osarome ogbebor

Taylor & Francis Journals has been awarded International Publisher of the Year 2010 by the International Printers’ Network (IPN). The award was given to Taylor & Francis in recognition of their pioneering use of digital printing technology to reduce their carbon footprint and improve delivery times to subscribers. Rather than printing in one location and then shipping issues worldwide, Taylor & Francis has worked with their suppliers on a distributed print-on-demand model, splitting the print run across the Europe, the US and Asia for onward distribution to local subscribers http://www.informa.com/Media-centre/Press-releases--news/Latest-News/Taylor--Francis-Journals-triumphs-as-International-Publisher-of-the-Year-2010/

In 2005, Guinness designated 18th November as International Guinness World Records Day to encourage breaking of world records. PEOPLE GATHER IN LIBRARY TO TRY TO SET CUP-STACKING RECORD . No one shushed the children who screamed, shouted and cheered at the Port Orange Public Library on Thursday while a few adults browsed among the book stacks or tried to read newspapers. The commotion happened during an event aimed at achieving a Guinness world cup stacking record and collecting canned goods for a local food bank in the process. The goal of the Stack up Guinness World Record Day was to get 300,000 people around the world to participate in a popular pastime of cup stacking. The 2009 record was more than 276,000, said Karen Poulsen, library support service manager. "Last year, we had 112. This year's goal is 200," she said. By 6 p.m. that goal was exceeded by 12 participants with still another hour to stack. http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/local/east-vol...

The 21st Session of the World Intellectual Property Organisation's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) took place in Geneva between November 8th and 12th 2010. library groups received the positive news that exceptions and limitations for libraries and archives were confirmed as second place in line, after the print disabled, for focused discussions at WIPO. The meeting conclusions, available here http://keionline.org/sites/default/files/Conclusions_SCCR_21.doc http://www.ifla.org/en/news/21-st-wipo-standing-committee-on-copyright-and-related-rights

In line with its focus, One Young World Nigeria is launching its first project “Adopt a Library”. The aim of this project is to facilitate refurbishment and creation of libraries in public secondary school. This is informed by the recognition of the malaise in the Nigerian education system. By liaising with the general public, volunteers and alliance partners, One Young World Nigeria seeks to organise collections of reference books, textbooks, storybooks and all forms of literary works to be donated for use in these school libraries. One Young World Nigeria (OYWON) is a movement that was birthed from the One Young World global youth summit held in London from February 8 to 10, 2010. The summit, conceived in 2009, brought together young people from over 100 countries around the world to engage in discussions with forerunners from all walks of life, including Mr. Kofi Annan, Bob Geldof, Muhammad Yunus, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu on issues confronted by present and future generation...

Information literacy is the adoption of appropriate information behaviour to identify, through whatever channel or medium, information well fitted to information needs, leading to wise and ethical use of information in society. Information literacy is critically important because we are surrounded by a growing ocean of information in all formats. Not all information is created equal: some are authoritative, current, reliable, but some are biased, out of date, misleading, and false. The amount of information available is going to keep increasing. The types of technology used to access, manipulate, and create information will likewise expand. Information Literacy is the ability to identify what information is needed, understand how the information is organized, identify the best sources of information for a given need, locate those sources, evaluate the sources critically, and share that information. Roles of libraries and librarians: • Moving away from librarians – as- expert t...

Mentoring is one form of continuing professional development that has the potential to overcome limitations. Mentoring programmes and activities have the advantage of being immediately responsive to individual learning needs, and their availability to ‘members only’ can be designated as one of the advantages of professional association membership. It could serve as an encouragement to attracting new members and for retaining existing members. Research has shown that there are at least seven characteristics of mentoring programmes that are critical to the ongoing success of such programmes. These are summarized in the following points: • Clearly defined purpose and goals, • Coordinator and/or committee support, • Mentors with interpersonal skills and an interest in the development of others, • Training in the skills of mentoring, • Mentors who are accessible, • Regular meeting may be a requirement, • It is what you do rather than personalities involved that is important....

In the rush to embrace new technologies, are we losing our identity as librarians? This is not a question aimed at luddite tendencies which abound in almost all of the professions. Rather, the question is targeted toward tendencies within the profession to place trust in technology as a panacea in all situations, or a misplaced trust in “cutting edge” technologies. It is a danger to mentally substitute a means for an end in itself. If we do so, we could be doing the patron, the library, and society a disservice. Technology is a means, and a powerful one, and as librarians we have a responsibility to our constituencies to use technology in appropriate ways, to be educated concerning the consequences of inappropriate use, and to imbue our use of technology with the perennial values of librarianship. There will always be “dragons”, but we need to beware of mirages, or the dragon that destroys us could be one of our own design. Using technology in an appropriate and responsible way, k...