Oh, did I contribute?: Experiences from the African Guest Librarian Programme in Uppsala, Sweden

Background The Nordic Africa Institute is a centre for research, documentation and information on modern Africa in the Nordic region. The institute's activities are based on three pillars: research/ policy work, publishing activities and a library /documentation centre. Besides producing its own research, the Institute also stimulates research on Africa in the Nordic countries and promotes cooperation between African and Nordic scholars. Networking is included in promotional activities, primarily expressed by researchers' networks, institutional partnerships and scholarships programs for African researchers and writers. The programmes strengthen the scholarly exchange between African and Nordic research communities. The library is one of the core activities of the Institute. It is charged with monitoring and making available literature and other electronic and physical information carriers of relevance for research, study and information about modern Africa. At the beginning of 2000, discussions were initiated about setting up a guest librarian programme. The initially somewhat vague idea of helping to boost African libraries was developed into a programme with a focus on mutual exchange. Programme formulation The process of formulating the actual programme took time. At the beginning we had doubts whether the library was large enough to have anything to offer an African colleague. To our knowledge, most exchange programmes have profiles in the area of ICT. The Nordic Africa Institute Library is a small research library and we share resources and users with the Uppsala University Library. We have competence in library systems and working with free resources but not the kind of competence gained through complex IT projects. In order to obtain input for the programme we contacted IFLA's ALP office in Uppsala (Action for Development through Libraries Programme) and through discussion with them we found a concept that we thought would be feasible. The input from ALP was very useful. In their experience, the programmes that were perceived as successful for both hosting institution and visiting librarians contained elements of hands-on experience, sometimes on a very basic level. Such programmes, however, were not common. Here we saw an opportunity to use our considerable experience of receiving student librarians for training. What we could offer besides hands-on training to an African colleague was our experience with customised user education and our work with free internet resources. As regards being a small library, we are well situated in the middle of Sweden within travelling distance of other larger libraries. Study visits within the profile of the applicant could be set up for additional input. We wanted the programme to have a feature of mutual benefit and were interested in the exchange of skills and ideas in order to develop our library. As an African studies library, we are struggling to identify African publishing houses and media and latterly to identify sources on the Internet that are produced in Africa. Simply put, we need structured input from African colleagues. The Africa Guest Librarian Programme was finally based on the following components: hands-on work experience, provided by participation in daily routines in keeping with the applicant's profile, work on the content of the link collection "A Guide to Africa on the Internet", review of part of the library's country collection, attendance and participation in monthly user-education sessions for students, exchange of skills and ideas in meetings and study visits to relevant libraries in the Uppsala-Stockholm area. The guest librarian was also expected to submit a detailed report of approximately 2,000 words to the Institute at the end of the stay. The scholarship itself covered a return air ticket (economy class), accommodation, a subsistence allowance of 250 SEK (Swedish kronor) per day (approximately 30 USD), a shared office and access to a computer and expenses for study visits in the Uppsala-Stockholm area. …