A holistic strategy for the sustainable development of academic libraries

1. A holistic strategy for the sustainable development of academic libraries Belgium by Paul.Nieuwenhuysen @ vub.ac.bePrepared for a presentation at the International Conference on Libraries 2007, = ICOL2007, in Penang, Malaysia,October 31 – November 2, 2007

2. contents - summary - structure • overview • of this presentation • Introduction • Which kind of further development of university libraries? • Successful project? Yes! • Strategy for successful development: • Recommendations • Bottlenecks • Further plans • Conclusion

3. These slides should be available from the WWW site http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/nieuwenhuysen/presentations(note: BIBLIO and not biblio)

4. Introduction Overview • This contribution primarily gives a structured overview of the holistic strategy that is applied and tested in several projects that aim at the further development of university librariesin the South.

5. Introduction Overview • Experience built up during nine years up to now has shown that this strategy is quite successful.

6. Which kind of development of university libraries? • The strategy is applied in “horizontal projects” that aim at institutional capacity building besides other “vertical projects”.

7. Which kind of development of university libraries? • Together, a set of “projects” is named a “program” of inter-university co-operation.

8. Which kind of development of university libraries? • Each program is a co-operation between all the universities in Flanders working togetherand a selected university in the South. • Flanders is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium= the northern part of the country.

9. Which kind of development of university libraries?

10. Which kind of development of university libraries? • These programs are supported by the Belgian Government and organised by the Flemish Inter-university Council,which is named by the abbreviation VLIR in Dutch language.

11. Which kind of development of university libraries? • The duration of a program is ten years. • The budget of a total program is about 500 000 Euro / year. • More information is available from the WWW site of the co-ordinating organisation; http://www.vliruos.be/

12. Which kind of development of university libraries? • Many components at the level of the whole program and of the specific library project have been integrated to obtain a synergy. In other words, integrating all inputs (funds and time) has contributed to the generation of desired outputs. • We think that this holistic approach has contributed significantly to the success of this library project.

13. Successful project? Yes! • Most experience has been gained with the University Library of the Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), which is also the Sokoine National Agricultural Library (SNAL) in Morogoro, Tanzania.

14. Successful project? Yes!

15. Successful project? Yes! • This library has been upgraded in one horizontal / transversal project in a larger program of several horizontal and vertical projects with SUA.

16. Successful project? Yes! • A similar project is devoted to the development of the facilities related to ICT at the university.

17. Successful project? Yes! • Also a part of the budget is spent explicitly to the co-ordination of all components of the program.

18. Successful project? Yes! • The budget of the library development project was about 50 000 Euro / year.

19. Successful project? Yes! • Access to CD-ROM databases +Library automation • Catalogue • Lending • Human resource development • Library management • Project development skills

20. Strategy for successful development: intro The following explains many factors that have contributed to the • synergy • efficiency • cost-effectiveness • overall success

21. Strategy for successful development • Each program and the projects that are included run for 2 x 5 years = 10 years  long term involvement and development, instead of brief punctual actions without follow-up

22. Strategy for successful development • After 5 years of work, each program and each included project is evaluated by independent consultants. • This can lead • to improved tactics or • exceptionally to a halt of a project or even of a full program

23. Strategy for successful development • The project includes human resource development as well as technological development.

24. Strategy for successful development • Human resource development activities were undertaken by members of the personnel at all levels.

25. Strategy for successful development • International training programs on the management of scientific and technical information have been sponsored by the same funding agency in the form of another series of projects, and members of the personnel of SNAL have participated to these programs, together with participants from other countries. • This formed an efficient and cost-effective component in the human resource development. • These training programs are described in http://www.vub.ac.be/BIBLIO/itp/

26. Strategy for successful development • In the framework of the human resource development, two PhD candidates have carried out research, not in Flanders / Belgium but in Africa. • We hope that their research is relevant for the urgent and real needs, and more suitable than more fundamental research, far away from the needs of their region.

27. Strategy for successful development • Technological development included the implementation of a computer-based library management system, including an online public access catalogue on the web. • This is not based on commercially available software, but on the most recent versions of software that is related to CDS/ISIS and that can be obtained free of charge from Unesco and partner developers.

