Distribution: General
E/ECA/CODIST/2/23
2 May 2011
UNITED NATIONS
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL
Original: English
ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR AFRICA
Second Session of the Committee on
Development Information, Science and Technology (CODIST-II)
2 – 5 May 2011
Capacity Building in Library Services: Influencing Innovation and
Competitiveness
By Gracian Chimwaza 1
and Michael Chimalizeni 2
1. Executive Director, Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA),
2. Assistant Programme Officer, Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa
(ITOCA),
Address: ITOCA, P.O. Box 11632, die Hoewes, 0163 Block 12B, Lords Office Pack,
276 West Avenue, Centurion, 0157, South Africa Tel: + 27 12 6634062, Fax: + 27 12
6634052, Email: gracian@itoca.org
Abstract
Research and academic institutions in most of the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region continue to face
challenges in developing sustainable libraries that meet the needs of their clientele. In ord er to
address these challenges the institutions need qualified library, faculty and research staff with the
relevant ICT and information skills to deliver high quality services. Building capacity in the
information discipline comes with its challenges similar to many disciplines including issues of
funding, training, aligned and supporting policies, management commitment and the
institution’s high level of e-Readiness to foster an environment that supports successful
implementation of ICT programmes.
This paper outlines the case of ITOCA and its partners in undertaking TEEAL and Research4Life
programmes, Training-of-Trainer workshops and users support in the SSA region over the last 12
years. About 80 short courses were developed and delivered to address the knowledge and skills
gaps. The courses were tailor-made to meet the needs of librarians, faculty and researchers across
the region emphasizing on improving practical, technical and facilitation skills.
Keywords: ICT capacity building, ITOCA, TEEAL, e -Readiness, library services,
Research4life
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1. Introduction
1. Whilst the generation, storage and diffusion of new knowledge and information at academic and
research institutions in Africa are improving, there remains many challenges of capacity that need to
be addressed if these institutions are to reach their potential and significantly contribute to the goals of
social and economic development across the continent. The role of the library is critical in all these
processes. The advent of ICT’s and more specifically the Internet in the last two decades has spurred
on the role of the library and helped enhance its services to the users.
2. The investment and use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), an initiative actively
supported by the libraries has greatly impacted the ability to access knowledge and information for
users throughout the research and academic communities worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)
research and academic institutions, significant strides have been made in this area. But a lot remains to
be done. Whilst the IT and Internet infrastructure have improved significantly over the last decade in
the region, several other challenges continue to affect access to knowledge and information over the
Internet by users. Expensive Internet bandwidth, limited access to computers and inadequate user
skills are key barriers limiting the access and use of information at the institutions particularly those
located in remote areas far from the capital cities. In order to address the issues of capacity building
for the libraries the broader challenges of capacity building have to be taken into account. These
include several intertwined issues that must be carefully considered at the institutional and country
levels in order to address the challenges of capacity building.These include training; funding; aligned
and relevant policies; management/leadership commitment and the institution’s e-Readiness.
3. Using the case-study approach, this paper discusses these capacity building challenges in the
context of SSA and looks at innovative initiatives in Library services by the Information Training &
Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA) and its partners to address such challenges thereby promoting
local content development and improvement at academic and research institutions in the region.
II.
Capacity building challenges at Sub-Saharan Africa research and academic institutions
libraries
4. Important issues that come up time and again when discussing the challenges impeding human
capacity building at the academic and research institutions in the SSA region reaffirm the need for a
concerted effort from both internal and external players to move the bar higher. Inadequate training
funding budgets, lack of well designed training programmes; inappropriate or non-existent policies;
lack of management commitment and institutional environments that have minimal e-Readiness to
foster implementation of the ICT4D programmes are major issues identified as hampering effective
capacity building in the libraries at institutions in the region experienced during the ITOCA Eresources training programmes in many of the SSA countries.
5. Funding: Without the required funding budgets allocated for capacity building in the libraries all
great ideas, good intentions and splendid plans will not yield anything. No doubt, highly trained staff
is a key building block to the delivery of quality research output and competitive graduates which are
the bottom line issues of the research and academic institutions. Many of the written and much
publicized organizational visions and missions attest to these outputs.
