The last day : A full program and the Highlight of the day : Gala Dinner!!

Buhle Mbambo-Thata (Dr)  - International vs African Librarianship

I experienced her as a very dynamic person, she really awed me in her presentation. She addressed the importance of African Librarianship and this involves Africa, our importance of being active in our profession through collaboration, we are not isolated and we need to contradict stereotyping! African Librarianship starts at home. She opened up a new view for me on International and African Librarianship,.

Puleng Kekana (DAC) - not able to be present, and seeing a whole new world opening before my eyes (outside academic libraries) I would have loved to hear more info and involvement of public libraries.

Christine Stillwell - The way forward
CHRISTINE STILWELL PhD (Natal) is a professor of Information Science at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
She shared with the group her experiences and outcome of the future librarian she encountered in her study she did.


      Then it was our turn - nerve wrecking!! Presentation time!!      

FEEDBACK

The feedback received from Christine was positive and she said she enjoyed the presentations and the different approaches and views the groups had.

THE GALA DINNER

After an exciting and stressful day this was such an enjoyable occasion and everybody seemed to be so relaxed, the atmosphere was a happy and joyful one. After the storm the afternoon, the outside was as wet as could be and a slight drizzle of rain was still around, but we all gathered with Martha, Ujala, Hilda and Prof Theo for informal pictures to be taken of the group in the foyer of the hotel.


We all moved to the venue for the gala event and were pleasantly surprised by visitors from the US that joined us in the celebrations. I was fortunate enough to sit next to Prof Christine and the director of Milwauke Wisconson University Library, Ewa Barczyk:

Director of Libraries

What a pleasant and interesting person - -enjoyed her company and her sharing with us what they do at their library. She also shared personal information: she has travelled many places as librarian and currently her husband is also a Professor at the University. They live plus minus 2km from the University and she loves walking to work and back each day, inspite of rain or snow. (some trivial - because of walking her shoe collection is mostly at work and if she need to attend a function with her husband they always need to go past her office to collect her shoes for the outfit she is wearing ;-))
She was also accompanied by a lady from the Public Library sector from Milwauke, a fellow lecturer (who comes from SA), and a PhD Student.

Speeches -  personality - and the sad as the saying goes 'all good things have to come to an end'!

THANKING

• THE TEAM I WAS PRIVILIDGED TO BE PART OF - I THINK WE WERE A GREAT TEAM - will miss you all!
• The organisers and specifically Martha de Waal for all her patience  ...  arrangements and the flow of the program, as well as Ujala Satgoor - always so helpful, supportive and encouraging - thank you for that.
• The group (each and every one of the 19 other members for making this such a wonderful experience and for you honouring me - I really feel humbled by you all and I also learnt so much from each of you! You are so special each and every one - keep it up the good work and make the future happen!)
• Then Carnegie Foundation for the opportunity to be part of such informative, learning environment to build the future for our people

Day 14 : Thursday 24 March - Marketing, branding etc.. - Gaining a Competitive Edge

Ronel Rensburg (Prof) – Marketing, branding and effective communication
What an extraordinary person – somewhat eccentric though. But her approach to branding through communication, marketing, branding and reputation management and for all of this we need an integrated approach.

Nisha Sewdass (Dr) – Gaining a competitive edge I was pleasantly surprised by this lecture and really enjoyed what she had to share with us. Competitive Intelligence (CI) was a subject during my studies and this was a nice refresher for me. One tends to forget so many things in your day to day activities that one forgets the impact of CI. I also enjoyed the way she applied it to LIS profession.

Day 13 : Wednesday 23 March - Full program for the day

Deon Rossouw (Prof) Ethics and the dynamic organisatation

Bettie de Kock - Gaming
Although I am involved with gaming on Health Science campus (and we did receive a Education Innovation Award for the game developed) I must admit that this was quite disappointing. I could hardly follow the rate it was presented - not sure if the rest of the group really grasp what was happening. This was a pity, because this can be of value to libraries who need something to 'bling' their environment.

