ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN INDEXERS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS (ASAIB)

ASAIB AGM 25 NOVEMBER 2011

2011-10-17T00:23:00.000-07:00

Please join us for the annual ASAIB AGM to be held this year at 10am at

Bella Rosa Farm

123 Lourens Drive Beaulieu Kyalami Gauteng

Our speaker will be Dr Jackie Kalley Senior Librarian and Publications Officer at the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA)

The title of Jackie’s talk will be "The Making and breaking of an editor". Jackie and Sheenagh Harris, in conjunction with Otterley Press, have recently published Veld, Vlei and Rose Gardens, inspiration from South African gardeners. Jackie will talk about her experiences of editing and creating the index for this beautiful publication.

We look forward to seeing as many of our members as possible at this annual function.

Please RSVP to :

Amanda Simpson by 20 November 2011 http://ww.bellarosafarm.co.za

amandaindexing@gmail.com

079 053 0429

Course and Workshop on Academic Citations and Bibliographic Referencing

2011-10-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

ASAIB ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN INDEXERS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS
and ACHIEVER ASSOCIATES

present  a One-day Course and Workshop on Academic Citations and Bibliographic Referencing Johannesburg, 12 November, 2011
Are you confused about the different academic referencing styles in use in South Africa?

Do you know how to apply a specific reference style to an academic text according to the required style guide when editing work for an academic journal or writing a dissertation or  thesis?

What do APA, Chicago, MLA and Harvard mean to you?

If you need to answer any of these questions, why not join us for a full day workshop on 12 November at Old Edwardians Club, Lower Houghton, Johannesburg
If you are an academic editor, a Masters or Doctoral Student or Supervisor, or a writer or editor of journal articles, this workshop will benefit you.
l articles, this workshop will benefit you.
The workshop presenters are Marlene Burger and Jenny de Wet. Marlene is the ASAIB Chair, lecturer at Unisa in Cataloguing, Classification, Indexing, Bibliography and Archival Science and author of Bibliographic style and reference techniques (2010) and Jenny, who has an MA in Information Science, is an ASAIB member, an ex-lecturer and an ASAIB indexing award-winner.

The workshop will be held from 08:30 to 16:00 on Saturday, 12th November 2011. Tea and coffee will be served at registration, followed by snacks and teas and a full lunch at noon.

The early bird workshop registration fee is R500 if paid before 4 November and the late registration charge will be R525.

Send your reservations to:      burgem@unisa.ac.za
Tel 012 4296585 Cell 0824826703
Fax 012 4298520 (mark for attention: M Burger)

Payment to be made on confirmation of booking
Account name: ASAIB, Nedbank (Branch Sandown 193305)
Savings account 2933069393, Reference: Your name + Bibliography

ASAIB CONFERENCE 13 MAY 2011

2011-05-25T12:55:00.000-07:00

A photographic view of the 2011 ASAIB Conference on The Why's and Wherefores of Indexing,held at the Ditsong Military Museum, Saxonwold, Johannesburg.

ASAIB Conference on the Why's and Wherefores of Indexing

2011-02-11T02:00:00.000-08:00

Ditsong Military Museum, Saxonwold, Johannesburg

ALERT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

ASAIB has great pleasure in inviting you to take part in the conference on the why's and the wherefores of indexing.

Three panels each made up of three panellists and each with a keynote speaker will discuss the following:
1. What? This panel will focus on indexing the sciences and arts
2. Wherefore? This panel will focus on marketing, the business side of indexing and freelance indexing.
3. This is IT. A comparison will be made between the different types of databases that an indexer could encounter when indexing a database.

Summaries of prospective papers should be submitted in MS Word to Marlene Burger at burgem@unisa.ac.za before 18 March 2011

ASAIB AWARD

The ASAIB 201 Award for best index and/or bibliography published during 2009 and 2010 will be made at the conference. Send your entries to Marlene Burger before 12 April 2011.

