MIT course

Last year, i was blessed with a Carnegie Scholarship to study a Masters Degree in Information Technology. The course is two year and ends with a mini-dissertation. There is a lot of assignments related to the course but with the commitment and hard work, i will finish this course in the two years with God on my side as He has been always.

Book transfer/transport

It was such a surprising moment to see how books are transported in different libraries of South Africa. Books are transported using Swislog machines which operate like trains. They simplify book transfer and save time of the user as Ranganathan puts it. With technological advancements, this technology will at one time be adopted in Uganda because it is amazing. I found these machines at UNISA and NLSA

Swisslog

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Library visits made

The cordinators of CPD programme were able to take participants to different libraries within South Africa. Among the places visited include: University of South Africa Library and the National Library of South Africa.
In all these libraries, i was able to place and rate Makerere University Library in terms of infrastructure and i realised that Makerere Univ. library is also doing well in terms of infrastructure. For example we have a digitisation machine that can scan upto A0, a self check in and check out machine which are rare in some of the libraries in Uganda.
However, the self check in machine at Makerere are not card operated as opposed to those at UNISA

                                             Self Checkin machines at Makerere University Library.

Information Architecture

Understanding the way information is arranged on the website is a crucial role of the librarian to facilitate access. A deep assessment of the target audience information needs and their retrieval skills guides the information architect and the librarian in deciding whether to have only links on the home page or links and a brief description on the same page.

Working with PressBook

The use of press book is more like working with Google Docs where by the changes made can be viewed by other collaborating member. However, the disadvantage with press book is that you cannot edit the same page at once with your collaborator. Press book enables the addition of metadata, copyright and subtitles to make the publication more searchable.

The main advantage with pressbook is that each member can handle a specific chapter without interrupting other members and in this case, teamwork is promoted and the publication can be completed in a very limited time possible.

Publishing

It becomes quite interesting when you design a template and the author finds it already formatted

It is advantageous since it creates consistency in paragraph alignment and the font size and style.

As a result, standardization is maintained and the quality of the document as regards to publishable format achieved.

Digitisation

I am currently working on a digitisation project that covers conversion of grey literature into digital format and there after uploading the finished products into the Institute of Development Studies institutional repository. Digitisation was already done before days before to CPD but little editing of TIFF files.
The experience has got with digitisation and editing of scanned files will have a great impact on the current and future digitisation projects

Digitisation Machine at National Library of South Africa