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ACTEA Librarians eNews #11, April 2005The mission of ACTEA is to promote quality evangelical theological education in Africa by providing supporting services, facilitating academic recognition, and fostering continental and inter-continental cooperation. Greetings Fellow Librarians and Information Workers, I trust that you are well into the New Year and have exciting things planned for your libraries. In this issue of ACTEA Librarians eNews:
1. Letters from our readersPhyllis Engle writes from the Theological College of Zimbabwe, "We have recently relaunched a journal. Our journal used to be called the Zimbabwe Journal of Christian Ministry, but has been re-introduced as Indaba Zinhle: Theological College of Zimbabwe Journal of Theological Reflection. Lecturers at the College contributed articles to this new launch in July 2004. You can request an introductory copy from the Editor at: TCZ@netconnect.co.zw Samuel Mbogo (Marist International Centre, Nairobi) writes, "KRIC (Kenya Interreligious Library Committee) were excited to hear about the ACTEA Librarians eNews and hopefully they will be sharing their ideas in this forum. "KRIC held a successful two day (28th Feb 1st March 2005) Inmagic DB/Textworks workshop at Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA). The workshop was facilitated by Mr Samuel Mbogo of Marist International Centre Nairobi, Kenya, and addressed the basics of Inmagic DB/Textworks and its application in libraries in operations such as cataloguing, loans, borrower information, searching techniques, etc. "KRIC also released its fourth edition of KRIC Union Catalogue of Monographs 2005. It comprises the following institutions:
"KRIC Union List of Periodicals 2004 edition is also available on CD. It comprises nine institutions within Nairobi City." Ann Podmore, the new librarian at Harare Theological College, writes, "I took over the job at Harare Theological College six months ago and discovered that the library needed a subject catalogue. "We have now acquired an automated system, Heritage IV [see comments below in section 3] which I believe is very popular amongst theological libraries, and the retrospective cataloguing exercise must begin. I have approached several librarians who have not been able to tell me if a special subject headings list for theological libraries exists, or what they use to give access to their collections. With the advent of OPACs, the concept of subject headings seems to have been eclipsed by keywords. A special subject headings system to help an inexperienced cataloguer of theological material would be a great help. "My idea would be a list of subjects connected to the DDC 200 class, and the rest of our collection could be well covered by Sears or Unesco headings probably a pipe dream!" Do any of our readers have suggestions for Ann. What do you do in your libraries? Graham Naude (Namibia Evangelical Theological Seminary) writes, "Thank you very much for another informative ACTEA Librarians eNews. "While at the University of Cape Town a few years back I did a self study on 'library anxiety' [see September 04 ACTEA Librarians eNews]. I enclose a select bibliography on the issue. Feel free to include it in your next eNews." Thank you for this, Graham. I'll include the list in a future edition of eNews. 2. Request for articles/information/lettersRemember that this is OUR newsletter. Please send in any information you think would be worthwhile to include in the next eNews. Original ideas, or something of interest you can across during your private or professional reading would be most welcome. Please take ownership of this baby or it will die! 3. Heritage IV computer programmeweb address: www.isoxford.com/ISOxford/ContactUs.htm Harare Theological College uses this system. Ann Podmore, Librarian at HTC, says that All Nations Bible College also uses it. Ann says Heritage IV is a very effective system and that the Library Association (CILIP UK) also uses it. A strong recommendation indeed! HTC has bought the "basic kit" and have opted to leave out some of the less important (for them) modules. Ann says, "It is also very reasonably priced as systems go and we have been very happy with the service so far. The Heritage IV team in the UK do not seem at all daunted by the fact of us being far away." The following description was taken from the Heritage IV website: Heritage IV is a Library Management System designed not only to meet the traditional requirements of a resource centre, but also to act as a gateway to other information sources. Heritage provides catalogue screens into which data of any type (including websites) can be entered. It offers modules to take data from other sources such as the British Library or Library of Congress and to transfer it straight into the catalogue, saving enormous amounts of time. Layout is clear. Screens are pleasant to look at and easy go navigate. The system caters for resource centres with a few hundred titles as well as those with many hundreds of thousands. The Heritage IV catalogue can accommodate any number of media types. Other electronic media such as images, files, documents and websites can be linked to the catalogue. OPAC users can then access these. A data import module called Quickcat Online makes cataloguing considerably easier. If one already has a library system, the existing catalogue can be transferred to Heritage. An optional MARC21 cataloguing module is available for those that need to work in MARC. The circulation facility is provided on a single screen which can be controlled with a barcode scanner. A wide range of information is available on this screen at the press of a button. Heritage IV has a comprehensive ordering facility. A fast receipts facility provides an easy way of checking in and barcoding items. The budgetary controls include a transaction history. Invoicing information can be recorded. The serials management facility handles most aspects of entering and managing journals. It can create all of the expected issues for a subscription automatically for ease of checking-on. It also has a claims facility and budgetary controls. Server Software: Windows 2000, 2003 or Novell for fileserver. 2000 or 2003 with IIS or Apache required for Webserver if using the WebOPAC. Station software: Window 98SE, ME, 2000 or XP Server Hardware: Pentium 700MHz, 256M RAM, 300M disk space typically required for programs and data. Station hardware: Pentium 233 MHz or 32 M RAM for Windows 98 and ME, 256M RAM for Windows 2000 and XP. Ann Podmore says the cost is reasonable and that technical support is good. For cost and more information use the website address. 4. Theft of library materialsThis topic was suggested by Samuel Mbogo (Marist International Centre). Samuel asks how can we address the following issues:
Samuel suggests possible solutions such as security systems, counselling and user education. What do you do in your library to deal with this very serious issue? As regards security systems the following are a few points to bear in mind:
Book theft is alive and well all over the world. Attienna Okundu, of the National Book and Development Council of Kenya, has gone on record as saying that booklifting (a special name for theft of library books in Kenya) is of great concern. Many libraries in Kenya employ security officers, but this has not had much effect on the booklifting trend. The BBC is working with Kenyan Ruben Gitari, to assist in bringing the problem to light and to minimize the loss to collections (posted by Birdie on 1st Feb 2001 on the internet). Jennifer Brooks (Detroit News) says that as long as there have been libraries, there have been book thieves: "King Ptolemy II is said to have withheld wheat from the starving citizens of Athens in the midst of a famine, until he was allowed to borrow and make copies of the manuscripts of the Greek literary and philosophical giants. The king kept the originals for his great library in Alexandria! "In his treatise 'Concerning Books', the philosopher Aristotle condemned those who steal books to sell for profit as 'unnatural'. "In 1988 Jerry G Hasford, an author nominated for an Oscar for his work on the script of 'Full Metal Jacket', was arrested after police found more than 9,816 books in his rented storage locker, stolen from libraries as far away as Australia." Please write in and air your views on this topic. It is such a big issue that we need to pool our ideas. 5. Serials ManagementSamuel Mbogo also asked if we could have a forum on the topic of Serials Management. As Samuel notes, "Serials consume a large chunk of our library budgets." He is saddened by the idea that despite the fact that some contain specialised, detailed and up-to-date information, they are rarely used. How do we market the content of periodicals to students so that, in Samuelıs words, "They become avid readers of journals." Please write in and give your ideas on this topic. Personally, I believe that it is the Librarianıs duty to promote the journal collection to Faculty/Teaching staff first and then to educate students in the usefulness of periodical articles. Do you think teaching staff should be aware of the usefulness of the journal collection already? Think again! Some things to consider:
Samuel (Marist International Centre) also asks, "Are e-journals the answer to the rising cost of hard paper journals? What about accessibility and availability of back issues?." We will be addressing these issues in the next eNews. I have heard that the e-journals are at present not cheaper than the paper versions. What are your views on the whole issue of e-journals? Write in before June 05 so that I can include your comments in the next eNews. 6. Open Access Publishing - JournalsDonald MacLeod in an article in the Education Guardian entitled, "Academics fight to break stranglehold on journals," speaking mainly about the scientific community, says, "Hopes of opening up research findings to a wider readership and breaking the stranglehold of publishers over academic journals was aired at a conference at Southampton University of Southampton on 26th January 2005." Alternative publishing models could offer a free and unimpeded access to scholarship and promise both a more affordable system for academic institutions and their libraries and a more democratic one for readers and authors. According to Professor Stevan Harnard, one of the founders of the open access (OA) movement, there are two roads to open access the "golden road" of publishing in an OA journal (author-institution pays publication costs instead of user-institution) and the "green road" of publishing in a non-OA journal but also self-archiving the article in an OA archive. Harnard says self-archiving should be mandated by universities and funders such as research councils. Moves towards OA are mainly found in the scientific community at present. Is OA a possibility for theological journals, do you think? Certainly it would make subscription to journals a lot cheaper, eventually they could be free. Is this the stuff of dreams, or is it a real possibility? 7. Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in AfricaDoes your library have a subscription to the Bulletin for Old Testament Studies in Africa? The Bulletin aims at being a forum for exchange of ideas and information about the Old Testament in Africa. BOTSA comments on pedagogical, methodological and research political questions related to the Old Testament. It also advertises relevant research projects, teaching programmes, books and conferences. Publication is biannually (May and November). The paper edition is sent free of charge to Old Testament scholars and African theological libraries.
That is all for now readers. Thank you for your contributions. Please keep them rolling in. God bless. David Fitz-Patrick
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