6. External funding sourced by ITOCA and partners is used to cater for the training resource persons’
time, travel, workshop logistics and participants’ subsistence during the delivery of the Training-ofTrainer courses. Selected local universities and research institutions host the week-long workshops
attended by 25-30 professionals. Only 30-35% of the universities and research institutions have gone
on to support institutional trainings after the trained librarians and faculty return from the courses. A
smaller percentage (3-5%) have supported their staff training in the ITOCA ToT courses since the
course series inception in 1999 in terms of registration (tuition) fees, travel and subsistence costs.
Reports by course graduates point to the lack of institutional support and budgets to support their
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efforts in imparting the acquired knowledge to their colleagues and library clients across the
institutions.
7. Training: The development of innovative training programmes with appropriate content aimed
at addressing the staff skills gaps according to the needs of the staff and matching their professional
portfolios and assigned duties. The courses must be tailored to add to previously attained skills and
practical enough to help the staff tackle the problems at hand and in their line of work avoiding the
case of investing in irrelevant courses that limits the return on this investment.
8. Supporting policies: Lack of relevant and appropriate institutional policies to promote the role of
the library and its services and address staff development programmes at the institutions is still a
challenge at some of the institutions in the SSA region. A practical example that we came across is
where a faculty may have programmes promoting such ICT policies on requirements for researchers,
faculty and students to deposit and archive electronic copies of research papers, theses and
dissertations in institutional repositories and databases but without overall university level supporting
aligned policies, the implementation and practice of such critical strategies is difficult.
9. Management/leadership commitment: Management buy-in and realising the important role of the
libraries and their contribution to the overall agenda of the organisation and showing this support
through supportive policies and prioritising library and capacity building budgets.
During the ITOCA ToT workshops, many of the hosting universities principal officers and Institute
directors take time to officially open the training courses which encourages and gives prominence to
the courses. Unfortunately these great gestures have not yet translated into positive decisions on
library budgets and policies at many of the research and academic institutions that these courses have
been delivered.
10. e-Readiness: The institutional environment needs to support the continued development of the
libraries and personnel’s skills improvement in order to have the capacity and motivation to deliver
high quality services in a robust electronic environment. Until the institutions’ e-Readiness improves
efforts by the professionals to leverage ICT tools such as digital libraries, Institutional repositories and
virtual collaborating spaces will not bear much result. Cole (2005) asserts this point well in his five
point e-Readiness investment plan recommended specifically for universities which includes:
a) ICT facilities and network access;
b) Personnel available to support the design and production of digital materials such as CDs, web
pages, and distance learning (training) packages;
c) Academic programmes including field experience opportunities that prepare students for
applying ICT to communication and development;
d) University policies that encourage faculty participation in community outreach programs;
e) A faculty ICT posture -for example, a positive disposition toward the use and efficacy of ICT
in education, teaching and learning. The balance in these investments is required to foster a
good environment for the implementation of meaningful ICT programmes at the institutions.
11. Internet access, which has improved in recent years with the launch of the undersea fibre optic
cables on both the eastern and western coasts and the ongoing public and private investments in inland infrastructure linking up research stations and universities to high speed undersea fibre optic
cables. However, the SSA region still remains behind the other continents. Recent International
Telecommunications Union (ITU) figures indicate that between 2002 and 2008 Internet users per 100
in SSA increased significantly from 0.52 to 5.68. The divide becomes glaring when compared to other
emerging regions with China having leapt from 4.60 users in 2002 to 22.28 in 2008 (UNESCO, 2010).
Compounding this is the issue of limited and expensive bandwidth which at $ 2,100 per Megabyte for
a DSL connection in Africa is the highest in the world (FAO, 2009). Limited access and exposure to
the Internet invariably contributes to the problem of inadequate user skills because of lack of practice.
This continues to be a major barrier to fully taking advantage of access to up-to-date research and
scholarly information and hence the need for capacity building in such disciplines as information
literacy and ICT/ICM skills for both the information brokers and end users at the institutions.
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III.
