imgur: the simple image sharer

imgur: the simple image sharer

Experiencing Cape Town on Foot

Spending a week in Cape Town in a rather dingy hotel that had seen better days in its history was a little of a 'blast from the past' seeing as I went to school there at Wynberg Girls High around 42 years ago. I tried without success to teach the serving staff - if you serve ribs and chips each person at the table needs a steak knife and a bowl with hot water and lemons in it, and no - a communion dunk and wash finger bowl will not do. By the way have you heard of toothpicks? We could use some. Honestly what do they teach waitrons today - poor tourists they must think this is Africa.

The first thing I noticed was the mountain looked the same but the people had changed. I have never in my entire life been approached by so many beggars - and seeing as Cape Town has a lot less humans than Pretoria and Johannesburg leaving one feeling open, relaxed and out of the rat-race, I got the feeling the beggars made up the bulk of the population.

There is a security presence everywhere with their little yellow shirts which should already have rung warning bells for me - who needs to keep on a massive municipal security force to keep the non-beggars safe - if its safe. Ha - but being grey and over 60 means I am also a slow learner at times. These security persons stand around on corners, chatting to each other and texing. My word! - we are raising a nation of people who will never look at the sky again - leaving the beggars free to harass who they liked - and I was a prime target.

Popped into shop to get some cutlery seeing as my self-catering suite had a bread knife, soup ladle and whisk in the drawer - that is all I kid you not. As I headed for the exit I saw a beggar squinting in my direction. He started to go lower and more turned - by the time I got to him he was a total cripple. "Please ma'am help me I am hungry" - "Get away" I yelled out and miracles of miracles he stood up and walked off mumbling under his breath - cured.  

That was not the only healing I saw - sitting on the station waiting for the train and next to me are two girls. One must be around 16 and the other fatter one in her 20's. Laughing and joking and eating sweets and chips.  The train arrives and I get on. A minute later I hear the sound of voices singing an unheard of church hymn - and the next minute here comes the thin girl with a plastic mug leading her 'now blind' friend behind - eyes rolled back and the white showing. I nearly burst out laughing but gave them ten rand for the act. Then as they stepped out of the train - she was healed "hallelujah sister".

However the best was when I walked down Adderly street to the Conference Centre CTICC.
I had this feeling I was being followed. No matter where I walked this girl with a old pants, and army type hat followed me. Eventually she approached me, "Leave me alone" I yelled out. She nearly burst into tears, "I thought you were a Librarian and going to the Conference, I am lost".  I felt so bad, gave her a hug and showed her the way. You never know when the next beggar is an angel.  

The death of the "Ordinary Librarian"

The Death of the Ordinary Librarian aka Ordinary Librarian, Research Librarian or Personal Librarian - which one are you?  

LIASA 15^th - Annual Conference in the mother city Cape Town.

Institutions like a major correspondence Institution dominated many of the papers on the future of Librarians and the role they are going to play in the new playing fields of libraries.

Research is obviously a key factor in South Africa not just to place it on the global map but also to enhance the world we live in and bring credit and funding to any institution, so the focus of the librarian as a support system to the normal run of the mill student body, seemed to take an insignificant place in the order of things at the LIASA Conference 2013.

I remember thinking – oh my word if they had it their way they would close down all institutional libraries that assist undergraduates and just concentrate on researchers – it was as if in their minds “everyone is born a post grad”.

In fact one library has removed the word ‘support’ completely from its job description for librarians almost as if ‘support’ was dirty and undesirable.

I listened fascinated as the papers were presented and started suggesting that the emergence of the Research Librarian would cause that the qualifications needed could be up to a PhD because the argument is, and maybe rightly so, – if you are assisting post graduates who are busy with ground breaking research in let’s say engineering, then at the very least you need a qualification one higher than they have. It even seemed to be suggested that in a case like this a PhD in engineering was more important than a PhD in Library Science. In fact I would go as far as to analyse that this is the route some of the larger institutions are considering taking.

The other title branded about was that of the Personal Librarian. Librarians were encouraged to ‘go to the users’, some had even been given an office in the faculty where they could operate from a few times per week. These Personal Librarians would hold the hands of the lecturers who were doing research and almost inclusively be used by them much in the same way as a personal secretary.

I found it hard in today’s economic environment, budget cuts and streamlining of posts with possible downsizing of many libraries; - to separate what was fantasy from reality in these papers. Which library in all truth can afford to take a large chunk of its Librarians and offer them up as sacrifices on the altar -  solely for research and/or as Personal Librarians situated away from the reference desk.

I realise that many of our upcoming users are bypassing the library when it comes to finding information and as Librarians one will have to keep rethinking the role you play in a changing digital environment. But honestly – this is Africa not every student walking through the door is a digital native and from what I see in the training room many are first generation students who come with massive gaps in knowledge and research skills. I do believe the new Chat-Line for students with their General Librarians will go a long way to earn you the respect of your users however, in the light of what is being discussed at the Conference, Top Management and Library Management will have to go back to the drawing board – if they every left it, and re-look at how the Library will support research in a more personal way.

Releasing Librarians for personal use to me should form part of a Faculty Budget – I am not sure this should fall on the shoulders of Library Heads and Executive Committees to scuttle around with the re-engineering and further deplete the dwindling Librarian posts.

While I understand the urgency of research and the bigger urgency for the Librarians to reinvent themselves to meet the needs of researchers, I am very aware of the forty thousand or so undergraduates that have to be serviced. If we leave them to their own devices we may sit with a larger headache a few years down the line when they turn into researchers without the necessary skills, without being able to identify and evaluate information, without being able to produce a unique assignment based not only on their findings but on their own logical assumptions and new ideas based on sound research foundations.