Hilda Kriel - Client Service
Hilda did such a great job! I enjoyed her approach by using the onion example and this explained to us the layers of importance to client services that we need to look at and apply in our services. At least I think she captured the attention of the group again.

Karin Kitching - Advocacy
She definitely also captured the (tired!) group and intrigued us with her 30 minute elevator speech and this made me thinking of how I am going to prepare this and be ready with my speech!She also emphasized that one should not just jump in with the speech but to read the circumstances. Correct time and place is what will make the impact. This is all about promoting your library and what you can offer.

Janice and Nomvuyelo - (iBala  Mobile Technologies)


This is me:
This QR code holds all my contact details.
I have attended a previous mobile technologies workshop and was thus familiar with the content, but even so enjoyed the refresher.

Day 12 : Tuesday 22 March - The Dynamic Organisation

Johan Greeff - The living organisation

A very interesting person - he really knew how to keep us on our toes - presented excellent! This was a 'living' day with many lessons to learn and to me personally strategy! Before I get to the content, the story on how he founded the name Treetops was so interesting,

The content was overwhelming - a lot of information. One will really have to sit down take time and work through all the information to get the bigger picture (and the picture is actually quite big if you ask me?) The HOLY EXERCISE was quite funny and made me realise how one can just rush in and jump to conclusion which could be so not the truth or the bigger picture. Planning is an important step and by planning who will peep through which hole to cover the spectrum a better picture could have been put together. This is also were strategy comes  into play. To me personally I was fascinated by the term strategy at the end of last year but still could clarify the what -why - how and when? We also had to apply the PENST analysis to a scenario created and by working in groups to come to conclusions tough me so many lessons of the importance of 'two head are better than one'.

Day 11 : Monday 21 March - Multi-culturalism - Visiting Constitution Hill Musem / Court

Sean Moodley on Multi-culturalism & the diverse workplace
He introduced himself by asking the group 3 questions each had to answer:
Where does he come from?
What is his religion?
What sport does he represent?
Out of all the diverse answers from the group of 20 he emphasized the fact that people naturally box people and stereotype. This is also so not true, but this is the way people behave. Our transformation is 'country speaking' which is not too bad - but the country moved fast! and we are staying behind. The effort that we have to make is important. Transformation is to develop and develop = to change (keyword) - to grow. He looked at transformation from an angle saying that it is not change, although we cannot exist with the word transformation is not that! He said transformed = change and transformation = the process of change were we haven’t arrived - he explained it as being like liquid not a solid - we are in the process of shaping and that means we make mistakes, but we must learn from that and rethink on how can we now change this.
What stood out for me was the why? question on if we do not understand why we are doing it why will we do it?
He also touched on TOLERENCE and the levels in which we tolerate instead because of forced change, we need to CONFRONT it otherwise we are running away from reality. Therefor tolerance needs to move to acceptance. This lead to discussions on racism and this was illustrated mostly by the government and politics which then brought us to internalized oppression and this is what have a huge impact on the business sector and as example he referred to service delivery. Unfortunately according to me he didn't really address the workplace which would have been of value in our own environments. He also made use of a great deal of swearing which was not very comfortable to me. I would actually suggest a shorter session for his discussion.
He kept us longer though than the time that has been allocated and therefore we had to rush to get our on-the-go lunch (which was a nice surprise packet!) to hit the road to Johannesburg.

