Blog

The Department of Information and Records Studies (DIRS) would like to inform you that Mr. Nicholaus Mwalukasa, a lecturer at DIRS, Sokoine National Agricultural Library has successfully defended his PhD on 31/03/2020.

Dr. N. Mwalukasa presenting his PhD viva voce presentation

The title of his research study is: "Mobile phone use in accessing rice information for adaptation to Climate Change in Kilosa and Kilombero Districts, Morogoro, Tanzania". 

Dr. N. Mwalukasa responding to some questions during his PhD viva voce presentation

Once again, congratulations Dr. N. Mwalukasa!

On 6th March 2020, Mr. Cliford Tandali, a retired Morogoro Regional Administrative Secretary donated ten (10) copies of a book titled "Making Africa World's largest Economy: Media, Culture, and Development" authored by Derek Murusuri. The book was published by CTG Resource Limited in 2020.

The books were presented at the Sokoine University of Agriculture to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Raphael Chibunda in his office. The book presentation was also witnessed by Prof. Peter Gillah the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Academic and Prof. Mugyabuso Lwehabura the Acting Director for Sokoine National Agricultural Library.

The book encourages Africans to wake up and liberate Africa through the transformation of managing Africa's immense natural resources and embracing science, technology, and innovation. The author calls upon all Africans, youths, in particular, to stand up and stop decades of Africa's exploitation and poverty.

This important book for Africa will soon be in the library circulation, thus all our readers are welcome and encouraged to read this book.

A young researcher Mr. Gilbert Mushi from the Department of Knowledge Management, SNAL successfully published his research article on Research Data Management. His article titled “Identifying and Implementing Relevant Research Data Management Services for the Library at the University of Dodoma, Tanzania” was published in Data Science Journal, Vol. 19: No.1, pp. 1–9. The article has been deposited on SUAIR and it is accessible.

Summary of the article
The emergence of data-driven research and demands for the establishment of Research Data Management (RDM) has created interest in academic institutions to develop research data services to meet both institutional and funders’ requirements. Researchers are required to submit Data Management Plan (DMP) alongside their research proposals. Academic institutions in developed countries have greatly advanced in the provision of research data services to the students and researchers. Many institutions in developing countries are either at the stage of planning or implementing RDM practices on the campus.

This article is the result of research that was conducted at the University of Dodoma aiming at identifying relevant RDM services that need to be implemented so that researchers and university management could collaborate and make their research data accessible to the local and international community. The paper presents findings on important issues for consideration when planning to develop and implement RDM services at a developing country academic institution and mentions the requirements for the sustainability of these initiatives.

Congratulations Mr. Mushi for the great achievement

Source: Google image

Emerging technologies are incredibly improving relationships between customers and service providers or business. Increasingly use of smartphones has triggered efforts towards providing services at finger tips of the customers.

SNAL among others has embraced the movement in variant ways, particularly the use of QR Codes to access OPAC and other electronic information sources. Students, researchers, academic staff and other users can now access the mentioned services by simply scanning QR Codes using their smartphones. The technology has solved the problem of access to OPAC and electronic databases especially during power blackouts and increased number of users.

To use QR Codes in your smartphone follow the following instructions.
Step One: Download/Install QR Code Reader from Play Store or App Store on your smartphone
Step Two: Open QR Code Reader in your smartphone
Step Three: Scan the QR Code to fit in a rectangle box in your screen then click OK
Step Four: Now search information in the OPAC or electronic database provided.

Note: QR Codes are found on the library notes board and information desk. Kindly don’t hesitate to ask librarian in case you need help.

SNAL staff showing users on how to use QR codes to access OPAC services

You are warmely welcome.

This week, the Global Sustainability Coalition for Open Science Services (SCOSS), of which EIFL is a member, launched its second funding cycle which will benefit three vital Open Science infrastructure service providers: the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN), the Public Knowledge Project (PKP), and OpenCitations.  

SCOSS was formed in early 2017 with the purpose of providing a new co-ordinated cost-sharing framework for enabling the broader OA and OS community to support the non-commercial services on which it depends. The three services mentioned above definitely meet this description.

If you aren’t already using them, here’s a very brief description of each (more detailed information is available at SCOSS.org):

• The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB), a digital directory of peer reviewed Open Access books and Open Access book publishers; and
• Open Access Publishing in European Networks (OAPEN), a growing repository of freely accessible academic books;
  
• The Public Knowledge Project (PKP), a university initiative that creates open source software and services, including Open Journal Systems (OJS), which is used to publish more than 9,000 OA journals worldwide.
  
• OpenCitations, a scholarly infrastructure service that provides open bibliographic and citation data;

As in the pilot funding cycle, SCOSS is asking that institutions—academic institutions including SUA and their libraries, research institutes, funding organisations, national and regional governments, international organisations, learned societies and service providers—consider helping financially support one or more of these services for a period of three years.

It’s efforts like this that are crucial to ensuring that services like OpenCitations, DOAB and OAPEN, PKP, the Directory of Open Access Journals and SHERPA Ro/MEO remain free and open to use for us all.

The above mentioned databases can be also accessed through the SNAL website on E-book and Journals page.

You are welcome