Ministry of Agriculture Funds Open Access Projects

Here's an update on the pilot project I posted earlier this year. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs has decided to fund two open access projects for research. One of the projects is led by Professor Helen Hambly at the University of Guelph and I will be working with her and the OMAFRA Veg Crop Specialist Janice LeBoeuf. We will be reviewing the issues behind publishing research reports on applied topics like veg crops. Our focus will be to recommend how the researchers in this area can make the reports they create public and freely accessible on the Internet.

Tanzania and Civil Society

The University Librarian as a Team Player in Civil Society
This article talks about the progress of my research team working with the Academic Library in the capital and a small rural community in Northern Tanzania.

Open Access for Agriculture Research in Ontario

I have the pleasure of working on the same campus as a lot of agricultural researchers who do a lot of work with farmers and producer groups promoting new ideas.

Janice LeBoeuf is a Vegetable Crop Specialist for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture. She uses research reports to solve problems in the field. She came across the problem that there is no place online to find research solutions for Ontario farmers.

When she asked me if I knew how to solve this problem we decided to get to work on making an online space for sharing reports. Her summer students scanned over 400 reports, she developed the keywords and got licences signed for each report to allow for publication.

I asked the Guelph Library for space to store the electronic files and we created the Ontario Vegetable Crop Research Collection. This is a pilot project and we are waiting for funds to move more reports online. You can check it out now: http://dspace.lib.uoguelph.ca/xmlui/handle/10214/1668

Guelph in China

I work for the University of Guelph and wanted to start documenting some of the international relations that exist with the Chinese Agricultural University Library.

Luckily for me, Judy Wanner another Guelph Librarian has had the most recent contact with our Chinese colleagues. She traveled to deliver English and Library Science classes in 2008.

You can read my article "Guelph in China" about the impact that Canadian library architecture has had on the development of their sister library in Beijing. It is printed in Feliciter, from the Canadian Library Association. See Volume 56 No.1 2010 pages 23-25.

Huron Tanzania Project

I am currently working with project leaders Dr. Benedict Mongula and Dr. Arja Vainio-Mattila on a model for improving access to information for villagers in Northern Tanzania.

The project website has more details about this 6 year project. You can see Dr. Mongula, dressed in gray shirt and pants in the picture. I am peeking out behind the woman in the front row.

This photo was taken during a presentation to the local government officials in Monduli District who were interested in learning about our project: "Building Civil Society Capacity for Poverty Reduction". I will be creating a workshop with the team to encourage officials to use local media to reach out and inform citizens during the fall of 2010.