Our exiting visit! to Constitutional Hill Museum / Court:

Being Human Rights day, the highway was such a pleasant drive and we all had lunch on the way, but for some reason although it was after the weekend, the group really seem to be exhausted. I think we all also had an emotional afternoon. Time was a factor as we arrived a little later than expected and therefor I wish I had more time just to hesitate for a few minutes in respect for everything that happened behind the walls in the apartheid era. The fact that although they all were prisoners they also had their own levels of social standing and discrimination within the space of the four walls. Peoples dignity was no issue and the circumstances horrible. Although all of them were prisoners they the whites and blacks were treated differently.
Unfortunately being a public holiday the library was closed and we did not see that which is a pity.
The Court is impressive and the symbolic / symbolism in the foyer awed me. The guide explained to us how the court sessions worked and inside the court the most beautiful handmade South African flag. We very briefly visited the ladies prison which seemed to be a little more human-like, and the sketches that was made by a black political lady prisoner (cannot remember who she was) which she smuggled out of the prison through her husband and lawyer actually also captured the terrible circumstances at the time.
I also had the opportunity to have a discussion on this terrible past with one of the group members, a black lady and all I could suggest that it is our responsibility to actively create a new and different future, especially for our children.
So except for being emotionally drained we were physically so tired and some even took a short nap on the way back, knowing we had to complete and finalize the group assignment as we do only have tonight and tomorrow night we need to know exactly what each of us has to present in order to practice and memorise.

Day 9 +10 Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 March - Weekend

Enjoyed - some free time - but also responsibilities. While visiting home I prepared pancakes for the team, seeing that the weather was all dreary and drizzly and we arranged to meet at 17:00 to attend to our group assignment.

Day 8 : Friday 18 March - Responsible Leadership - KM - Innovations

Yesterday was just too a long day therefor I am only posting today!!! and it is weekend, this means some time off!
Derick de Jong - Responsible Leadership
He started the day with responsible leadership - he managed to put this give this concept some perspective, this can be adaptive, and important one need to reflect. It is also about global perspective and this involves the you - me - and the us.


Mariejtie Schutte - Knowledge Management
I had this topic as a module with Marietjie a few years back and was really surprised by the approach she took, although still a little on the theory I also enjoyed the fact that it is not just Knowledge Management (abstract concept) but how you can apply the term in many ways of working as well. The term thus has multiple applications once you understand the concept.

The day ended with Johannes Cronje - on Innovations and we had to think outside the box!!
My table (group) had so much fun and laughter, but once again I learnt that we do have to be innovative, creative and still be able to work together as a team. Team work can also be disruptive, but important is that each one has to find his/her niche in which they can contribute in the chain of achieving and succeeding.

Day 7 : Thursday 17 March - Quality - RADAR - NSLA visit (the DAY away!!)

This is a day away from the Villas, and after being so busy and involved in activities all the time, this was something different! Departure 7:30 - this meant an early rise (an hour earlier than usual) and breakfast. After working on our group assignment the previous night, we tried to finish at 21:00 in order to not be late this morning)!
The driver took us on a extended route to the University of Pretoria, our first destination. Arriving at the Merensky Library our first lecture was in the committee room on the 4th floor. Very awkward to be in a familiar environment in a complete different capacity. Christa North presented us with Quality Management - I was very much intrigued by this, she applied it to such a simple example, but also so important to many of us - how do you quality manage you own closet? I really enjoyed this and somehow I could make this my own, and something that I will keep in mind, whatever the task may be that I am involved.

Then Mr Robert Moropa, the director of the Merensky Library took us on a tour through the library and this was awesome for me, although I am an employee at the Library I a situated on the Health Sciences campus and only attend meetings on this campus from time to time. The change in the structure will make a big difference in the future and I loved to see what they have in mind with the Research Commons and future endeavours related to Carnegie Foundation. I have to admit, I felt proud to be an employee at the Library. The lecture RADAR - was done with so much style and the angle from which this was explained to the group was just great! This also emphasize why this organisation (library) is striving to be the best! From here we visited the Law Library and took a brisk walk to Burgandy's for lunch. On our way there a little history of the University was shared with them - indicating the 'Ou lettere' building the original Merensky Library building and Kaya Rosa. The lunch at Burgundy's was really tasteful. From here we departed to the NLSA.

