Students in Sweden

This week and next, our six master's students are in Sweden for participation in the residential period of the master's programme course Digitalisation of Cultural Heritage Material. They also meet with other teachers and have seminars in courses such as Users and information activities in digital environments and Information Retrieval for Digital Libraries.

Next week, there will be job shadowing at the university library in Borås, followed by a trip to Karlskrona and jobshadowing at the library of BTH, Blekinge Institute of Technology.

The students in Sweden at the moment are: Rui Antonio, Acieceno Chicolena, Lucia Raul, Amarilda Chissano, Irzelinda Mussa and Lasifa Mahuae.

The PI, Horacio Zimba being here, allows us to do further planning, follow ups and analysis.

Coming from Mozambique to Sweden during the Swedish winter, means over 30 degrees of difference. But it seems as if the weather in Borås and Karlskrona will not be too cold nor snowy after all. 

Research4Life

Research4Life commitment until 2025

The Research4Life partners have announced that they have agreed to extend their partnership through 2025. Research4Life currently provides over 8,700 institutions in more than 100 developing countries with free or low cost access to peer-reviewed eResources from the world’s leading scholarly publishers. The renewed commitment will ensure that the nearly 85,000 peer reviewed academic journals, books and databases from some 200 scholarly publishers available through the public-private Research4life partnership will continue to reach research communities in low- and middle-income countries.

Workshops and Meeting in October

October 22-26, Fereshta Westin, lecturer at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, met with the master students in Maputo. The aim of the workshops was to guide the students into the world of HTML, CSS, XML and SQL. Of course the aim was also to assist them in their learning so they can pass the examination of the course. The assignment is to build a web site by early November.

The same week the Annual Planning Meeting took place and Dr Zimba and myself met to discuss balance, budget for the upcoming year and to make plans for next year´s events. In February the master students will come to the University of Borås for their residential week and job shadowing and in April it will be time for the Annual Review Meeting and workshops for the library staff in Maputo.
Svante Kristensson

Updates on activities

Master students

If you work at the Central Library you have probably noted that Professor Elena Maceviciute is around between the 24th and 28th of September. Elena from the Swedish school of Library and Information Science is in the country to introduce our six master's students to the programme, to teach digital library management, but also to meet with library staff and managers for a couple of short workshops. Elena is programme supervisor of the international master's programme that the students are admitted to, and if you are interested in her research, please go to her research profile via this link.

Professor Elena Maceviciute. Photo: University of Borås

Annual Planning Meeting

Later on in October, library director and University of Borås team member Svante Krisetnsson will participate in the Annual Planning Meeting of the Sida-UEM cooperation together with library director Horacio Zimba, coordinator .

Master teaching again

Besides Digital Library Management, the master's programme focuses on information retrieval and technologies for digital libraries this semester. Fereshta Westin, lecturer from the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, gives input on basic technology between October 22nd and 26th.

UEM-Sweden 40 years of research cooperation

On the 13th of November, the 40 years of research cooperation between Sweden and Mozambique are marked through a scientific conference at the university together with the Swedish embassy and representatives of both countries. The Central Library team will on the Swedish side be represented by the coordinator Veronica Trépagny.

UEM Central Library. Photo: Veronica Trépagny

Admission of master's students

As the semester starts in Sweden, we are happy to announce admission of six UEM students to the master's programme library and information science Digital Libraries and Information Services (SSLIS, University of Borås).The programme takes two years to finalize, with thesis writing the last semester. It is a distance mode programme, which means that the students will be studying online. Since the approach is also blended learning, the students will travel to Sweden to take part in a course on digitisation of cultural heritage material next semester. They will also have to travel to Sweden to defend their thesis. But teachers will also come to Maputo to teach. This means that Professor Elena Maceviciute will be at UEM between the 24th and 28th of September for teaching in the programme, but also for shorter sessions with UEM staff. More information on the other presentations and/or workshops to come.

University of Borås Campus. Photo: Anna Sigge.

Team visit to Sweden

Curious about what Horacio Zimba and Democrito Manyissa did in Sweden last week? As part of our cooperation, we have exchange on the agenda, as well as finding ways to contribute not only to library development, but also to education in library and information science at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM). And what we do, we aim to do together.

Team trapped in the House of Knowledge,
 sculpture by Jaume Plensa on campus. Photo: Maria Idebrant

The first days of the stay were spent in Borås, where the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, SSLIS, is found at the University of Borås (UB). Horacio and Democrito, together with Veronica Trépagny (team leader, SSLIS), Svante Kristensson (library director, UN, member of the team) and other UB staff had meetings and discussions around:

• library schools
• education in library and information science at SSLIS and UEM
• potential future education in library and information science
• research in library and information science at SSLIS
• research education 

Democrito Manyissa with Malin Utter and Maria Ringbo,
discussing bachelor's education.

Horacio Zimba with Daniel Kristiansson

Horacio and Democrito spent time in the university library at the UB and held meetings on competence buildning input next year (work shop discussions). Daniel Kristiansson, the UB research officer assisting in the Sida research training partnership programmes, took part in many of the meetings and contributed to the planning and delivery of the UEM stay in Borås.

Lunch meeting after research discussions, with Åsa Söderlind
(study director, research education) and Jan Nolin (research leader,
professor), as well as Maria Ringbo...
Democrito, Veronica and Horacio. Photo: Maria Idebrant

Another partner of the cooperation ins the Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH). So the last part of the trip was spent there. The BTH library was visited and discussions on BTH input in fields such as information literacy were held. Anna Stockman is deputy team leader and responsible for the cooperation at the BTH library.

Democrito, Claes Lennartsson, head of school at SSLIS,
and Horacio.

Information literacy - workshop presentations

At last! I'm finally sharing the Powerpoint presentations from the information literacy workshop with you (but now as pdf-documents).

The first presentation is about

• the concept of information literacy 
• references
• evaluating sources

The second presentation is on how to communicate with faculty about information literacy.

English language moocs?

I recently took a mooc (massive open online course) on Academic Freedom developed through the Scholars at Risk network by the University of Oslo. Although I warmly recommend that one and think that I will be able to use some of this new competence in our cooperation, I noted that the same platform also offers moocs potentially even more useful for our cooperation: English online courses.


Maybe this British Council English for the Workplace course could be of use for some of you (click on the link)? It is for English learners (you who take the trainings with Swedish partners could maybe be considered being learners in English) but focuses on the workplace. Although it focuses on language used in processes related to finding a job, it could be worth a try?

The English for Academic studies course prepares those of you whom are going for academic studies in using key vocaulary.

I will try to look for more useful and open online courses.

Workshop : Information literacy, UEM library June 5th-7th

This week we are exploring the concept of information literacy. The content of the workshop is:

• A general introduction to information literacy
• Exploration of which types of resources UEM has access to, subscribed as well as free
• Understanding the role of librarians teaching information literacy

Some documents which may be of interest are:
Recomendações da IFLA sobre a Literacia Informacional e Mediática Versão Final Parasobreviver e evoluir, 2011 (2 pages)

Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, 2015 (18 pages)

The SCONUL Seven Pillars of Information Literacy, 2011 (14 pages)

Writing a good research question [2018-06-06]

How to spot fake news, IFLA, 2018 (Poster, also available in Portuguese)

Many libraries have written about the CRAAP test, a test used to evaluate sources. I found something from the Benedectine university, CRAAP. Search on the web to find more examples.

Workshop The Modern Research Library, April 16-19

Thanks everyone for a great week in Maputo. It was very rewarding for me, but also challenging, to work with you. I enclose my presentation, and I hope it will give you inspiration to develop services to both researchers and students. Keep up the good work!