GENERAL

The programme will be communicated as soon as possible.
Conference fees: R650 (Early Bird - registered and paid before 16 March 2011)
R750 full conference fee.
Retired indexing professionals: R350.
The registration form is available on the ASAIB Webpage
A Map to the venue and information on accommodation

ENQUIRIES

Marlene Burger: burgem@unisa.ac.za +27124296585
Madely du Preez: preezm@unisa.ac.za +274296792
Karin McGuirk: mcguik@unisa.ac.za +27124296313

ASAIB AGM 2010 and ASAIB Conference 2011

2010-11-23T23:02:00.000-08:00

The ASAIB AGM was held on 12 November and hosted at Ruther Glen Cottage, 18 Wallace Street, Waverley, Johannesburg. The morning was well attended. The AGM took the form of a picnic in Shelagh Harris' beautiful rose garden. Delegates brought their own chairs and picnic baskets.

Our speaker, Louise Matschke, Curriculum Specialist at the Johannesburg Zoo, talked about the nature of zoos. She explained why zoos are important, how zoos contribute to conservation and provide a habitat to urban wildlife. Louise also touched on Biomimicry, a new and very exciting bio-engineering field.

Arline Burger was the photographer of the morning. See the photos of this memorable morning.

CONFERENCE 2011
Following the AGM, the ASAIB Exco convened for their monthly meeting to plan for the 2011 ASAIB Conference on The why's (wise) and the Wherefores?

Venue: DItsong Military Museum, Saxonwold, Johannesburg
Date: 13 May 2011

Three panels each made up of three pannellists and each with a keynote speaker will discuss the following:

What? This panel will focus on indexing the sciences and arts
Wherefore? This panel will focus on marketing, the business side of indexing and freelance indexing.
This is IT. A comparison will be made between the different types of databases that an indexer could encounter when indexing a database.

Summaries of prospective papers should be submitted to Marlene Burger at burgem@unisa.ac.za before 18 March 2011.

ASAIB AWARD

The ASAIB 2011 Award for best index and/or bibliography published during 2009 and 2010 will be made at the conference. Send your entries off to Marlene Burger before 12 April 2011.

General

The programme, registration form, fees, map, etc will be communicated as soon as possible. Information on accommodation in the area will also be provided.

ENQUIRIES

Marlene Burger burgem@unisa.ac.za 012 4296585
Madely du Preez preezm@unisa.ac.za 012 4296792

2011 ProLISSA Conference

2010-11-23T22:54:00.000-08:00

Progress in Library and Information Science in Southern Africa

Sixth biennial DISSAnet Conference
University of South Africa (UNISA)
9-11 March 2011
9 March 2011: Doctoral Forum
10-11 March 2011: Conference

Preliminary Programme

Unisa Storytelling Festival and Conference on Reading Promotion and Storytelling for Children

2010-06-29T00:19:00.001-07:00

Announcement and call for papers

6-8 October 2010

Organised by the Department of Information Science of the University of South Africa and the Children's Literature Research Unit of the Department

University of South Africa, Pretoria

We welcome:
1. Abstracts (of not more than 250 words) that address particular issues regarding reading promotion for children and storytelling to children.
2. Proposals for workshops on storytelling and reading promotion for children. Please indicate the cost involved.
3. Names of storytellers who can be approached to participate in the Storytelling Festival.

Due date for abstracts:
15 July 2010. Notification of acceptance will be made within one week.

The programme, information on accommodation, registration fee, as well as the registration form will be published at a later stage on the webpage: http://www.unisa.ac.za/dept/infosc

Mail abstracts and direct enquiries to:

Prof Thomas van der Walt, Department of Information Science, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, 0003 Pretoria, South Africa

Fax: +27 12 4293792

email: vdwaltb@unisa.ac.za

CONFERENCE 2010 - Rietvlei Nature Reserve

2010-06-24T06:30:00.001-07:00

A PICTORIAL VIEW OF THE 2010 ECO-FRIENDLY ASAIB CONFERENCE ON THE INDEXER IN PUBLISHING HOSTED AT THE RIETVLEI NATURE RESERVE, 6 MAY

