1. Scientific and Technological Information Management in Universities and Libraries-Active Training Environment 9. 2 May 2009-30 July 2009 Report Prepared by Andrew Malekani Professional Address: Sokoine University of Agriculture, Sokoine National Agricultural Library, P. O. Box 3022 Morogoro, Tanzania. Em:malekaniandrew2008@yahoo.com

2. INTRODUCTION The program started officially on Monday of 4th May 2009 with general introductions, expectations and poster presentations by all participants. Aims of the whole program were: -to sharpen participants skills in collecting, storing, retrieving, presenting and managing information. The contents of the program covered are summarized in a chart in the next slide.

3. ORGANIZATION OF THE PROGRAM Strengths on the organization: The organisation has been very strong in the following aspects: Organization environment. Lecture/practical venues (rooms), learning facilities, for example fast 24 hours internet connectivity, hostel closer to lecture venue, timing of the season. Good administration like timely fund disbursement, and constant updates on schedule.

5. Organization cont… Weaknesses on the organization: Long time interval between the same course component and same instructor. For example many courses would take between one and two weeks from first instruction to another. This situation prevented thorough comprehension and consistent follow up to the course in question. It is suggested to adopt concentrated teaching. This will help students maintain continuity and consistent course follow up.

6. CONTENTS OF THE PROGRAM The following were the best components of the program: Library presentations in all their facets. These helped understanding of: –best practices in management of libraries –how e-information could be harvested and made available to users using integrated library systems, –How co-operative acquisitions of e-resources under consortium environment in libraries can be managed.

7. BEST contents cont… Open Access Initiatives (introduction to open access): –Greenstone, –ISIS-based soft wares, –harvesters and directories used in open access movements.

8. LEAST INTERESTING COMPONENTS OF THE PROGRAM Little time allocated to some courses. Although the courses themselves were relevant some like use of PKP harvesters were treated shallowly.

9. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE HOME INSTITUTION Use of integrated library systems using tools like ABCD and greenstone. Building institutional repository of thesis, using open (free) source software building tools such as greenstone and ABCD. Use of citation tools to recommend journals for subscription.