Discussion Paper Title: Attracting young African minds to Indexing Presented by: Tebogo Moselakgomo (Librarian/ Indexer at the National Library of South Africa)

The objective of this paper is to discuss ways and strategies in which young Africans can be attracted to the profession of Indexing and Information science field. This discussion paper asks questions, highlights some challenges and points out some benefits. The paper is about ideas/opinions on how to deal with the attraction of young people to the profession. This ideas and opinions will in turn provide a clear view on what mechanisms can be utilised in promoting Indexing subject/ or module, for the attraction of potential information science graduates and within tertiary institutions.

What is Indexing?  Indexing is the process of creating indexes for record collections. Having indexes allows researchers to more quickly find records for specific individuals; without them, researchers might have to look through hundreds or thousands of records to locate an individual record.  An index is a copy of select columns of data from a table that can be searched very efficiently that also includes a low-level disk block address or direct link to the complete row of data it was copied from.

 Information science is that discipline that investigates the properties and behavior of information, the forces governing the flow of information, and the means of processing information for optimum accessibility and usability. It is concerned with that body of knowledge relating to the origination, collection, organization, storage, retrieval, interpretation, transmission, transformation, and utilization of information.

 Who are the young African minds?  In this case these are the youth of Africa as a whole, the upcoming information specialists, the new information science graduates, young information professionals.  Several tertiary institutions which offers Information science degrees 1. University of Limpopo 2. University of South Africa 3. University of Witwatersrand 4. University of Cape Town 5. University of Western Cape 6. University of Pretoria 7. University of Zululand

 Some of this institutions who are offering Information science as a degree, do not offer Indexing as part of information science modules. Which make it difficult to attract potential graduates to Indexing, because most of them only discovers indexing in the corporate world. Some of those institutions which offer Indexing as a module do not teach the practical part of the module, they only teach the Theoretical part of it or they might have problems with lectures.

 What can be done to attract young information professionals into Indexing?  Who is responsible for attracting young people to information science/or indexing as a module?  From who and where should it start from? Lecturers or tertiary institutions?  What role can corporate organisations, tertiary institutions, older generation of information specialists/librarians and LIS association, for example: LIASA, ASAIB, etc, can play?

 The older generation of information professional have a major role to play in this, it can be professors, Lecturers, retired information professionals, librarians, and it’s very deprecatory for them to Intricate in this. Then that’s where we going to engage more in the following:  Skills transfer- competencies in performance of a particular job which can be used in the performance of another job.  Skills always go with the will to learn more, so it also depends on the young professionals to grasp what they being taught and run with it and use it to empower themselves in turn keeping Indexing alive.  According to Dep. of higher education in SA, statistics on post-school education and training, there were graduates in 2011, the faculties of Humanities and social sciences in South Africa.

 But another question which is a supplement to the one above is that:  What must be done in order to attract the young professionals?  The implications of all this is very concerning, because if young people are actually not attracted to Indexing then in the near future it means the subject/module or Indexing itself will be lost.  Our greatest resource is our young people. Youth have passion, determination, ambition and drive. Who wouldn’t want to have individuals with these qualities working for their business?

 How to attract young people Here is one of the things to do in attracting young people Brand your organization as a fun place to work.  Younger employees are attracted to organizations where there are other young employees and where special attention is devoted to creating a fun environment. Organizations focusing on creating an enjoyable environment do things such as Friday afternoon pizza parties, intramural sports teams; dress down days, ice cream socials, ping-pong tournaments, and Thursday night informal gatherings at the local pub.

 They bring new ideas and perspectives to the workplace;  Youth share their ideas and give suggestions as to how a business can manage these ideas effectively.  They are eager and willing to learn;  Youth enjoy learning and are open to coaching and mentoring from others.  They are enthusiastic, energetic and physically active;  Engaged youth bring a level of energy to work products.  They are creative, adaptable, open minded and learn quickly;  Youth are interested in skill and knowledge-building opportunities; they thrive on being able to apply their creativity and adapt quickly to meet new challenges.  They are not afraid of technology or change;  Youth embrace change. They like the challenges and the opportunities that change brings. Businesses can use the skills that youth bring with regard to technology to implement cost saving technological changes.

 Attracting young African minds into the field of Information science and Indexing in particular as a module, could bear many benefits.  It will mean the preservation of information regarding or which concerns indexing. It could mean an investment for the future, because like Rangel, Charles. B said “Encouragement of higher education for our youth is critical to the success of our collective future”, and Like Rizal, J said “The youth is the hope of our future”.  All this is part of providing opportunities through indexing and bibliography to young African minds.

THE END THANK YOU. “ A good society means sharing knowledge ”

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