On Tuesday, May 26th 2009, Dr. Siro Masinde the Regional Coordinator for Africa conducted a JSTOR/Aluka training workshop at Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal.  The half day workshop was organized in collaboration with UCAD and the Senegalese Association of Librarians, Archivists and Documentalists (ASBAD) and was attended by 23 participants from universities, government departments and international organizations such as IDRC. The workshop was opened by the President of ASBAD, Dr Adama Aly Pam, an information management specialist at the Central Bank of West Africa (BCEAO), Dakar.The workshop program consisted of introductory lectures about JSTOR and Aluka databases followed by practical sessions on using these databases. There were lively discussions on how Africa can play a more prominent role in knowledge production and dissemination. It was noted by participants that French speaking West Africa needs to do more to utilize online resources of which the majority are in the English language. It was emphasized during discussions that knowledge transcends language, geography, race and other trivial barriers that make people not utilize or underutilize resources.  Participants resolved to play an active role in disseminating information about JSTOR/Aluka in West Africa so as to enhance usage and encourage new sign ups. At the end of the workshop, participants felt confident in using JSTOR and Aluka databases and were very impressed about features such citation exportation in JSTOR as well as book and image viewers in Aluka. Participants wish list included, inclusion of journals on library and information/knowledge management and the reduction of the moving wall to shorter periods, and where possible making current issues available. Participants were all very grateful for the African Access Initiative that has enabled users in Africa to access all JSTOR collections at no cost. Workshop participants are expected to host training workshops at their respective institutions or departments in coming weeks so as to ensure that skills shared by more persons. The participants were given information materials and a training CD and also shown where to find other training materials on the JSTOR website. Additional images from Dr. Masinde’s training and visits across Africa are available on our Flickr page.

 Dr. Siro Masinde, JSTOR and Aluka’s Regional Coordinator for Africa, is participating in the 4th International Conference on ICT for Development, Education and Training, eLearning Africa 2009 from May 27-29, 2009. The conference is taking place in Dakar, Senegal at the hotel Le Méridien Président.  The annual forum is recognized as ‘the most comprehensive conference on ICT for development, education and training on the Continent.’ Siro will deliver a presentation co-authored by Michael Gallagher, a member of our User Services group, entitled, “Electronic Resource Education in Africa: Towards an Economy of Scope in JSTOR and Aluka’”. The presentation gives an overview of our engagement with Africa in providing e-resources and training, as well as how we create digitization projects in order to support African adoption and creation of other e-resources. Most of Aluka content has been generated in Africa through collaborations with a diverse array of partners from across the continent. Siro’s presentation will take place on Friday, May 29th, 2009 during the session on Capacity-Building Opportunities for Teachers, Practitioners and Policy Makers (CAP32: 10:45 – 12.00) in Room B05/06. While in Senegal, Dr. Masinde will also conduct a JSTOR/Aluka training workshop at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) on Tuesday May 26th. The workshop has been organized under the auspices of the Senegalese Association of Librarians, Archivists and Documentalists (ASBAD).  If you are interested in learning more about JSTOR and Aluka and meeting with Dr. Masinde during his upcoming visit to Senegal please send him an email.  

The Raymond Suttner Collection has been released in the Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa Collection in Aluka. This Collection contains ten interviews that examine various themes in the underground struggle against apartheid in South Africa. It also contains excerpts from Professor Suttner’s recent book, The ANC Underground in South Africa.

Please see more at: http://www.aluka.org/action/doBrowse?sa=3&st=494286&execbr=&sls

Dr. Heinz Ruther of the Department of Geomatics at the University of Cape Town was recently featured on the World Monuments Fund website at http://wmf.org/Eth_lalibela_2009.html. The website highlights Dr. Ruther’s groundbreaking work at Lalibela, Ethiopia.

The small town of Lalibela, high in the mountains of northern Ethiopia, is one of the most important pilgrimage places of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It boasts no fewer than 11 of the exceptional rock-hewn churches that are the most remarkable monuments to have survived from medieval Ethiopia. The place takes its present name from the pious King Lalibela, who reigned around A.D. 1200, and to whom creation of all the churches is traditionally attributed.

Dr. Ruther has meticulously documented the Lalibela site with a host of 3D models, images, geospatial materials and video recordings; all of these are available in the  African Cultural Heritage Sites and Landscapes collection at http://www.aluka.org/action/showCompilationPage?doi=10.5555%2FAL.CH.COMPILATION.HERITAGE-SITE.LALIBELA&ste=.

The World Monuments Fund has been working to develop a conservation plan for Lalibela in cooperation with UNESCO; Dr. Ruther’s work at Lalibela helps highlight this oft-forgotten piece of Ethiopian heritage. 

Dr. Siro Masinde of JSTOR (www.jstor.org) and Ruth Thomas of the Kenya Indexing Project have been invited to participate in a live Kenyan television program from Nairobi hosted by Nation TV called NTV This Morning. The program is scheduled for Saturday 14th at 7:30 A.M, Kenyan time (UTC/GMT +3 hours). Dr. Masinde and Ruth Thomas will discuss issues around digitization, archiving, indexing, as well as information sharing and dissemination.

The Kenya Indexing Project is an online index of articles published in Nairobi newspapers, including ‘The Daily Nation”, a leading newspaper in East Africa based in Nairobi. The materials in the Kenya Indexing Project cover a range of disciplines, including culture, law, health and other topics. The Kenya Indexing Project database, comprising over 100,000 newspaper articles, will be hosted by JSTOR/Aluka under the contributed content model. JSTOR has worked in close collaboration with the Kenyan Indexing Project in the past and looks forward to building on our exchanges in future projects. If you would like more information about their work, visit their homepage. 

