come.

THE WAY FORWARD FOR LIBRARIES IN SOUTH AFRICA

by Prof  Christine Stilwell

Christine presentation was mostly based on the Delphi method for South African Libraries. She indicated that libraries should evaluate themselves in other to find out what issues are on significant for the library profession and prioritise them in order of importance.

GROUP PRESENTATIONS

After the presenters it was time for us to present our group assignment. The groups presented their work and it showed that there was a lot of work done.

The Academy was closed at by a Gala dinner on Friday evening.

Thursday the 24th of March 2011

MAKERTING, BRANDING AND EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION  by Prof Ronel Rensburg.

In this session the concepts corporate marketing, branding and communication was discussed. Ronel indicated how important it is for a library to brand itself and communicate its products and services to the organisation. To me this was more relevant to corporate industries or the overall university. I believe that the library can only market itself using good client service and the by showing its users how they can help them better complete the assignments and research.

GAINING A COMPETITIVE EDGE by Dr. Nisha Sewdass

She is a very good and friendly speaker. She elaborated on the way in which we could analyse and discover the libraries competitive edge. The following topics were discussed:

•         What is Competitive intelligence?

•         The intelligence cycle

•         Value of CI for organisations

•         How companies compete

•         Competition in the Service Sector

•         Gaining a competitive edge

•         Competitive strategies for the LIS

This is important for libraries to know analyse themselves and find out exactly who they are and what they are good at. This was very useful session for me because I will be able to propose this in the management committee in our library as a basis for our strategic plan and discovering the value of the library in the university.

Wednesday the 23 March 2011

ETHICS AND THE DYNAMIC ORGANISATION by Deon Rossouw

Deon was a very powerful speaker. The way he present his augments make you pay more attention. I actually think organisational ethics are the oil to the success of any strategy. Ones you get the buy in from the employees and you agree on the organisational values your would have solved all other issues. The service provision goes well and you will not have problems with the staff commitment.

When I go back to office the organizational values is the first think I would like me and my staff to look at and have an agreement on.

INNOVATIVE GAMING AND INFORMATION LITERACY by Bettie de Kock

Bettie showed us how she used the game to team the information literacy to the undergraduate students. To me this was another way in which we can accommodate student who learn in a more practical way. However traditional library training shoul not be left out because students have different learning styles.

The game theory can be even more suitable in a public library setting where some of their patrons are young children.

CLIENT SERVICES by Hilda Kriel

The presenter illustrated that client services is the roll of everyone in the organisation. It is not only about staff interaction with the client, but also the environment, the deliverables and many more variables. She illustrated this on what she called high performance work system (HPWS).

She concluded by defining what client service really is. It is not the job of the staff members at the front desk. It consists of tangibles and intangibles and lastly the only person who will decide on the quality of service is the client.  

ADVOCACY TOOLKIT by Karin Kitching

Through Karin I learned that advocacy is one of the ways we can promote the value of libraries. She shared with us what she called a 30 seconds elevator message. This is the brief message containing what is your organisation, what is it that you do and how can you help the person you will be talking to at that time. This message can help when you have a limited time to speak with people who my help you in the library, especially with sponsorship.

MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES by Janice de Wee

In this session Janice de Wee showed us how to use mobile technologies to communicate with our clients. The following technologies can be very useful:

Mobile catalogue

Mobile Facebook

Twitter

These create more than one way of communicating with our clients and we need to use this so that we can take the library service into the palm top of every client.

Facebook, twitter and the related social networks are the very useful tool to can reach younger generation of our clients

Tuesday the 22nd of March 2011

THE DINAMIC ORGANISATION by Johan Greeff

In this session Johan took us through the theory of a dynamic organisation. I learn than the dynamic organisation is :

·         A living organisation

·         A learning organisation

·         An organization where a team approach plays and important roll

·         An organisation where diversity add value

The other thing we learned in the strategic objective. We learnt that a strategic objective keeps the team together towards achieving a common goal. What was interesting was the treetop greed wish is the model that can be used to evaluate the company’s knowledge base. This is the very good tool for assessing the skills development strategy.