At the NLSA we were welcomed with refreshing bottled water (cold) and each received a from NLSA with brochures relating to the NLSA. What an impressive building and facilities! We were welcomed by Douw Drijfhout, he is from Preservation Services. After short presentations on the Legal Deposit and the De-acidification Project we toured the library. Fascinated by the Foreign Publications, here they receive publications with countries they have agreements with and these publications are catalogued while other foreign publications donated are not taken up in the collection although they are all kept in the archives. Could not really see what purpose this serve though? We also visited Interlending and as they call it - Stack Management. Although I knew they have to keep a copy of each South African publication, be it from pamphlets to literature to government publications - was this the first time I actually understood how they do it and preserve it, through the Stack Management system. I was also totally fascinated by the De-acidification Project running and awed by the fact that the system they run are the only one in the southern hemisphere! Another South African achievement to be proud of.
We briefly visited the LIASA office and met the ladies in the offices - keeping things going for LIASA. This was quite a tiring day and we all were extremely exhausted that evening - teamwork and group assignment also had to give it a rest and wait for the next!

Day 6 : Wenesday 17 March - Maximising Human Capital

John Moalusi continued from 'Organisational Leadership' to the topic 'Maximising Human Capital'.
By going through the notes of the previous day (the manual that was handed to us) I was really so impressed about the quality of the manual and the effort that went into compiling such a manual, after each set of ppt slides was a more comprehensive summary in theory what the consisted of. The characteristics of a good leader were also summarized with the most important elements and with a vision one can excite people to achieve the impossible! This is also the crux of today’s lecture - people and their role in the organisation. All the people in the organisational departments and units are strategically important - the company will not function and performing functionally if this structure is not in place.
Many aspects of human capital were touched on, the roles of the employers and employees, when the culture in the organisation is right, non-performers will also stand out.
What was of interest to me (and I actually never thought of it in this way) is the levels of law that come into play in an organisation and that a leader should familiarise him/herself with.
1 Constitution - this is the basis of the culture of this country - this is the framework.
2 Labour Relations Act & agreement and determinations controlled by this act - this is where Unions come in.
3 Basic Conditions of Employment Act -conditions under which people must work, training issues etc.
4 Contract of Employment - this need to be reviewed from time to time.
5 Common Law - about people rights.
Recommended:    signing a code of conduct / ethics at least once a year (and especially in the supply chain).
We had group assignments - case studies the groups had to look at and report back on.
Performance Management and the key principles of performance management were discussed as well as conflict management, training and skills development.  Somewhere in all of this I got completely lost as these topics wondered off into unstructured storytelling by John. At the end of the day this just felt too a long day, being it the second full day with the same person.
24 March 2011
Want to report back in retrospect with lectures we had later in the course, there were very interesting lectures but because of the time constraint were packed and these lectures could have benefitted with some of the time spent on this day that was to my opinion not fully used for the purpose. (e.g. Derick de Jongh and Deon Rossouw's lectures that could have some more time allocated)

DAY 5 : Tuesday 15 March - One Organisation Many Leaders

John Moalusi is the CEO of a company called 'Bridging The Gap'.
He is a consultant and has many years of experience in the field of leadership.

John Moalusi.
A very dynamic quote is that of Manfred Ketz De Vries the very first qoute with which he introduces the manual and the lecture: 'If we are to understand leadership, we have to pay attention to the internal and social dynamics, to the complex playing fields between leaders and follower, and to unconscious and invisible psychodynamics processes and structures that influence the behaviour of individuals and groups in organizations'. The content of his lecture is purely build and applied around this quote.
He at first also emphasized the fact that we should
Read....
    Read....
         Read....
              Read.... one of the most important activities and this to him is sustainable!