Nation TV is one of the largest media houses in Eastern Africa, serving large audiences throughout Kenya. For more information about Nation TV, visit their homepage or their dedicated YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/NTVKenya.

Professor Heinz Ruther and his team from the University of Cape Town are conducting a two week documentation trip to Sudan, focusing on heritage sites in the ancient Kingdom of Kush.  Why Sudan?  Many an Africanist is aware that Sudan contains more pyramids than all of Egypt and yet general awareness of Nubian and Kushite civilizations remains limited.  There are signs of increased awareness.  Aluka looks forward to sharing this documentation in the future.  Here are some images from our 2006 trip to Sudan.  A special thanks to the staff of the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums (NCAM) in Khartoum and our friends at the Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin for their generous cooperation and assistance.  Visit our page on Flickr to see additional images from the 2006 trip to Sudan. 

The second part of our journey took us to Egypt, where we gave a series of presentations and training sessions in Cairo and Alexandria. The attendance was excellent, the questions were insightful and the reception for both JSTOR and Aluka was amazing.

In Cairo, we gave two training presentations on the same day, one at Cairo University and the other across town at Ain Shams University. At Cairo University, we were given a quick tour of the newly built library and its excellent facilities. The sessions were attended by a mix of librarians, faculty and staff. There were many questions about the possible inclusion of Arabic content, as well as access questions. Aluka stimulated a lot of discussion and questions were raised about the possible inclusion of Egyptian content. The second session at Ain Shams University was attended by over 200 people, a lively mix of students, faculty and librarians. Questions and discussions were spirited and ranged from the inclusion of Arabic, Hebrew and Farsi content, to access issues and individual collections, most notably the Aluka Beckwith and Fisher African Ceremonies Collection.

We then flew to Alexandria, the coastal city and home to the likes of Cleopatra, and Callimachus, the father of cataloging and librarian at the ancient Library of Alexandria. We gave presentations to librarians at the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina, an amazing structure and home to a host of initiatives spearheaded to preserve Egyptian history, both immediate and ancient. We met with many librarians and discussed possible collaboration. The sessions were very well attended and we look forward to future visits.

It has been a long, but productive trip, one that allowed us to see the potential impact of Aluka in the region. We look forward to our return!

Siro Masinde and Michael Gallagher of JSTOR are in Tunis, Tunisia giving presentations at a variety of different organizations, including the African Development Bank and a few Tunisian universities. We have been fortunate to meet a wide range of librarians, students, bankers and other professionals and have greatly enjoyed their enthusiasm for JSTOR and Aluka.

Earlier in the week, we participated in a conference hosted by the African Development Bank that highlighted their electronic resources. EBSCO, Wiley-Blackwell and Oxford were all present as were a host of other information resources. The younger professional staff of the bank all seemed quite familiar with JSTOR having used it while at university; a great deal of the JSTOR staff can testify to the same experience!

Wednesday found us at Tunis El-Minar University, a large public university situated right in the middle of Tunis. We met with a variety of librarians and students and introduced them to both JSTOR and Aluka. Refreshments were provided for all attendees; we received quite a few requests for future workshops.

Thursday took us to the lovely town of Carthage, home to Hannibal of history and some of the finest scenery that Tunisia has to offer. We visited with the librarians at IHEC and then conducted a training session for both JSTOR and Aluka in their impressive computer rooms. The internet connections were fast, the computer equipment quite advanced and the librarians and attendees attentive and inquisitive. We had a great time with a wonderful group of people and greatly look forward to our return.

We are off tomorrow for Egypt, first to Cairo for sessions at Cairo University and Ain Shams University and then to Alexandria for sessions at the Bibliotheque Alexandria. More posts to come!

The Pieter Boersma Photograph sub-collection is now available in the Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa Collection in the Aluka Digital Library. Boerma, a Dutch photographer, has contributed 192 photographs covering solidarity campaigns and the liberation struggle within Southern Africa.

Some of the topics covered are:

The elections of 1989 and 1994 in Namibia, South Africa, and Mozambique.

Conferences in Southern Africa and Europe in the 1980s and early 1990s that brought together Europeans, Africans, and South Africans living in exile.

Conferences and public hearings on apartheid aggression, held in the 1980s in Zimbabwe and the Netherlands.

Mozambican displaced persons’ and refugee camps in Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.

South African musicians and artists performing in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s.
The exiled ANC Headquarters in Zambia, and Umkhonto weSizwe combatants returning to South Africa in 1990.

Photographs of liberation leaders, such as Chris Hani, Desmond Tutu, O. R. Tambo, Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, Graça Machel, C. F. Beyers Naudé, Sam Nujoma, and Nelson Mandela.

For more information on Pieter Boersma, please see http://pieterboersmaphotography.com

Professor Heinz Ruther and his team of researchers at the University of Cape Town have begun processing the huge data set collected earlier this year during their field work in Ethiopia.  Over the years it is really remarkable to witness the remarkable advances in laser scanning equipment and software.  These advances are readily apparent in the quality of digital outputs shared in Aluka by Prof. Ruther.  Here is an advance glimpse of some of the exciting digital documentation of the rock churches of Lalibela.  We hope to make this new set of data available in early 2009.