Capacity building initiatives by developing agencies
12. In response to these challenges, ITOCA in the last 12 years has taken the lead in undertaking
several training initiatives to enhance innovation and competiveness in scientific and technical
research in collaboration with other international and local players interested in building capacity at
research and academic institutions in the region focusing on improving library services. One such
programme is ITOCA’s involvement in the promotion, training and support for digital library
resources (e-resources) focusing on the access and use of such resources like The Essential Electronic
Agricultural Library (TEEAL) (www.teeal.org), Research4Life (www.research4life.org) and PROTA
(www.prota.org). These interventions tailored to suit the specific needs of each group support the
organization’s broader objective of building the ICT/ICM skills of African librarians, information
management specialists, faculty and researchers.
13. Several other initiatives have invested in different ways trying to address the capacity building
challenges from different angles as shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Library Capacity Building Initiatives
Organization
Initiative
Strategic Partnerships
INASP
Programme for the Enhancement of Research
Key stakeholders including
Information (PERI)-Now in its 10th year the
researchers, librarians,
programme Focuses on the needs of people in
publishers, ICT
developing and emerging countries; PERii
professionals and policy
works with partners to support global research
makers); Professional
communication by further strengthening: the
Associations, National
knowledge and skills of people working in
Research and Education
research communication participation in
Networks (NRENs),
international knowledge networks research
Learned societies and
communication policy and practice.
Academies and other sister
http://www.inasp.info/
organizations
Association Of
Commonwealt
h Universities
(ACU)
Carnegie
Corporation
The Africa Unit-The concept of the Africa Unit
is rooted in the conviction that Africa’s
institutions of higher and further education
must be at the heart of any sustainable effort to
rebuild and revitalize the continent, and that if
Africa’s institutions are to play this role a major
and sustained programme of renewal must
occur. This approach, following the G8 Africa
Action Plan, is to promote the creation of
partnerships to support the research and higher
education capacity of Africa.
http://www.acu.ac.uk/key_strengths/partnership
s
Higher Education and Libraries in Africa-The
main
objectives of Carnegie Corporation’s work in
Africa are to enhance the capacities of
educators, researchers and academic leaders in
selected countries; to improve the use of
information and communication technologies in
teaching, research and management and to
create public and university libraries to deepen
academic research and public access to
information and knowledge. These goals
represent integrated pathways toward
strengthening the next generation of academics
and university leaders in Africa.
http://carnegie.org/programs/higher-educationand-libraries-in-africa/
ACU works at promoting
linkages between African
and European Universities
African Universities and
public libraries for example
its University of Pretoria
Library Leadership
programme.
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Medical
Library
Association/
Librarians
Without
Borders
CTA
E-resource training in Health Information-The
aim of this initiative is to address the vast
information resource inequity existing between
different regions of the world. http://lwbonline.org/
African Institutions
including Universities and
Non-Governmental
Organizations such as
ITOCA
The ICT4D/ICM services Programme-Provides
CTA with the impetus to play an increasingly
significant role in ensuring that ACP
organizations increasingly adopt and use new
and conventional ICTs in an integrated manner
to manage information on agriculture and rural
development. The programme will build on
CTA’s interventions since 2002 and will focus
on (i) awareness raising and networking; (ii)
capacity building (including human resources,
infrastructures and institutions); and (iii) access
to relevant information. http://www.cta.int
Public Libraries Programme-Identifies and
funds various innovative public libraries
initiatives in developing countries
http://www.gatesfoundation.org
Provides Funding support
for training programmes
including the TEEAL and
Research4Life programmes
PHEA Partnership for
Higher
Education in
Africa
PHEA represents both a belief in the
importance and viability of higher education in
Africa and a mechanism to provide meaningful
assistance to its renaissance. Investment at
leading universities in the region during 20012010 http://www.foundation-partnership.org/
A joint project of Carnegie
Corporation The Ford
Foundation, the John D.
and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation, the
Rockefeller Foundation,
the William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, the
Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, and the Kresge
Foundation.
Phi –
Partnerships in
Health
Information
Phi is involved in initiatives aimed at building
the capacity of librarians and other information
professionals in Africa to strengthen health
information services, including facilitating
training and exchange programmes for
librarians and information professionals.
www.partnershipsinhealthinformation.org.uk
Health information
workers and libraries in
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sierra
Leone, Tanzania, Uganda
and Zambia, Other
emerging partnerships in
other countries.