He clearly distinguished between managers and leaders. Managers just do it that way! while a leader will think deeply about things and then change them. The humbleness of a leader will take the approach of 'how do you feel ... / what if we do it this ....' and through this approach the leader creates followers. Through so much info, approaches, attitudes, values, emotional competency  and examples of the characteristics of a leader it was quite clear that one cannot do this on your own or alone.
What also stood out for me was the Seven Habits of Effective People just to be reminded that one has to be in sync with yourself and if necessary you need to switch off from time to time, re-consider and if needed change focus and therefor continues improvement is important for what he called 'the world view - and this is about what is in your head'. Self-awareness is should be kept in mind at all times.

Group work also included a scenario, e.g. staff resisting change. The group had then to discuss
1 The Problem need to be defined
2 Diagnose - the what? be it leadership / management?
3 Define the solution - through leadership / management
4 What strategies can be applied to solve the problem?
This was very interesting in how each group came up with their approach to these steps.

Leadership is very complex and in the different leadership styles there is not one that can be said - this is the perfect one. Each leadership style do have pros and cons and has said  previously it is important to continuously take time and re-think and re-consider, your attitude in life is what direct you. My observation about leadership was that although you have created yourself a good set of values the success of being a good leader is very complex and not easy.
But even so - this was a very interesting day and John presented engaging through-out the day. The diversity of his experience in business and politics shared with us made good examples of how to approach the complexity of leadership.

Day 4 : Monday 14 March - NLSA - LIASA - Next generations & PAMOJA

National Librarian: National Library of South Africa (NLSA)
John Tsebe's main discussions included legislation concerning the Library and Information Services (LIS), he shortly referred to the legislative framework. Background was given on the National Council of Library and Information Services (NCLIS) and the act that established the need. The  6th draft commissioned by Department of Arts and Culture (DAC) and he National Council of Library and Information Services (NCLIS) was handed to us and their role was outlined. He shared with the group NCLIS's strategic direction regarding vision and mission. What touched me was the role that LIS have to play in the whole scenario of enhancing, promoting and support a culture of reading and position ourselves as the best informed nation. John also touched on the close relationships with LIASA and their active role in IFLA.

Leading LIASA & LIASA leading the profession
When I re-entered my career as Librarian in 1996 I was appointed in the Interlibrary loans -and shortly after that I became acquainted with LIASA and was in a very vague way involved with establishing the ILL interest group. I then became an Information Specialist and my connection with LIASA somehow disappeared. Now again for the very first time I really became aware of the huge role of LIASA in the profession and I actually feel a little sad about the fact that I have not been more involved! After Naomi Haasbroek addressed us on LIASA I was surprised by all their strategic partners. Although they have a strong face in LIS they still face quite a few challenges. Appreciated in what they contribute to the profession though.

Next generation librarians
Prof Theo Bothma instigated a discussion with an interactive session on how does the librarian look currently, what do want to achieve to change accordingly for the future - what will our characteristics be? One important fact was that we do have to take responsibility for our own future and how do we do that? Life-long learning! This was an interesting and critical discussion on the profession, we need to move out of our comfort zones.

Our next speaker Rene Schoombee gave a very practical and informal overview of her own experiences as the next generation - the goal - moving forward - take the chance - and do it! Although this was not applicable to all sectors in the library field I am sure that the public and community librarians in the group must have been inspired by her enthusiasm, but unfortunately I personally am not sure if she really shared valuable knowledge.

PAMOJA - was next on the agenda and Ujala was back!
Before we could actually engage in PAMOJA we first had to finish the second part of the Campbell Leadership Descriptor Tool. We looked at developmental strategies and what our personal action plan will contain. An important element here was that your strategy must be a plan in how to become a different person. What are the things I can do to improve myself?
Then the games began!!! PAMOJA. This was about group vs team dynamics.
Ujala explained to us what PAMOJA meant and the following is a good descriptor:

In Kiswahili Pamoja means together. This name reflects our organization's commitment to work with communities for peace, justice and economic development ... 

