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Dear GAELIC friends

Well we have nearly reached the end of another year and the "silly season" is once again upon us. All the Staff at the FOTIM Office wish you peace and happiness during this period, plus joy for those reunited with family and safety for those travelling.
And lots of success and prosperity for the New Year,
Zodwa, Anke, Tanya, Shayna & Carole
FAREWELL

Sadly we say Goodbye to Shayna who is leaving us for "greener" pastures. Goodbye and good luck from all of us. And thank-you for all the hard work.
The GAELIC Strategic Plan report back

At the Governing Board meeting held at the end of November, the Profiles for the members of the three Operational Teams were approved and letters of appeal for names of suitable staff from each institution were sent to the GAELIC Library Directors. If you are selected to be a member of one of these Teams please be willing to participate in this new and exciting functioning for the GAELIC libraries.
GAELIC Board Meeting

The final Governing Board meeting for 2008 was held at the Univesity of the North West Potchefstroom campus and a wonderful lunch was prepared for us by the staff for which we were all very grateful. On behalf of the Members of the Board we wish all library staff in the GAELIC libraries a wonderful festive season and a successful 2009.


FOTIM Notes

Please consult the FOTIM web about the disability conference to be held in March 2009 where we will also be highlighting the challenges facing libraries in providing services to the disabled. Interested in attending? Submit a paper?
Objective 1: Promote Optimal Use of the Millennium System in GAELIC member libraries

Another very successful IUG:SA was held in Port Elizabeth in November. There was socializing aplenty followed by good food - (needed with the rainy weather) and gifts to last us until Christmas! And beyond. The guest speakers posed some interesting questions to ponder and the breakaway sessions gave us the opportunity to express our concerns. The offshoot is that a task team has been formed to investigate ways to maintain the momentum of the user group throughout the year and to deal with the very pressing issue of the hosting of a permanent website for the group.

Objective 2: Build capacity through identification and provision of training needs and services for the optimal utilization of resources

Guide to Job Interviewing Resources
December is often the time of year when people are looking for a job. This website provides a list of very useful links for the new graduate, job seeker, career planner and interviewees.
E-JASL (an independent, professional, refereed electronic journal dedicated to advancing knowledge and research in the areas of academic and special librarianship) has 2 interesting articles that deal with the challenges facing library staff :
Introducing Learning Commons Functionality into a Traditional Reference Setting (v.9, no.2 Summer 2008)
Increasing Impact of Scholarly Journal Articles: Practical Strategies Librarians Can Share (v.9, no 1 Spring 2008)
Objective 3: Improve cost efficiency through joint procurement and resources sharing

"A new direction in scholarly publishing"

Bloomsbury Academic is launching an experiment designed to see whether publishing content free of charge under a Creative Commons license while also making it available for purchase using print on demand would be economically sustainable. All books will be made available online with free of charge downloads if used for non-commercial purposes immediately upon publication. The first research publications, in the Humanities and Social Sciences will appear later in 2009.
Trends in Document Supply and Resources Sharing

"Recent innovations in document supply and resource sharing - an overview of the main trends identified at the IFLA 2008 Quebec Conference" by Kim Baker. Paper presented at the LIASA Conference Oct 2008

Open access and Institutional Repositories

The beauty of "Some Rights Reserved": Introducing Creative Commons to librarians, faculty, and students by Molly Kleinman. C&RL News, November 2008 Vol. 69, No. 10

Creative Commons SA

Creative Commons (cc), the growing global movement that aims to relax restrictions on the fair use of intellectual property has a South African chapter.
 

From the blog "Underwire…." Oxford Researchers List Top 10 Most Annoying Phrases
BLOG NOTES
On Friday 5th December a noteworthy event took place at the National Library in Pretoria as LIS workers from all sectors around the country met to debate the 2nd draft of the Library Charter. For a copy of the draft and if you would like to comment please see the NLSA site.
NOTEWORTHY
EBSCO takes over NISC databases
EBSCO Publishing has boosted its database offerings with the acquisition of database provider NISC, which was already supplying it with specialised database content.
Library Trivia notes
Some famous librarians
  • Casanova (1725-1798) (the great lover) was a librarian for the Count von Waldstein in the chateau of Dux in Bohemia.
  • Pope Pius XI (1857-1939) was a librarian before he became Pope. He worked for 19 years as a member of the College of Doctors of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, and then became chief librarian.
  • Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976) worked as an assistant to the chief librarian of the University of Peking.
  • FBI Head, J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972), had a job as a Library of Congress messenger and cataloger.
  • Jacob Karl Grimm one of the Grimm brothers was the librarian at the court of the king of Westphalia in Willhemshöhe
TAKE NOTE
"Top 20 things librarians in public libraries wish patrons knew or did"

Please respect the desk barrier…. We like it when you thank us…Please be patient with us… Be respectful of other library patrons… We support Intellectual Freedom… Use us!....
Many of these also apply to the academic library.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
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