- Practising Development aims to explore ideas, discuss issues and share learning around research, information and development. Managed by INASP, the views and opinions expressed on Practising Development are those of the individual authors and do not represent those of the organisation.
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Monthly Archives: September 2012
In which we try to identify success
We were recently reviewing the activities of the evidence-informed policy making team at INASP and trying to identify the success stories to see what could be learned and how our approaches could be improved. We identified four stories based around four different countries. Briefly: In Tanzania an INASP partner is developing a course in information literacy aimed at public servants studying at the Tanzania public service college. This is a comprehensive approach involving curriculum development, pedagogy training of trainers’ and content delivery. In Ghana, INASP supports the Ghana Information Network for Knowledge Sharing (GINKS) and Savana Signatures to deliver capacity building activities targeted at policy makers in response to local demand. The Zimbabwe Evidence-Informed Policy Network (ZEIPN) has just been formed which aims to promote interactions between multi-disciplinary researchers and policy makers to tackle challenges to evidence-informed policy making. In Uganda INASP is working with the Uganda National Council of Science … Continue reading
A year of marking milestones and identifying challenges
It seems 2012 is a year for significant anniversaries and I have been fortunate enough to be involved in several of them. In my view, the most important of these was, of course, INASP’s 20th Anniversary — but then I might be biased. Some of the other milestones included: the 30th anniversary of the European Association for Science Editors (EASE) during its conference in Tallinn; the 125th Sri Lanka Medical Association (SLMA) Annual Conference was held in Colombo; the Budapest Open Archive (BOAI) has been in operation for 10 years; and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP) celebrated its 40th Anniversary at its recent Annual Conference.
Tagged Anniversary, Copyright, Open access, Publishing
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Something worth celebrating
There are a number of interesting links this week including an interview, a survey and the spread of the Science Café. However, before jumping into that, you may have heard that this year marks INASP’s 20th anniversary and, to celebrate the occasion, we held a symposium in June that focused on discussing a number of accepted ‘truths’ that impact on research, information and development. Our latest newsletter focuses on this important milestone featuring articles that look at our past and our future as well as contributions from speakers and participants of the symposium.
Tagged Africa, INASP Symposium, Policy making, Research communication, research impact, Science Cafe
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Are library websites gateways or obstacle courses?
For many years I worked in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford, and throughout much of that time complaints and criticisms of our library website were frequently voiced. Indeed, at one point I persuaded a visiting scholar from the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, to spend part of her sabbatical in Oxford evaluating our website and advising on its improvement. Though I no longer work at the University I am informed that the process of review and improvement is continuing, most recently through a series of internal focus groups.
Tagged Access, E-resources, IFLA, Library websites
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Beyond the print — exploring the poster session at IFLA
Recently, I entered a poster presentation for a conference for the first time. My theme, Celebrating 20 years of INASP, was accepted for the 78th IFLA World Library and Information Congress last month. What I hadn’t counted on was the amount of competition — there were nearly 200 posters being displayed. So it wasn’t just being ready to talk people through your poster, there was also the challenge of getting their attention in the first place! Some exhibitors were dressed up or had extra incentives like sweets, bookmarks and keyrings — my favourite was the offer of a story from one of the Finnish public libraries.
Guiding your interests
This weekly collection of links was sadly absent last week, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t anything worth sharing — just that sometimes a bank holiday can throw a spanner in the works. Despite this, there are, as always, some interesting pieces to look at — from drowning in social media links to a little bit of open access advocacy.
Tagged Altmetrics, Discrimination, Engaging your audience, Gender, Open access, Productivity, Race, Research, Social media, Time management
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