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Newsletter #54 - April 2015
Click here for PDF version |
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| Focus on staff training and education |
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Lubuto's focus in Zambia is to build the capacity to offer high quality and professionally-guided children and youth services. While we have offered a number of staff training workshops on dealing with vulnerable children, education for youth librarianship requires far more than short-term training. We are therefore placing a strong emphasis on providing in-depth library educational opportunities to create new leaders in children's library services in Zambia.
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| Lubuto staff education |
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Thomas Mukonde, our Library Services Advisor, is completing his first year of the MS in Library and Information Science (LIS) program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Thomas is focusing his studies on youth services and will put his academic degree to great use after graduation—providing much needed leadership to Zambia in developing library programming for children. He will be back in Zambia during his May to August school break to continue training staff at our libraries and solidifying our partnership with the Zambia Educational Publishing House (ZEPH). Further strengthening our relationship with ZEPH will help expand the scope of our project preserving Zambian titles through LubutoCollections.org.
Elizabeth Giles, Lubuto's former Program Associate in DC, will also lead Lubuto's children's services and training in Zambia. She will receive an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in August. While in school, Elizabeth continued to support Lubuto's programming. She began an extensive ongoing research study of Lubuto's collections and how they are used. We are thrilled that she will move to Lusaka after graduation to share her expertise with us. She will spearhead training programs for Lubuto library staff and volunteers.
This month Lubuto library staff members are participating in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), offered by Indiana University's School of Library and Information Science, on public library services and management, including youth services. We anticipate that this and other relevant library education will be available as MOOCs for training future staff members, to be supplemented by face-to-face and in-service training. Since capacity building to ensure complete local ownership of Lubuto libraries is a top priority of our work, we are exploring all available means to provide the level of education needed for libraries to meet the needs of their societies' youth. We are also considering whether Lubuto libraries may be able to offer MOOCs in other disciplines to our users.
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| Lubuto at IFLA |
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Elizabeth, Thomas and Jane will attend the 2015 IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Cape Town, South Africa in August. Elizabeth will present a paper entitled “Evaluating Lubuto Library Collections” and Jane will present a paper entitled “Vital Partnerships Fueling the Dynamic Development of Libraries for Young People in Zambia” for the Children/Youth conference sessions. Elizabeth, Thomas and Jane will all share Lubuto's best practices with colleagues—and will make a plea for youth services training for African libraries.
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| Help support Thomas Mukonde's education! |
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We are now looking for financial contributions to fund Thomas Mukonde's final year of graduate school. Last year, people generously donated towards Thomas' education through an Indiegogo campaign. If you are interested in donating this year, you can use our "Donate Now" feature on lubuto.org or mail a check to Lubuto Library Partners at 5614 Connecticut Ave NW, #368, Washington, DC 20015-2604. Please make sure to mention Thomas on your check or online submission. We appreciate all of your help!
Check out Thomas' profile currently featured on his LIS department's homepage: (http://bit.ly/1yrRVsh).
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Volunteer of the Month
Our Volunteer of the Month is lawyer Stuart Yikona, a founding member of our Board of Directors who hails from Mwinilunga, Zambia. |
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Copyright © 2015 Lubuto Library Partners, Inc.
The Lubuto Library Project is exempt from U.S. Federal income tax as a public charity
under Section 501(C) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. |
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