Librarian Training
FEATURE
Above (clockwise): Training information professionals in Guyana, Nepal, Fiji, and Vietnam, and, opposite, a training session in Ethiopia
train people who will then go back to their own countries and train others and also to encourage their institutions to make better use of the programmes. One example of this was at a course on emerging pathogens, held recently at the University of Florida. Many of the course attendees were from institutions that were eligible for R4L access, so Rhine did the HINARI short course as part of the meeting and said that the response was very positive. Rhine has also been working closely with
KIT and the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine in the Netherlands to do similar
and take the training course with them,’ said Rhine. He added that the training course is deliberately made up of tiny PDF files so that it is easy to download even where availability of bandwidth is a challenge.
Technology barriers Bandwidth still is a challenge in many parts of the world, although the situation is improving. ‘It is hard to generalise as some regions of the world have better internet access than others,’ noted Rhine. ‘Several cables have been run to coastal regions of Africa and slowly these cables are being
‘I’ve not seen sufficient bandwidth in developing countries to access information on smartphones as we might want it’
training. ‘I get a very positive reception from people who are not eligible for HINARI too,’ he said, recalling delivering the course to veterinary and medical professors who realised they had collaborators and students that they could encourage to use these resources. To help reach a wider audience, the train
the trainer course is also now available on the Medical Libraries Association Moodle. ‘Every so often librarians go to other countries
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run to the interior so users are becoming less reliant on satellites. Most of the half- decent internet access is still in the big cities though.’ He noted an increasing trend for WiFi
access too. ‘I was in Nepal doing a training course and everyone came in with a laptop. Once you have that, you can do the training a little differently. For example, people can bookmark things and save them to their hard
drives,’ he said. In his experience, however, access to scholarly information via smartphones is still not widespread in the developing world. ‘I’ve not seen sufficient bandwidth in developing countries to access information on smartphones as we might want it,’ he said, although he added that he may not have seen it as the training he does is in rooms with desktops and laptops. Technology restrictions also currently prevent the obvious extension to the idea of training librarians around the world, delivering training online. ‘We have discussed this with ITOCA [Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa, which aims to enhance ICT skills for librarians, information specialists, scientists, researchers and students in sub-Saharan Africa]. The bandwidth is not there yet but it may become more possible,’ said Rhine. Another goal is to get more formats like e-books included in the three programmes and to offer more interactive content as bandwidth increases. So what is next for Rhine? ‘I’ll do this as
long as I can,’ he said. ‘The key is the 2015 big review of R4L. We want to make sure that publishers continue to commit to the programmes.’
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