Section on Document Delivery and Interlending

Interlibrary Lending and Document Delivery in Developing Countries:

Minutes from a meeting of project participants on Sunday August 31, 1997, in the Bella Center, Copenhagen.

Since the meeting Knud Erik Skouby from Center for Tele-Information, Technical University of Denmark, has been to Ghana to discuss technical solutions regarding Internet connections for the libraries involved, and he is working out a proposal, which we expect to be implemented

Further information:
The training seminar will be held in Ghana from 10th November until 21st November 1997. Mr. A.K. Martey, Balme Library will attend OCLC's training in the UK in January 1998.

Participants:
Kay Raseroka
Lone Hansen
Niels Mark
Anja Moeller Rasmussen
Ruth Kondrup
Heinz Fuchs
Christine Kisiedu
John Amekuedee
Jacinta Were
Kristine Abelsnes
Kari Garnes
Agneta Lindh
Graham Cornish
Sara Gould
Carol Priestley

Botswana
Denmark
Denmark
Denmark
Denmark
Germany
Ghana
Ghana
Kenya
Norway
Norway
Sweden
UK
UK
UK

Niels Mark welcomed to the meeting and started with some basic information about the project as a trial project where the intention is to use the results and experiences from the project in other developing countries.

1. State of affairs

The Danish project in Ghana.

A short "State of affairs" from July 1997 was distributed. Training of six librarians from Ghana took place in May/June 1997 in UK and Denmark. A report, coordinated by A.K. Martey, has been worked out and will be distributed with these minutes.
Before the training abroad the librarians had attended an Internet course in Ghana arranged by UNESCO & ITU for two weeks.
Next step in the project is a training seminar in Ghana for about twenty librarians from the involved libraries. A proposal for a programme is worked out by the Steering Committee and the trained librarians will act as resource persons.
On inquiry from Heinz Fuchs Christine Kisiedu confirmed that there was general satisfaction with the project. There is an enthusiastic support from the involved people.

Christine Kisiedu gave detailed information about the project activities in Ghana from the preparing seminar in April 1996 until now.

At the preparing seminar, April 1996, the ILL&DD situation in Ghana was thoroughly discussed with papers from Ghanians and from the Danish and Norwegian team.
The rest of the money from the seminar will be placed in a fund and used in connection with the next seminar.

After the preparing seminar, arranged by Balme Library, five other libraries were involved, and the heads of those six libraries and representatives from the university have established a Steering Committee. This year three meetings have been arranged. One was cancelled because of too small attendance. The six librarians trained in UK and DK have been constituted as a subcommittee of the steering committee.

Some of the activities mentioned by Christine Kisiedu: A study tour to South Africa for Edwin A. Asamoah, University of Cape Coast, Robert F. Creppy, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, and Christine Kisiedu, Balme Library.

The aim was to study two library co-operations in South Africa, the CALICO (Cape Library Co-operation), and GAELIC (Gauteng and its Environs Library and Information Consortium). The tour was arranged with helpful support from the South African colleagues, and a report about the experiences from the tour will be worked out.

Furthermore, Christine Kisiedu informed about the work in the steering committee, various networking and database projects in Ghana, the CD-ROM project, and Internet equipment at some of the libraries.

The seminar report from the preparing seminar, April 1996 An editing committee will go through the papers and after that send the papers to IFLA Office for UAP and International Lending for publishing and with financial support from the IFLA Section on Document Delivery and Interlending.

The Norwegian project in Kenya

Because of political problems in Kenya, the licence from the telecommunications corporation for the installment of the connection between Nairobi University Library and UNEP has not yet been approved. The University has applied for the licence but without results until now.

It is a problem which is difficult to solve, and in one or two months the project group will find out how to go on with the project, maybe by involvement of a commercial Internet provider or involvement in another country.

Together with NUFU (Norwegian Universities' Committee for Development Research and Education) the project hopes to get additional funding from the Ministry of Development Aid.

Three Norwegian libraries will supply copies free of charge, and BIBSYS and e-mail will be used in the co-operation.

2. Revised budget

A mistake in the budget was corrected:

Overflow of 10% is corrected to Administration expenses for The State and University Library.

3. IFLA poster session

Three posters have been worked out to give information about the basic idea of the project, of how it started and about the people who formulated the project from the beginning.

Besides, the posters give information about the preliminary seminar in Ghana April 1996, the Danish and Norwegian part of the projects and the involved libraries in Ghana and Kenya.

The poster session is programmed to open on Tuesday the 2th of September and manned from 12 o'clock until two o'clock both Tuesday and Wednesday.

4. Plans for the future

The training seminar in Ghana is planned to take place Autumn 1997
OCLC training in Birmingham in the OCLC services of one librarian from Balme Library. More details will be appointed at a meeting with representatives from OCLC.
Outworking of a state of affairs report at the end of 1997
Midterm evaluation seminar with representatives from the users and the university administration will be arranged at the end of 1998.

The IFLA Section on Document Delivery and Interlending plans to arrange a workshop in Amsterdam at the IFLA conference in 1998 with participants from both sides of the project.
It is important to draw attention to the model character of the trial project and to emphasize the management knowledge which has been obtained.

5. Statement of the project and evaluation

Information and reporting will be published in various IFLA publications like IFLA Newsletter and IFLA Journal (coordinated by Heinz Fuchs). INASP will publish a short information in the next issue of INASP newsletter. Lone Hansen suggested a homepage for the project on the IFLAnet. A possibility to inform about the project will be in "Libri." During 1998 an issue on libraries and librarianship in Africa will be published.

6. Cooperation agreements and contact to other projects

At present British Library, OCLC, Danish research libraries, Norwegian research libraries support in various ways.
The Danish National Library Authority support with IFLA vouchers during the trial period.

23 October 1997
Ruth Kondrup

Latest Revision: June 3, 1998