LIASA SHOWCASE
LIASA SHOWCASE Ingrid Thomson
2nd place runner-up
2010 LIASA Librarian of the Year Award
Hello Everyone. Im sorry that Im not able to attend conference
this year, so I have asked our LIASA colleagues to present this on
my behalf.
I have been very honoured and excited to have been named 2nd
runner up in last years Librarian of the Year competition. It was
amazing to have been nominated Western Cape Librarian of the Year,
so coming in the top three of the national competition was a bonus
- a real professional boost! I was awarded R10 000 generously
sponsored by SABINET. I was also fortunate to have had some extra
financial support from UCT Libraries.1
I used this money to attend the 18th International Conference on
Learning which was held from 5 8 July at the University of
Mauritius. Ha! I hear you say Mauritius, what a pleasure! And it
was 2
But I was only there for a week to attend the conference, so the
only time for sightseeing was the Sunday and part of the Monday. I
registered for the conference on the Monday and then took the
opportunity for a professional visit to see Mr Cader Nunkoo, the
librarian in charge3
Cader is a graduate of the Mortenson Centers Associate Programme
at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. He was
previously at Port Louis Library and had just been moved over to
Rose Hill, which was in the throes of some building alterations
(although you cant see that in the photos). But what you will see
see is that it is a small cosy library next to the municipal
building in a beautiful garden setting. Internet is not free in the
library, but there is free wireless outside in the garden, provided
by the Mauritian version of Telkom.
4
Heres the venue for the conference - a really beautiful setting
5
And another view
The conference attracted just under 300 delegates from all over
the world, coming as far afield as Australia, Estonia, Russia,
Malaysia, the States, Turkey, India, and of course Mauritius (and
it made the evening news.) 6
There were a large contingent of South African academics from
UJ, North-West, UWC, UNISA, CPUT, UKZN, UP, Rhodes and Wits amongst
others.7
And three of us from UCT - myself, one of our Masters students,
Adhiti Humna who is from Mauritius, and Prof Crain Soudien, one of
our DVCs, who spoke at a plenary session.
The conference provided a forum for talking about the nature and
future of learning from early childhood, school, technical and
vocational, university and adult education, where research and
reflections on education were discussed.8
This was a very full conference over 4 days, with each day
starting off with a plenary session and then moving on to parallel
sessions, with presentations constantly been added or moved around.
So it took quite a bit of juggling, keeping an eye on the changes
and moving from one room to another.
There were some interesting practices at the conference that I
hadnt seen before. Obviously there was no opportunity for
discussions and questions at the plenary sessions, but sessions
called Garden Conversations were arranged where delegates could
meet the speakers and have informal discussions. Usually outside -
in the Garden!
The parallel sessions comprised 15 minute papers with 15 minutes
discussion and these sessions were9
With one of the Graduate Scholar Recipients Lutasha Ann-Louise
Ndesi from UWC
(Note to Western Cape Members - No, not Bronwen Erasmus, but
Bronwens twin sister!
Chaired by Graduate Scholar Recipients who had applied and
received grants to attend the conference, in return for
facilitating these sessions. And often, they were presenting as
well.
Workshops and colloquium sessions completed the rest of the
physical conference line-up. It was also possible to do a virtual
presentation - these werent broadcast at the conference, but are
available via the Conference Youtube channel.
Something that I hadnt seen before was Talking Circles which
were supposed to give people a chance to ointeract around key ideas
away from the formalities. There were two facilitated sessions for
each stream of discussion e.g. Technology in Learning or Adult, or
Vocational, tertiary and professional learning. During the first
circle, participants would introduce themselves and talk about
common issues, and the second session would take the discussion
further and come up with possible solutions and then later report
back at the closing plenary. And these sessions could be informal
or structured depending on the facilitator. Not very successful,
because much depended on the facilitator but an interesting idea
nevertheless.10
Presenters are encouraged to submit their papers to The
International Journal of Learning.
Next conference is to be hosted by the Institute of Education,
University of London from 9 to 12 July 2012.
Presenters are encouraged to submit their papers to the
International Journal of Learning, even those doing virtual
presentations. Next years conference is in London - I expect that
there will be librarians there!
Quite a number of papers were presented on a variety of topics
of interest to Higher Education - academic literacy, teaching
teams, academic performance of first years, underprepared
postgraduates and plagiarism in student writing. Food for thought
for academic librarians 11
Where were the librarians?
It was very strange - but I do think that it was just at this
particular conference that I was the lone librarian, as I have seen
papers by librarians in earlier issues of the journal! So there I
was, the only librarian at an international education
conference!
Many of these papers were presented by academics working in
Academic Development Units or Departments/Faculties of Education or
Writing Centres from institutions across the world. And in almost
every one of these papers, libraries and librarians were not
mentioned at all.
I kept putting my hand up and asking and got back, yes of course
we worked with our librarian, couldnt do it without our librarian,
our librarian is the best . But none of this came out in the
papers. Are we really that invisible?
So this set the bees in my bonnet buzzing and this is what I
have come back with and want to ask and challenge myself and
others. 12
Bees in my bonnetAcademic Librarians are part of the Learner
Support ServicesWhy arent we hearing about the role librarians play
at our own conferences and education conferences? Challenge to all
of us to get involved embedded librarians and share, share,
share
What collaborations are taking place between libraries and
unites like Academic Development Units and writing centres? Or are
libraries in splendid isolation or parallel universes I know we
arent, we are involved, there are collaborations going on - so
heres a challenge to the academic librarians out these, if you are
involved, please share these with your colleagues whether it is at
seminars, workshops, conference presentations - and not necessarily
just library conferences. 13
Thank youLIASASABINETUCT LIBRARIESAnd Colleagues everywhere!
Thank you to LIASA, to sponsors Sabinet, for making it possible
for me to attend the award through the prize money. Thank you to
Joan Rapp, retiring library director at UCT, for additional
financial support, and to my colleagues at UCT Libraries and
elsewhere for their support.14
LEARNINGThe Eighteenth International Conference On
www.LearningConference.com
58 July 2011University of MauritiusMauritius