Denise Nicholson

Jenny de Wet

Nomvula Nhlabati and Dimekatsu Raphesu

The venue is ready and awaiting the conference delegates

Jackie Kalley opening the Conference

Gavin Davis

Midmorning Coffee

Antoinette Kotze enjoying the view

Marlene Burger and Peter Duncan enjoying an early morning cup of coffee

Dorette Snyman

Isabel Delvare

A captive audience

A serious discussion

Marlene Burger

Hannalie Knoetze receiving her award as the runner up

Marlene Burger enjoying a coffee and the view in the lapa

Jenny de Wet, the 2010 winner of the ASAIB Award for the best index

ASAIB INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE 2009 : A PHOTO SURVEY

2009-05-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

ASAIB hosted the Triennial Meeting of
Representatives from International Indexing Societies on 8 May at the Maropeng Heritage Centre in the Cradle of Humankind. This was followed by the annual ASAIB Conference on the theme Africa Visited and Revisited. The following is a photographic survey of some of the conference activities. A full report on the conference was published in the ASAIB newsletter (www.asaib.org.za/newsletter.html).
On Sunday evening the delegates enjoyed an evening of drumming. See them having fun (right)

Below: Amanda Simpson and Nomvula Nhlabati at the registration desk
Below: Delegates listening to a presentation

Below: Ina Fourie and Anna-Marie Arnold enjoying tea

Left: Shadrak Katuu, Ruth Pincoe and Marlene Burger at the main desk

Riason Naidoo introducing the restoration project at Timbaktu

Rachel Williams introducing Majorie Courtenay- Latimer

John Simkin (ANSZI) and other delegates in the boat to view the Maropeng Museum exhibits

Antoinette Kotze enjoying a moment

Pilar Wyman (USA) enjoying an exhibit in the Maropeng Museum

Karin McGuirk and Hannalie Knoetze at the conference dinner

Frances Lennie introducing the international societies' representatives

The Simon Bekker Primary School choir closed the conference with the South African national anthem

ASAIB Conference 2008 - Photos

2009-04-01T04:54:00.000-07:00

Marlene Rose and Stephen Gray

Market place

Cynthia Kros

Trix Lombard, Antoinette Kotze, Nomvula Nhlabati, Marlene Burger

Peter Duncan having tea

Peter Duncan at the registration desk

Left: Amanda Simpson and three exhibitors

Right: Peter Duncan and Yvonne Garson

Left: Stephan Welz

Right: Deone Prinsloo

Left: Henriette Latsky

Right: Abdul Bemath on receiving his award.

Left: Beth Strachan and Elna Schoeman

Right: Ruda Landman and Jackie Fourie (at the back)

ASAIBASAIB AWARD FOR BEST INDEX AND/OR BIBLIOGRAPHY 2009

2008-10-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

This award is made annually by the Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers for indexes and/orbibliographies at the annual ASAIB Conference. The 2009 conference (9 & 10 March) is an international conference (at theMaropeng Heritage Site) and will be attended by representatives of overseas indexing societies. The winner(s) will be announcedat the conference dinner on Monday, 9 March.

The deadline for entries is 13 February 2009. Please complete the entry form and mail it, together with a copy of you index orbibliography to:

M Burger
ASAIB c/o Department of Information Science
PO Box 392
Unisa 0003

An independent committee will evaluate it, taking indexing principles and bibliographic style into account.

ASAIB

APPLICATION: AWARD FOR INDEX OR BIBLIOGRAPHY (2009)

NAME:
POSTAL ADDRESS:

CONTACT DETAILS:
Tel
Fax
E-mail

FULL BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS OF THE WORK:

BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND (brief cv, present position or occupation):

INDEXING EXPERIENCE:

A COPY OF THE WORK MUST BE ENCLOSED

SIGNATURE:

DATE:

ASAIB 2009 CONFERENCE ALERT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

2008-07-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers Conference and International Triennual Meeting 9 and 10 March 2009.

