Posted by Heather Ross for Helen via email
We visited AAU today. It is by far the largest of the libraries we have seen so far. The University itself has 40,000 students. The main library is the John F Kennedy Library, and there are 12 branch libraries spread around the central campuses and at campuses scattered around the city and surrounding areas—up to 25 km away. Some are special mission campuses, such as the Medical School; others are more general such as the campus that caters more to the science faculty.
The director comes from an IT rather than a library background, which seems to be the pattern here. Perhaps that isn’t an entirely bad thing. Their libraries do need a lot of updating the in the area of technology – and they are working very hard to do that.
AAU still has a card catalog, and they showed us the tech processing unit where they were producing the cards to distribute to the branch libraries. It is a central processing operation with a “union catalog” for the entire system at the main library. They are in the process of automating and moving to an ILS using the KOHA system. They hope to make the transition in 3-4 months.
They provide a wide array of services and resources to their students. There are 30 electronic databases available including many of the ones we have (or want). They get their databases through a project called Perii-INASP http://www.inasp.info/ that provides resources to developing countries. These are resources that are available to all universities in Ethiopia. Ethiopia, as a country, pays a single fee. These include resources like JStor, Project Muse, T&F journals, and a bunch of others. It also includes document delivery service from the British Library. So they are building resources, the challenge seems to be getting the word out to researchers that these resources are available (sound familiar?)
They also have 3 computer labs in the library. Most impressive were the services they have for the visually impaired students. They have a lab with equipment to read text and other software, special reading rooms, and Braille collections. It’s clear they are investing quite a bit of time and energy in this service. They have about 200 or so visually impaired students, including quite a few graduate students. We met and spoke briefly with a visually impaired PhD student working on a degree in English as a Foreign Language.
Other initiatives included electronic texts and reserves services, wireless service throughout the libraries, and electronic theses and dissertations. All-in-all, we were impressed with the work they are doing. They have limited resources and yet they are providing excellent services within the limits of those resources.
After we finished at the library we were able to visit the Ethiopian Studies Institute on campus. It is housed in the Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace which is part museum (the best in Ethiopia by far), houses an excellent library with strengths in Ethiopian language and culture, and the university administrative offices. They are building a new facility that will house the library, and a separate facility for the admin offices leaving the old palace as a museum.
The visit was a good end to our trip to Ethiopia. Now back to the hotel for a few hours rest before we head to the airport and a long flight home.
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