I enjoy getting together with colleagues during lunch. However, it appears that UP Library staff are not happy with this so we will be having our lunches elsewhere, and probably separate.

We spent Monday with Liam and colleagues. They taught us about various publishing tools. I failed my one spot test which has been a huge blow because I really thought I knew my stuff. But that's the way it is. I am sure though that my e-Book assignment went well.

 We then spent a great deal of time looking at Open Access, and in

 particular, open repositories. Working with Dublin Core was extremely interesting, and then uploading our work onto DSpace.
This has been a worthwhile time for me as I have a better understanding about what Roelien talks about when she speaks about Dublin Core and our own repository. This has inspired me to volunteer more for OR at Rhodes Library.

 The site visit to the National Library of South Africa was enjoyable. It is a beautiful building and so much space. It was great to see the office where they assign ISBNs for South African published work.
Staff are very friendly and helpful. It was a wonderful afternoon.

 Then when I saw Liasa House, I had to take a photo of it. This is where many of my colleagues, and of course our Director spend a great deal of their time. Ujala, being the President of Liasa, must surely see this office as a home away from home!

Digitatisation was something I felt a bit nervous about participating in. It is very detailed work, and comprises of so many technologies for each and every item to be digitised. But our

 instructors are so passionate about their work, that they ensured we had hands on experience that we will never forget. We were all so engrossed that many of us never went to tea. Believe it or not!

Fridays in our international countries are Traditional Dress Day. I think this is stunning, even though we have our Purple Thursday at Rhodes.

 Our CPD organisers accompanied us on the Soweto Cultural Tour. After a delayed start, we spent time at Soccer City, then at the Hector Pietersen Museum. This was well timed as it puts 16th June into perspective for our international students.

A highlight was visiting Mandela House in Vilakazi street. And then a chilled lunch at Orlando Towers.

The day was intended to be a chillout day, and for me, this was needed. Because, Sunday has been spent with our Research Assigment and the Application Profile Assignment.

Week three has been exhausting, exciting, overwhelming, but very enjoyable. 

We arrived in Pretoria on Sunday 25th May 2014, filled with anticipation for the wonderful opportunity that i have applied for, and was granted. I am fully aware that I am also representing my institution, Rhodes University. I am very pleased to be participating in this programme with my colleague Vuyo Gontshi.

We met Carren Mushi who is from University of Dodoma which is a public university in central Tanzania. Meeting librarians from other African countries was one of the reasons I was attracted to this programme.
Our 'Setting the Context' discussions on the first day helped in orientating ourselves at University of Pretoria, and get to know the faces (not yet all the names) of fellow participants. Pretty exciting!!!

 Carren and I meeting each other     It was a great surprise to hear
at the Welcome Dinner                   Archie Dick speak about                                                             África Rising'; firstly I heard Archie speak at the Research Libraries Academy in Mont Fleur, and secondly, I have been thinking about how to encourage our own RU research more visible (starting with our RU Repository).

Prof Theo Bothma welcomes participants.

Prof Bothma spoke about technologies and their place in our academic libraries. By placing these technologies in the context of our programme, we are definitely in the right place to learn and discuss issues that are affecting us all in our respective libraries.

At the same time, Prof outlined the details of our Group assignments. I have to say that this has unnerved me because it involves teamwork with colleagues from other countries who have varying experiences, infrastructure and library support. While this is a very exciting prospect,

 it is also a huge task to ensure that all our individual experiences and policies are collated into one report. I am very excited about our Group 4 project title; this feeds directly into a research project I have in mind for my Honours course work with UKZN. Some groups met immediately after the announcement as seen by Group 1 (left picture).

 Soon after tea, we were given a great campus tour led by Nyasha and Amelia. They were very patient with all the photographs and casual stroll throughout the tour. UP is a very beautiful campus, and i found the stories behind the buildings to be quite intriguing.

After the campus tour we moved into a new venue, the training Room. It's a wonderful training facility. The Library, by the way, is a lovely space and one can see students feeling very comfortable in this space.

We were given workshops surrounding FaceBook, the Google Suite (of which this blogger is one), Academia/Researchgate, Twitter, LinkedIn. These are all social media that I am either using on a daily basis, or have experimented with so I found it exciting to learn different features surrounding each of them. I like the idea of the homework for most of these because it allows you time to play with them at home (hotel) which gives you an idea of where you would use it to support the research process at Rhodes.

Training Room Workshops.

Our hotel accommodation is quite comfortable. I have not had any bad experience but listening to colleagues, it has been quite a bit of confusion about apartment self-catering kits (where there have not been enough in stock by the hotel), and that our international students have different cullinary tastes to my own, and the smells in the passage are most distracting!! I have also noticed these same students have been more affected by the delay in stipend payment that the South African students.
So in essence this wraps up the first three days of the programme. In between, there has been the socialising and networking with colleagues on the campus, at tea, and back at the hotel. Our Group 4 held our first meeting last night at the lounge area in the hotel ; this made for a comfortable space for greeting each other, and to discuss our topic as well as the way forward. We meet next Monday to collate our findings!!