THEME:
“Africa Visited and Revisited: the History of Africa Revealed through Indexing and Bibliography”

This conference is organised with the Society for Indexers, UK.

VENUE:
Maropeng (Official Visitor Centre for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site) near Magaliesburg

PROGRAMME:
The programme consists of four sessions, namely “Windows to the past”, “Africa is seldom what it seems,” and “Something new out of Africa”. The last session will be dedicated to reports of the international representatives.

If you want to present a paper at this conference, please contact Marlene Burger (burgem@unisa.ac.za, telephone +27 12 429 6585) or Madely du Preez (preezm@unisa.ac.za, telephone +27 12 429 6792)

ASAIB AWARD:
The ASAIB 2009 Award for best index or bibliography will be made at the conference.

GENERAL:
The programme, registration form, and cost will be communicated as soon as possible. Links to accommodation in the area will also be provided.

ROSE CALENDAR

2008-07-29T10:40:00.000-07:00

Order Form
Order early to ensure your copy by filling in the form below and e-mailing to info@otterley.com. Alternatively fax it to +27 11 442 7863/ post it to Otterley, 317 Murrayfield, 16 Corlett Drive, Johannesburg, Illovo 2196, South Africa/or check our website at www.otterley.com
Full Name…………...................……………………………………………………………..
Postal Address………………………................…………………………………………..
Postal Code………......................................................................
Daytime tel………………………………………………..Area Code………….............

Cost
R50 each plus postage R20 in South Africa
Price incl VAT & Postage
R70 Overseas Mail: Price on application Quantity Total Order Price
…I enclose a crossed cheque/postal order made out to Otterley Flowers
…I attach a copy of my deposit slip
Bank details: Otterley, Nedbank Rosebank Mall Branch, Account number 1977 046 967 Branch code 197705

ASAIB Newsletter, no. 24 September 2007

2007-09-28T07:20:00.000-07:00

No 24, September 2007

CONTENT

1 ASAIB Award
2 AGM 2006 report back: Guest speaker Jillian Carman
3 AGM 2007: Invitation
4 Conference report backs 2007
4.1 ASAIB Conference: ‘Biography, the beautiful’, 8 - 9 May
4.2 SI Conference 2007, London, 13-16 July
5 Conference Alert 2008, 7 May
6 SI Conference 2009, South Africa
7 Item of interest: Karen Spärck Jones
8 Report on ISAP and on NISCBase
9 Book Reviews
9.1 How LIS professionals can use alerting services
9.2 Crash course in Web Design for libraries
10 Training
1 ASAIB AWARD

ASAIB calls for submissions for their prestigious annual award to be made in the categories of Bibliography and Indexing.

Entries (plus a hard copy of the work) should be sent to Mrs M Burger (ASAIB), Dept of Information Science, PO Box 392, 0003 Unisa by 1 February 2008.

Assessments will be made by an independent committee and the winners in each category will be announced at the ASAIB Annual Conference to be held on 7 May 2008.

2 AGM 2006 REPORT BACK: Guest speaker Jillian Carman

Uplifting the Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the Making of the Johannesburg Art GalleryThe author Jillian Carman was a curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery for twenty years. In 2005, she received the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand Research Committee publication award for her doctoral thesis, which gave rise to this book. From her wonderful morning talk at the AGM it was clear that meticulous research went into her book. Her study of the Johannesburg Art Gallery sheds new and refreshing light on Johannesburg’s Edwardian civic elite. We were offered, through the life of Florence Phillips and Hugh Lane, insights into the beliefs and attitudes in the art world. This was beautifully placed within the larger political, social and cultural context of the early twentieth-century.Uplifting the Colonial Philistine is a fascinating account of the complex circumstances in which the Johannesburg Art Gallery, including the museum building and its singular, avant-garde art collection, was founded in early Johannesburg, then a budding mining town. It describes the larger-than-life characters who brought the gallery to its grand launch in November 1910: Florence Phillips, wife of one of the Randlord patrons; and Hugh Lane, curator. Containing one hundred reproductions of the original art collection, this book explains the original context of the gallery’s founding and the networking between cultural circles in South Africa and abroad. It describes how the collection was perceived in London, its adaptation to suit ‘the colonial Philistine’ (as one London critic described its intended audience), and how the local community responded. It unravels the complex intertwining of personal and socio-political agendas that make up the fabric of the founding and reveals certain unexpected findings.

