Report of the Participation on World Library Information Congress 81st IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 15-21 August 2015 - South Africa

Cape Town - International Convention Centre

Monica Chipungahelo September, 2015

Acknowledgements

The presenter would like to thank you the support from AHILA in Collaboration with the Norwegian Library Association, (Section for Medicine and Health (SMH) and Patnership in Health Information for funding the participation at the IFLA World Library Information Congress, 2015

My sincere gratitude goes to my employer Tanzania Food and Nutrition Centre who provided permission to attend the WLIC 2015 at CapeTown, South Africa.

1.0 Introduction

The IFLA World Library and Information Congress is the international flagship professional and trade event for the library and information services sector.

The World Library Information Congress 2015 was held in Cape Town, South Africa from 15-21 August, 2015 at Cape Town International Convention Centre.

The conference was opened by Honorable Minister of Arts and Culture-Nathi Mthetwa of South Africa. The conference theme was “Dynamic Libraries: Access, Development and Transformation”. The theme is of critical importance to strengthen democracy on a continent where libraries need to connect with civil society to demonstrate the value they add in eradicating poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and ignorance with special emphasis on early

childhood development, youth services, women’s health and local economic development.

In Photo: Hon. Minister of Arts and Culture-Nathi Mthetwa

1.1 Objectives of the Participation on IFLA World Library Information Congress

1.12 The following were objectives of the Participation

(i) to get an opportunity to present a paper titled “Promoting Public Access to Health information: Experience of Association for Health Information and Library in Africa, AHILA-Tanzania Chapter

(ii) to strengthen personal connections with colleagues from all parts of the world

(iii) to update and improve knowledge and skills after attending the session of well-being: School libraries and health libraries working for access development and transformation

2.0 Sessions attended

The total numbers of sessions were 225 and 69 booths which exhibited products, information resources and services available in their companies. Out of 225 sessions I attended 3 parallel

sessions and visited 40 booths for purpose of learning and improve my knowledge in the field of library and information science.

2.1 Session 180: Change and Sustainability- Breaking Path for a world of Balance Knowledge Management Wednesday 19 August 2015.

The session was chaired by Steffen Wawra from Germany. There were 5 presentations on knowledge management from University of Botswana, University of Technology, South Africa, Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Tanzania, University of Eastern Finland Library, Finland and Confederation of Open Access Repositories, Germany. I was very interested to presentation from University of Finland Library and Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS), Mwanza,Tanzania. The paper titled Breaking paths together for the Public Health higher education information services in Africa and Europe.

The aim of the paper was to describe in detail the work done in the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences Mwanza, Tanzania. The introduction of e-learning and its implementation in teaching and learning in the higher institutions and research centers will exert a major impact on knowledge management and dissemination and development of information systems.

2.2 Session 189: Well-Being: School Libraries with Health and Biosciences Libraries. Wednesday 19 August 2015.

The session was chaired by Barbara Schultz-Jones from University of North Texas, United States and Brian Galvin from Health Research Board, Ireland

There were six presentations including my presentation titled “Promoting Public Access to Health Information: Experiences of the Association for Health Information and Library In Africa (AHILA) -Tanzania Chapter”. The General goal of the project was to promote and improve public access to nutrition and health related information. I got the chance of promoting and marketing activities of the Association for Health Information and Library in Africa (AHILA) and AHILA Tanzania Chapter.

In Photo : Ms Monica Chipungahelo was presenting the paper

The most extremely interested paper was the presentation made by Karen W. Gavigan and Kendra Albright from, University of South Carolina, United States. The title of presentation was A Culturally-Targeted HIV/AIDS Graphic Novel for Teen Well-Being (USA).

The goal of the presentation was for students to create a graphic novel that would help young adults acquire the knowledge and resources they need to make informed decisions regarding HIV/AIDS, including how to reduce or eliminate risk factors, how to talk with adults and/or partners, where to get tested for HIV.

2.3 Session 208: Health and Biosciences Libraries 20 Thursday August 2015

The session was chaired by Barbara Schultz-Jones from University of North Texas, United State. There were about 4 presentations from University of Kabianga- Kenya, Makerere University/ Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews and Knowledge Translation- Uganda, McGill University- Canada and Biomed Central, United Kingdoms.

At this session there was four presentations, all presentation were most interested and valuable to my area of specialization. The presenters of this paper were Alison Kinengere,Richard Ssenono and Ekwaro Obuku from Makerere University- Uganda , their paper titled Librarians’ involvement in evidence based medical practice and health policy-making: the

collaboration between Albert Cook Library and the Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews and Knowledge Translation. The purpose of the paper to examine the instructional and research roles of health sciences librarians at the Centre, in informing evidence based medical practice and health policy making.

The other presentation that was significant to my area of interest, it was titled Learning by Doing: Increasing Librarian and Institutional Capacity for Research through a Collaborative International Systematic Review Action Learning Set. It was presented by Martin Morris from McGill University- Canada.

In Photo: Mr. Martin Morris from McGill University- Canada on his presentation

There was also most interesting presentation from Open Repository, BioMed Central, London, UK-, it was titled “Dissemination of Output an Issue? The Solution “.The aim of the presentation was to discuss Biomed Central’s Initiative: Open Access in Low and Middle Income Countries (OALMIC) provide barrier free access to the latest scientific and medical research, open access models play an important role in international development. For many years BioMed Central has helped institutes, their scientists and medical researchers in low income countries obtain access to this crucial information which will benefit their local communities

3.0 Exhibition

There were sixty nine booths out of sixty nine I visited forty booths. The most interested booths were EBSCO information service, Elsevier, SAGE, Springer, IFLA and IFLA WLIC 2016, SMA electronic document GMBH and ITOCA.

The most attractive booth was ITOCA where I got information on access current literature without internet connection; this is because in developing countries especially in rural areas where there is a problem of information communication technology infrastructure rural dwellers can access current information on agriculture, food science, nutrition, human medicine and physiology.

4.0 Lesson Learned and Way Forward

The following were lessons learned after attending parallel sessions and exhibition booths at IFLA World library Information Congress 2015.

I. There is a need for health librarians to have knowledge of evidence based practice in order to identify and review appropriate literature from review sources for use in making health care decisions.

II. Systematic review studies are still on infancy stage and are not known to many health librarians, therefore there is a need to build competence in systematic review methodologies for librarians

III. The librarians need to implement innovative strategies for purpose of providing quality health information services to patrons.

IV. The librarians need to be creative and implement innovative ways of disseminating health information to the public and other consumers of health information