28. Strategy for successful development • The same ISIS software is also implemented in a similar co-operation project in Ethiopia. • Furthermore, the software has been endorsed in 2006 by the sponsor as the first choice for similar future projects, to increase the efficiency of the various North-South co-operation projects and to stimulate North-South-South co-operation.

29. Strategy for successful development • During the co-operation program with SUA, the funding agency has started a co-operation with an organization in Belgium, which provides used pc’s to institutes in developing countries. • In this way, usable pc’s could be purchased in the project at low cost.

30. Strategy for successful development • The project is part of a larger program that supports teaching and research. So it can enjoy the common basic administrative, logistic and management support that is active for all projects in the whole program.

31. Strategy for successful development • The other horizontal/transversal project of the program with SUA focused on ICT and has upgraded the local area network and access to Internet. • The library development project has of course benefited from this needed progress for access to the local online catalogues and for access to digital information sources on the Internet and the WWW. • Also the library served as a test bed to assess the level of practical progress that has been made.

32. Strategy for successful development • The university co-operation program with SUA is one of several similar programs running in several countries in Africa, Asia and South America. • They all enjoy a common basic support provided by VLIR in Brussels, Belgium.

33. Strategy for successful development

34. Strategy for successful development • Not just one university in Flanders, Belgium co-operates in each project or larger program, but appropriate experts from more than one university are invited, selected and involved in the programs.

35. Strategy for successful development • An international workshop with participants of libraries from all the running programs was organized in Belgium, again to promote co-operation and to exchange experience and views in an efficient and concentrated way.

36. Strategy for successful development • A synergy among several of the programs supported by VLIR has also contributed to the overall efficiency. • For instance: In a co-operation program with the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, a Master study program in information science has been set up, and several members of the personnel of the library development project discussed in this contribution have studied there as a human development activity of the project; also professors in information science from Belgium have contributed to both projects in one mission, which was possible and efficient, as both universities are only separated by a half-day trip.

37. Strategy for successful development • The library functions at the same time as a university library and as a national library. • So the outcome of the projects can serve not only the local university community but even users in the whole nation and even abroad through delivery of documents that are requested by users in another country.

38. Strategy for successful development • One project leads to another: • One component that was planned in the library development project focused on upgrading the activities of the library that are aimed at increasing the level of information literacy of users and potential users. • The efforts spent on planning this component have lead to a separate, independent proposal of a research project that has been accepted by another European funding agency. • This work is now on-going and should lead to a PhD in library science.

39. Strategy for successful development • The international non-profit organization INASP that is specialized in increasing access to scientific information in developing countries has been involved in the project, because this should be more efficient than involving only less experienced experts from Belgium. • A workshop with input from INASP was in fact organized for experts from more than one of the programs discussed here, because the same problems, challenges and difficulties exist in most universities.Co-operation with INASP is also recommended in a new project that starts with the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique.

40. Strategy for successful development • It is considered that a common training activity for university library personnel from all programs in the various countries may be more cost-efficient than more distributed training efforts. • A request for funding for such a training is developed.

41. Strategy for successful development • In both co-operating countries, only 1 project leader is responsible for reporting to the sponsor, but each one is accompanied officially, formally by a team of co-workers. • Each co-worker = team member brings specific expertise to the project.

42. Strategy for successful development • Even though the project leaders are supported by a team, experience has learned us that the official project leader has a lot of weight in decisions and reporting. • Furthermore project leaders change in the course of a project spread out over 10 years. • Therefore, we suggest that the status of each project leader is changed into • 1 project leader + 1 officially designated adjunct • Even better: 2 project leaders who share responsibilities

43. Conclusion • The author hopes that all this may inspire other development programs and strategies. • At the same time it should be clear that the approach presented here is still far from perfect and that a single recipe cannot be suitable for any situation. • At least a discussion about the various building blocks of this strategy can be constructive.

44. Questions? Suggestions? Topics for discussion?

45. You are free to copy, distribute, display this work under the following conditions: • Attribution: You must mention the author. • Noncommercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. • No Derivative Works: You may not change, modify, alter, transform, or build upon this work. • For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.