The presentations are online!

The presentation by Daan Boom (ICIMOD), Michel Wesseling (ISS) and Richard Santos Lalleman (Focuss.Info Initiative) are now online as PDF. 

Presentation by Daan Boom on Monday 31 October 2011
ICIMOD Library from brick to click 
Summary: This presentation introduces the various products and services within the ICIMOD Library. During and after the presentation many participants were interested to hear more about the comparative study between the four library catalogue systems KOHA-Greenstone, Dspace, NewGenLib and Invenio. At the end, the ICIMOD Library has successfully implemented Invenio.
Tags: ICIMOD, Library, Catalogue, Services, Social Media, Interoperability

---

Presentation by Richard Santos Lalleman on Monday 31 October 2011 and Wednesday 2 November 2011
From past to current: How communities have moved to interconnected networks 
Summary: This presentation starts in the 16th and 17th century in which each of the centuries show a paradigm shift. From the scientific revolution and industrial revolution to the economic revolution of the last century and communication revolution of today. This historical overview highlights the change we undergo as individuals, but also as librarians. We should redefine our roles in the interconnected networks where social media are enablers to connected each other in these networks.
Tags: Networks, Social Media, Paradigm shift, Change, New way of working

---

Presentation by Michel Wesseling on Tuesday 1 November 2011 and Thursday 3 November 2011
What happens to my tweets?Or: Social Media are everywhere
Summary: This presentation illustrates that social media in general and Twitter specifically is becoming an integrated part of our daily life. Additionally, it highlights different ways to visualise a great body of user-generated content.
Tags: Social media, Twitter, Visualisation, Internet of Things

---

Presentation by Daan Boom on Thursday 3 November 2011
Networking
Summary: This presentation is a continuation of the presentation given by Richard Santos Lalleman. Where Richard Santos Lalleman focussed on the move to network-based working; Daan Boom takes it a step further and highlights how you can best work in network. One of the great issues in this presentation is the discussion: what kind of networker are you?
Tags: Networks, New way of working

What is the role of the librarian in the 21st century?

After the keynote by Upali Amarasiri - the director general of the National Library and Documentations Services Board of Sri Lanka - we started the discussion about the future of libraries and the role of the librarians in this. This discussion was being triggered by many questions Bishwa Raj Gautum (from the Nepal Library Association) forwarded to the workshop facilitators and participants.

The issues that were being raised were control. In other words, should organisations/libraries include a moderator in order to through messages from 'strangers'. The Nepal Library Association mentioned that moderating would be preferable. However, during one of the presentations by the ICIMOD library it became clear that they were shifting their social networking platform from DGroups to Facebook. In other words, moving from a controlled and moderated environment to a more open space where everybody can send a message. The workshop facilitators also explained more about the science of networks and that being a part of a network is already imposing some etqiuettes to network members. By breaching these etiquettes in a network, other network members could decide to exclude you from his or her network.

By focussing on opening and uncontrolling the flow of information, librarians should emphasize on a coordinating role. They should go out to the public (for example within their organisation) in order to explain which skills are needed for working in a network. How can they use Twitter? Not only by saying: start a profile. Users of social media tools should know how they need to submit their information & knowledge across other networks. 

The main focus was tagging. Withou tagging information is something of personal nature. It is you who wrote the message within the specific context. By including tags (hashtags in Twitter - for example the hashtag for the conference #NP11) these messages create more meaning to the outside world.

Right now everybody are continuing using Twitter. We will soon use photo tagging and after proceed with the final social media tool of Nepal Conference: Delicious.

To be continued

The morning session of the Nepal Conference

We are just done with the morning session of the first day of Nepal Conference. After the introduction note and welcome message from the Hon’ble Mahalaxmi Shrestha - who is the member of Constituent Assembly of Nepal and Member of Parliament of Nepal - we started to meet and greet. It started with making a group photo and after that we moved to the conference room where each persons got the option of introducing him or herself.

The participants are all from libraries and the biggest problem that was being raised was the problem with bandwith. Another issue is that organisations block Facebook. Not so much because it is taking up too much time of the workforce (one participant mentioned he was using Facebook 5 hours per day), but more because it is being misused.

Daan Boom continued with a presentation about the ICIMOD's knowledge centre and their use of the web-based Himalayan Document Centre. ICIMOD uses Inveneo and we heard about all the benefits of the system.

After the lunch we will start using social media tools. These tools will become a part of the new website of the Nepal Library Association. But now we are hungry and will go to ICIMOD's restaurant.

Two more days left..

Only two more days and the Nepal Conference will finally begin. The doors will be opened for the ones who are invited and who mainly work as librarian. The co-organisers and keynote speakers also arrive now and the first pictures are online.

ICT and social media within agriculture

The first participants for the seminar dedicated to NGO professionals have been announced. These are people working in health institutes, but also people active in the improvement of agriculture. What have agriculture to do with ICT and social media? This answer is given in the article ICT: Changing the Face of Agriculture.

ICTs play an increasingly important role in agricultural value chains. Though important, cellphones aren't the only ICT being used to improve agriculture. ICTs encompass radios, digital cameras, geographic information systems (GIS), cloud computing, tracking mechanisms, etc.

Five ways in which ICT can help tackle key challenges in agricultural value chain development are:

1. Pricing and weather information systems
2. Applications (apps) to help buyers manage transactions with the thousands of small-scale farmers who supply to them
3. Mobile banking and apps that facilitate quick payments
4. Initiatives to expand the reach of farm extension services through phone, radio, video and sometimes all three
5. SMS or text messaging campaigns for enabling environment advocacy