FARA
FARA is the Forum for Agricultural Research
in Africa, an umbrella organization bringing
together and forming coalitions of major
stakeholders in agricultural research and
development in Africa. FARA complements the
innovative activities of national, international
and sub-regional research institutions to deliver
more responsive and effective services to its
stakeholders. http://www.fara-africa.org/aboutus/
Partnership on the RAILS
programme funded by
FAO in collaboration with
Sub-Regional
Organisations and NARS
e.g. KARI, ZARI,
Bill and
Melinda Gates
Foundation
The programme
encourages public libraries
to reach out to their
communities, partnering
with local government,
business and other
organization
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AGRIS
IMARK
III.1
AGRIS provides worldwide bibliographic
coverage of agricultural science and technology
literature. Assembled by the AGRIS Coordinating Centre, the Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) of the United Nations,
AGRIS offers an international perspective on
crucial agricultural research.
http://agris.fao.org/knowledge-and-informationsharing-through-agris-network
The Information Management Resource Kit
(IMARK) is a partnership-based e-learning
initiative to train individuals and support
institutions and networks world-wide in the
effective management of information. IMARK
consists of a suite of distance learning
resources, tools and communities on
information management.
A result of a continuing
partnership between
CGIAR, GFAR and FAO
along with national
research centres and
research information units.
Led by FAO in
collaboration with over 30
partner and contributing
organizations and is
coordinated through a
Steering Group
ITOCA’s E-Resources Training-of-Trainer Model
14. The approach employed is on delivering training-of-trainer platforms aimed at empowering the
participants with both technical, facilitation skills and confidence to go back to their institutions and
pass on the gained skills to their colleagues, clients and students thereby creating a cascading effect
downstream. This model has helped the interventions to reach thousands of researchers, faculty and
students in SSA in the last 12 years making it a more cost effective approach in the much resourced
face-to-face education model.
15. In partnership with International Development Agencies such as FAO, WHO, UNEP and CTA,
Cornell University’s Mann Library (USA), and the Institute of Development Studies (UK), ITOCA
has organized TEEAL/Research4Life programmes week long courses in 38 Sub-Saharan African
countries following a Training-of-Trainer (ToT) model. This means that every course graduate is well
equipped with the skills that enable them in-turn to go back to their base stations and train their
colleagues, students and clients in their home-institution. Such an approach necessitates the
incorporation of basic facilitation skills as part of the course. Mixing of information end-users such as
faculty, researchers and students with information brokers (librarians and information specialists)
results in a collaborative learning environment where the brokers are made aware of end-user
expectations and vice-versa.
III.2
Course Content:
16. Customized curricula that are continually refined and updated were developed for each specified
group and lessons learned through a comprehensive feedback mechanism after each course. This
ensured that each course was further refined to meet the needs of the participating institutions and
course attendees. Basic course content focused on developing basic World Wide Web and database
search strategies, general information literacy and facilitation skills.
17. Further advanced courses for selected trainers were delivered in 2010 through a partnership with
the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) of UK and the Albert R. Mann Library at Cornell
University aimed at empowering the trainers with workshop facilitation skills and promoting the
integration of information literacy skills in University curricula.
III.3
Workshops Audience:
18. Since 1999, ITOCA in partnership with local universities and research institutions has organized
and delivered about eighty (80) training-of-trainer courses on E-resources training spanning 38 SSA
countries at an average of seven workshops per year. The workshops have to date reached 1760
librarians, researchers and academics cascading the skills gained to an estimated 15,000 individuals
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downstream. Librarians form the majority of professionals trained during these workshops followed
by lecturers and researchers as Figure 1 below depicts.
19. To strike a gender balance and encourage the participation of more women in scientific research,
ITOCA aimed for a balance of 50% for female attendants. However out of a total of 1760, (589 were
female), a 34% female participation was achieved.
Figure 1: Professions Trained during TEEAL/R4L workshops
Category
Audience
Information brokers
Librarians/Info managers: 216
IT Managers: 93
End Users
Reseachers: 104
Lecturers Professors: 117
Other(technical officers, etc)
Other : 8
Table2: Types of Trained Participants in 80 courses
IV.