The group was divided into groups, each group had to create a country (information was handed to each group)  and build information centres. Each country represented a specific colour and in each country the team members were assigned a role, e.g. country representatives, ambassadors and gatekeepers. The currency used was called Mojas and there was a bank and a donor organisation. Trade and negotiate was the objective. When the game began everybody was confused and not sure of what was expected or what they should do, but as the time went on negotiating, bribing and honest business became so interlinked, but what was of importance was that in a group each person had a specific role to fulfil in order to succeed as team. A complete explanation and outline of the game are summarised in the ppt.

In our discussion after the game it became clear that not everybody was sure what exactly they had to do, but ever they tried at least to do something. The purpose was to actually see the bigger picture and this does not only concern the organisation but also what is viewed by other outside the organisation - interaction with other organisations. We all actually had great fun, lots of laughing and learning.

Day 3 : Sunday 13 March 2011 HBDI profiles

- Slept well, breakfast was enjoyable and the day started off a little late as the conference venue was not cleaned and read in time, but all still in good fun with Ann de Boer who handled it so well and with much humour!
We had to complete an online questionnaire for the Herman Brain Dominance Index (HBDI) a week before the Academy started and this was necessary for the results to be processed and interpreted.
The humor actually lasted throughout the day while Ann de Boer demonstrated the different quadrants doings! This was great fun as we played a blue, green, red and yellow card game in an attempt to analyse and learn about ourselves and the characteristics that we think we have.

I have attended a HBDI profiling workshop previously and was waiting in anticipation to what the result of this questionnaire will be in relation to the previous results. What a surprise! the results were very much still the same, but with differences as well. I was still green dominant (still planning, organising - very administrative) and very close to that was the red (emotion) and yellow (creative) quadrant. It was interesting to see how high I actually came out in green when under pressure). I always say, the more the pressure the better the performance - that’s me!


From my previous experience I could honestly say that I have learnt quite an amount of different learning styles, different approaches and what it is that makes each individual 'tick' and their profile is what make each person so unique in their behaviour. The repetition of this exercise just emphasized the fact of each person's individuality and how each person needs to be approached on their own merit. In training the students it is of great importance to realise and remember that each have a different learning style. Important to realise that thinking preference impact on everything we do, be the way we communicate, solve a problem and many more ....       HBDI
After the personal profiling, we as team had to do a group profile in order to assist us in our teamwork approach - indicating our interaction with each other. A rather loooong day - but we all had so much FUN!

I was part of this super team!
Zuki Maya - Phindile Bekwa - Abram Maboya - me Susan - Cynthia Molepo




On Saturday 19 March I visited home and compared the two profiles - my blue profile has improved since 2006 with the first profile.

DAY 2 : Saturday 12 March 2011 - Blogs Wikis etc etc...

Day 2 - it is now Saturday morning and after an extravagant breakfast the academy started with a big bang!
The first session was an introduction to Web 2.0 by Janice, and all though I am familiar with most of the Web 2.0 tools I still enjoyed the refresher of what is out there and how they are applied and used in practice. All though for most of the colleagues this might have been to comprehensive and overwhelming, (too many too soon ;-)), a suggestion is to be a little more selective of what is introduced and to elaborate a little more on the advantages of what the tool can contribute to in the library environment taking into consideration what actually can be accomplished to enhance library services.

The session on Blogs by Antoinette is very familiar to me as I do use blogging in my working environment on a regular basis and started blogging in the early stages when blogging was introduced us, doing the blog for the SA Online User Group at the time and also presented workshops on blogging. I could however assist my colleagues sitting next to me who was completely unfamiliar with blogs and creating them.

All though I blog, twitter and have a profile on LinkedIn I was not familiar with wiki spaces and enjoyed learning about and creating a wiki space. This was another great experience and achievement for me. I do hope that I can introduce and use wiki's in my work environment to the advantage of my colleagues.