Monday the 21st of March 2011

MULTI-CULTURERALISM & DIVERS WORKPLACE by Sean Moodley

South Africa is the country that is very rich with diverse cultures. In the discussion it became clear that if we can use our dives culture to our advantage in the workplace we will come up with informed decisions. What I liked about the presenter was his way of illustrating that South Africa is not there yet with racial and cultural diversity but what needed to be taken into account is that we are in the right track. The aim is not to get there today or tomorrow but we must understand that it is a process and it will take very long time and we must appreciate the progress that we made up to so far.

He continued by saying that race is no longer a problem but the biggest problem is when the other race internally feel that they are inferior than the others in a sense that they bring race every time they encounter bad behaviour.

VISIT TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

The journey to Johannesburg was a pleasant one. The problem stated when we were taken through the history of the life and sufferings of the prisoners in the old Johannesburg prison called No 4. To hear the pain that our freedom fitters went though as result of the torture from the apartheid prison warders was very emotional. The king of life they were living is shocking.

Friday 18 March 2011

RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP by Prof Derick de Jongh

The session was more of leading by planning for natural disasters and taking the environment and natural resources into account. What I have learned was that it is very important think strategically around the issues of recycling and preserving and take leadership on this. All plan and strategy might result into nothing when our natural resources can be redundant.

INTRODUCTION TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT by Marietjie Schutte

Knowledge management has always been a debatable issue. Marietjie took us through the concept of management and illustrated why libraries should be concern about knowledge management. She further gave us the different between tacit and explicit knowledge. Although I disagree with the notion that knowledge can be managed, but I agreed with her when she said what is important is to create a space for knowledge creation and sharing.

what I have learn in this session is the importance of taping and storing the knowledge of people leaving the organisation for the purpose of creating basis for creating new knowledge.

INNOVATION AND THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX FOR SOUTH AFRICAN LIBRARIES by Prof Johannes Cronje.

Creativity and innovation is the only way we will keep up to date with the ever-changing needs of our libraries. Through the innovation game we play during this session I have learned that team effort is very important. Using our human diversity, it becomes easy to combine our different talents and strong point to come up with an excellent outcome.

The other thing I have learnt is that it is important to keep practising and exercising your creative part of your brain in other to prevent it from becoming redundant. 

Thursday 17 March 2011

QUALITY ASSURANCE by Christa North

Christa took us to the journey of quality assurance in the work place. What stroked me in her presentation was the PDCA model of quality management.

What I have learned is that, managing quality is not a rocket science. All you need to know is what do you want to achieve? Have you achieved it and how do you know that you achieved what you wanted to achieve? These are the powerful questions you need to ask when managing quality. I learned that quality is measured against the organisational objective which is fitness of purpose vs. fitness for purpose.

THE STRATEGIC OGANISATION IN PRACTICE AND LOCATING THE LIBRARY ON THE MANAGEMENT RADAR SCREEN by Mar. Robert Moropa.

In this session Mr Moropa presented the University of Pretoria Department of Library Services strategic plan. What I liked the most was its vision which is redefining librarianship. Although it might sound otherwise but I think it is a simple straight forward vision I have ever seen in any library before. Looking at the programs arranged by the Centre for African Library Leadership and the research commons that are still in the making I think they are in the right direction towards achieving their vision.  

What I have learnt in that is that it is possible to change the way libraries are viewed by other professions. Us as future leaders need to follow and do things differently.

VISIT TO THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SOUTH AFRICA IN PRETORIA

I experience the state of the art library and the librarians are committed to what they are doing. The national library collect and preserved anything that is published in South Africa ranging from the newspapers, government publications to journals and books. I was impressed by the machine that is capable of preserving the book to its present condition for up to 100 years using chemicals. 

I have learned that the National library plays the most important roll than I thought before and that without them we will be losing a lot of our national heritage and important information.