Lessons Learned and Recommendations
20. The years and time spent training professionals from the Sub-Saharan Africa region has given
ITOCA first hand lessons and experience on the various factors affecting skills capacity and local
content development. Overall the findings can be summed up as follows:
IV.2
Improved access to current research:
21. Whilst the trainings’ outcomes generally indicate improved access to current scientific research
over the Internet at selected participating institutions in the SSA region over the years through such
online programmes as the Research4life programmes (AGORA, HINARI and OARE) -low awareness
about e-resources available to users and low user skills remain as important barriers to the uptake and
use of library e-resources among both the information brokers and end users in the research and
academic communities in the region (FAO, 2009). These challenges have a direct impact on the
quality of local research and local publishing work the researchers, faculty and students can undertake
and produce given the limited resources at their disposal. The ability to write research manuscripts for
publishing, competitive grant proposals and other information intensive undertakings is affected.
IV.3
Libraries play an important role in building information skills:
22. The problem of low user skills amongst end users can only be effectively addressed if information
enablers such as librarians and information specialist continue to press on with their role as information
brokers empowering researchers, faculty and students with the necessary information literacy and search
skills. Libraries need to be better resourced and equipped if this is going to be a reality for the SSA region.
IV.4
Face-to-face training intervention costs continue to rise:
23. The costs of putting together and delivering a week long face-to-face workshop range from $600$1000 per participant (unit costs) in the SSA region taking into account the travel for resource persons,
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participants’ subsistence and venue and material costs. These rising costs have encouraged ITOCA and its
partners to seek and deliver virtual online courses to increase the reach of these courses. Tools like
Moodle www.moodle.itoca.org have been deployed, though it is early days to assess the effectiveness
of this strategy.
IV.4
Increasing local support for e-resources training courses:
24. Universities and research institutions seem more willing to host and support e-resources training
courses in the region than before. This could be taken as an indication of confidence by the hierarchy
at the institutions in the development of ICT/ICM skills among their staff in the region. In the last two
to three years, internal budgets have been used to support the costs of venue and Internet access for the
workshop by the hosting institutions. These logistics were previously all funded externally by funding
organisations.
IV.5
Increased local research content published in digital libraries:
25. Digital libraries and programmes continue to accelerate growth in the collection of local content
from the SSA region as reflected in the TEEAL, AGORA and HINARI collections thereby improving
its access both locally and internationally. This could be attributed to the increased access to
international publications that is spurring local researchers to contribute their innovations to
international publications doing so competitively given the improved access to information via eresources and improved user skills gained from the training interventions.
V.
Conclusion
26. While building local research continues to be a challenge, such capacity building interventions by
ITOCA, its partners and many other similar initiatives which have been undertaken over the years
seem to contribute significantly to the research and academic communities in the SSA region by
focusing on building and strengthening library skills and services. IT and Internet infrastructure need
to be upgraded and updated, the ratio of computers accessible by researchers needs to improve and
bandwidth costs reduced to affordable levels in order to support the institutional e-environment. The
issues of funding, aligned and relevant policies, management commitment and the institution’s eReadiness cannot be left out if the challenges of capacity building are to be tackled effectively.
Overall, the culture of research must increasingly be promoted across the different disciplines for
continued tangible new knowledge generation that will positively impact on social and economic
development in the SSA region.
27. These ITOCA e-resources courses continue to empower librarians and other information brokers
and contribute significantly to the building of ICT/ICM capacity of faculty, researchers and students in
the research and academic institutions. These training programmes play an important role in
influencing innovation and competitiveness in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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References
COLLE, R. (2005, MARCH 26). Building ICT4D capacity in and by African universities. International
Journal of Education and Development using ICT [Online], 1(1). Available:
http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=13.
UNESCO, 2010. Science Report 2010: the current status of science around the world. UNESCO, 2010, p
14. FAO, 2009. Factors Affecting Information Uptake in Universities in Developing Countries: a user
study of Research 4 Life Programmes at selected Universities in Five Countries. FAO Report 2009, p 22.
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