Then the shock! Prof Bothma introduced the group to what our rresponsibilities will be for attending, we have to create a wiki with a specific topic per group (5 team players in a group - and this created 4 groups). This assignment will result in a word document and a Power Point Presentation on the last day of the Academy that the group have to present in equally divided time and responsibility. We also individually have to create a blog and diarise our daily activities; this will be also handed in as a word document. These two assignments will be the projects to be completed within the two weeks of attendance. The big one though is the individual research project - to be completed within three months after the academy. We have until June 2011 in which to choose a topic, write a proposal, do the research - write up and hand in.

It was also sad that Ujala had to leave us under difficult circumstances
because a family member of hers was very ill at the time. This must have been a very difficult time for her. Hilda Kriel then attended to the first part of the 'Campbell Leadership Descriptor' tool. The tool is developed to assist in important aspect or characteristics in leadership. The tool touches on six task components of organizational leadership and three personal components of leadership.
Through answering the self-scored assessment you can create your own personal profile and with comparing a personal action plan can be developed and indicate how to take your role as a leader in the right direction.
By also profiling a good and a poor leader it was clear to me that each person or leader will have strengths and Hilda said not to use ‘weaknesses’, but for the life of it I just cannot remember the replacement word now. I do hope the correct word will come back to me. This was then emphasizing the fact that nobody is perfect and this need to be remembered in each situation you find yourself in.

DAY 1 : Friday 11 March 2011 - Arrival at The Villas

Arrived at The Villas - Luxury Suite Hotel in Arcadia, Pretoria at 14:20! After booking in I was escorted to my room by the hotel porter - D204 on the second floor. The room was well equipped and comfortable.

I unpacked a few items, still went to the shop and returned in time for the registration at 16:00 just to realise that registration is only at 16:30. With registration we received a file and a bag printed with details on the Carnegie Library Leadership Academy (CLLA) and Centre for African Library Leadership (CALL). After everybody arrived for registration we entered the conference hall, our names was placed at a specific place were one had to sit. After introducing yourself to your neighbours, Ujala gave a heartily welcome to us. She set us all at comfort and briefly explaining what will be expected of us during our stay. Then suddenly the shock came! we had to introduce ourselves by means of the 3 slide PPT we had to submit - this was really unexpected but very informative to learn about the rest of the team and to here where they come from and in which sector of the library industry they function.
We then had dinner after which we all went to our rooms to settle in and familiarize ourselves with the rest of the two weeks program. Wondering of to dream-land with anticipation....

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

• MY EXPECTATIONS

           At first w was not sure at all what to expect! As I got over the shock and excitement that I

           definitely have been accepted, I started thinking of what exactly could this all be about? I

           read the background on the Grant Overview which I found on the Library page of the

           University of Pretoria. Reading through this I realised that the investment they have made

           in the attendees, are a vast amount of different angles and approaches to enhance

           librarianship from leadership, marketing, branding, diversity, culturalism, self

           enhancement and so much more that I have not even mentioned.

            - I felt privileged  and special

            - I was now looking forward to learn more about my working environment, profession.

               from colleagues in other libraries and about myself.

• REFLECTING ON WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH THE NEW KNOWLEDGE

           Although I am not in a leadership position I would like to enhance my direct working
           environment with as many of the knowledge I obtained from this programme. I want to
           look at the services I deliver to my departments, lecturers, students and other clients 
           differently. I want to clear, clean, organise and sustain, I also want to apply these qualities
           to my own personal life. I just want to embrace all the knowledge and skills acquired
           during the two weeks.
           I am not a very critical person and therefore also did not really criticize on the
           presentations. I have the point of view that one can also learn at least something new.

• FIVE ISSUES OF DIFFERENCES IN MY OWN LIBRARY

          I can go back to work with so much to offer :
          - Firstly look at what am I doing at the library and what can I do differently, how
             can I apply what I have learnt from the academy.
          - How can I involve and share what I have learnt with my colleagues - we all need to 
            benefit from the knowledge gain.
          - I want to re-think my training procedures and - am I accommodating the different
            learning and thinking styles? 
          - I want to apply clear, clean, organise, standardize and sustain my own working 
            environment.
          - What can I do to contribute to the community?