The other issue I have is, if the Librarian is a PhD in Engineering and is just about doing the research for the researcher – are we really producing researchers or just people who ‘plagiarize the Librarians brains’ and could not do their own unique research even if it was expected of them. Where is the cut-off point? Or is there none? Does the researcher write on his thesis –his name and next to it the Research Librarians name seeing as they did most of the work anyway?

‘Nice to have’ these specialised Librarians - if you have the budget or if government comes to the table and provides additional funding for Research Librarians and Personal Librarians as it should; if it is really serious about Research as it says it is.

However it worries me that the powers that be seemed to have declared null and void the guidance that the General Librarian can still provide to the majority of the under graduate student body at the University and Institutions albeit via Chat lines, Social Networks etc and not face to face as was the traditional role played. It worries me that the mention of under-graduate programs and support hardly made the headlines in the discussions or papers that were presented but for a few.

Honestly?  Has the role of the Librarian and the library as a whole, really changed that much, that quickly? Are we going to shut the doors already and lie down and die while our users plagiarize the world of online information with their skills on an ever downward spiral and no Librarians to guide the way forward? Librarians may no longer be the keepers of information but they certainly are still the tour guides to it.

In stark contrast to the established post matric educational institutions with their government sponsored infrastructure - I attended a few sessions with school, public and special interest libraries because, what is happening there, has a ripple effect when those children become students and walk through our physical or virtual doors. What I heard there turned my blood to ice especially in the light of what I discussed above. Some public librarians even felt that Information literacy skill training was not applicable to them. Oi veh!!

The infrastructure in most provinces of fully stocked libraries with trained librarians and access to digital information is, as one speaker from Limpopo tactfully put it, ‘deteriorating by the day’.  The person for Education and a few government officials were delegates. The lady for Gauteng Education was quick to brag about the literacy programs they had in place and how they supported school and public libraries. What she said was in stark contrast to what was actually happening on the ground if you took note of what speaker after speaker laid before the Conference and came to light during open discussions. I can attest to the lack of resources at school and public library level as I work mainly with information illiterate first years, the majority of which have never seen the inside of a library. I was very tempted to challenge her and the honourable government member but I kept my pose as we may need them in future and taking her on in open debate was not a good idea. Let her have her day, history will prove her mistaken in the difference her efforts where making in the global scheme of things. We need a nationwide effort when it comes to support for educators and scholars.

Telling industry to provide the funding is just as chilling. When the king abdicated his throne for the love of his life it was to a equal who could take his place. When Education abdicates its position of the leader in education to industry its on dangerous ground. Industry in any case wants to welcome well trained researchers into its family, they do not want to have to make the bottles of milk. No wonder less and less corporates are investing in South Africa.

If municipalities do not have the expertise or passion or vision to do it, then Government needs to spend some of the tax money to send experts to get the ball rolling at a much faster rate than it is rolling at present; if it is rolling at all.

In Limpopo the school and public libraries for the number of people living there and the mainly rural environment they find themselves in, is a horrific tragedy, to say the least. The sentiment was not –‘we need to build infrastructure and uplift the people better preparing them for their future academic studies’. The basic sentiment was, ‘well it’s largely rural so there is very little we can do” and everyone had their moment-of-silence for the lost-cause, but moved on – no way!! 

If I swore I could think of some choice words to say here. For goodness sake – if you as government and municipalities have identified what is a growing crisis for a nation; surly you find solutions and provide the funding to make it a reality, not just sweep it under the carpet and hope it will disappear. I lost count of how many people attested to no funding for new books and resources on the shelves of rudimentary libraries that did not meet the curriculum needs. 

Education and support for those who are going through studying or teaching – are the only solutions to poverty and to uplift our people into the new world and from them, we birth the researchers of tomorrow. Are you trying to tell me no researchers will come from rural Limpopo except from the one or two universities in the area– what a waste of a countries talent! 

No one is born information literate, no one is born being able to use Internet, online databases or do research correctly but everyone can be taught and learn, and the younger they learn the better for themselves and for the institutions that will absorb them after school.

Research Librarians, Personal Librarians – awesome thought and it needs perusing; but getting back to the millions and millions that are not there yet, what about placing more resources in the hands of the humble General Librarian. How about skilling them to be able to cope with the new demands and expectations of the upcoming students – those who are from rural backgrounds and those who are from the cities.

Closing thoughts - Come on –do we need a PhD to assist a ‘fresh out of matric’ with how to locate, evaluate and use accredited information –man I don’t think so. Is the role of the General Librarian really so mundane and unimportant that it hardly took centre stage and left most of the delegates desiring the more lucrative and highly esteemed senior posts of Research and Personal Librarians.  

My thoughts are, that in the rush to be the most important Research Institution in Africa, I think the library has lost the vision of its vital role with undergraduate students. Simply providing Information Literacy courses like some do, is not enough. 

How as Librarians and Libraries we support users in future - may be on the transformational landscape – but we cannot just cross it out as no longer relevant to, what remains in many aspects, a very third world population in South Africa and Africa. 

Schools, Public Libraries, Specialised Libraries and Academic Libraries need to take hands, share resources and skills and form a unified approach – taking each others needs into consideration, to combat what may be the biggest man-made disaster in the twentieth century happening right under our noses.  Your Training Librarian. 2013