3 AGM 2007: Invitation

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWS!!!

Our 2007 AGM breakfast is around the corner. All ASAIB members, friends, family and interested colleagues are welcome, but please inform us in advance of your attendance. This way we can ensure enough seats and eats!

Guest speaker: Stephen Gray, Series Editor of Penguin Modern Classics
‘Rediscovering our literary heritage’
Date: 15 November at 08:30 for 09:00
Venue: Hofmeyer House, University of the Witwatersrand
Cost: R55-00 per person
Book by 9 November: Madely du Preez preezm@unisa.ac.za tel 012-4296792

4 CONFERENCE REPORT BACKS 2007

4.1 ASAIB Conference: ‘Biography, the beautiful’, Irene 8 - 9 May

Venue: GEM Hall in the GEM Village, Smuts House Museum, Irene

Eleven excellent papers were presented over the two days. Thank you again, to all our speakers. The titles of the papers were:
The importance and value of indexes and bibliographies in genealogies (Thys du Preez).
Human skeletal remains (Frank Teichert)
Fact, fiction, design and purpose in the lives of St Etheldreda of Ely (Prof Leonie Viljoen)
… of a lion and Eagle (who was Constable Charles William Eagle? (Charles Leach)
Florence Phillips, the colonial Philistine and the Johannesburg Art Gallery (Dr Jillian Carman)
Jan Smuts: the modern Proteus (Dr Janice Farquharson)
Soil once his own: the colonial and Christian world of Lebrecht Hans Ari: a Khoikhoi and Moravian convert, 1771-1864 (Prof Russell Viljoen)
Heraldry (Marcel van Rossum)
The romance of writing biographical articles (Maryna Fraser)
Life/Writing. Why biography matters in the 21st century (Jonathan Hyslop)
Bluebeard: historical, manifestations, biographical (Prof Henning Pieterse)

On the first afternoon we organised a visit to the Smuts House Museum, guided by Arina Kok, and the second afternoon delegates went on a nature walk to the Smuts Koppie, guided by Cheryl Dehning.

Lastly, a special thank you to the ladies of the GEM Village for the wonderful catering.

4.2 SI Conference, ‘Golden Retrievers’, London, 13-16 July

This was the Society of Indexers 50th Anniversary Conference held at
Roehampton University. The conference programme, consisting of papers,
parallel sessions, workshops and visits was presented over four days. In the
evenings delegates had ample opportunity for socialising and networking. At the
conference banquet on Saturday evening, three awards (Wheatley Medal,
Bernard Levin Award, Betty Moys Prize) were presented.

The excellent papers covered the diversity of indexing issues from theory to
applications. The conference concluded on Monday the 16th, with a morning
devoted to publishing and editing. The two keynote speakers were David Crystal
(Honorary professor of linguistics, University of Wales Bangor) on ‘Language and
Indexing’ and John Sutherland (President, Society of Indexers) on ‘TLS
Correspondence: Whither the Index?’

As always, this SI conference was of high standard, well-organised and it was
wonderful meeting indexers from all over the world – Marlene Burger attended
the conference.

5 CONFERENCE ALERT 2008, 7 May

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWS!!!

ASAIB Annual Conference 7 May 2008
‘Remarkable South African Women : Revealed Through Indexing and Bibliography’
Venue: EISA Offices, 14 Park Road, Richmond, Johannesburg

If you want to present a paper at this conference, please contact Marlene Burger burgem@unisa.ac.za tel 012-4296585.

More details will be available later

6 SI CONFERENCE 2009, South Africa

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWS!!!

ASAIB, affiliated to the Society of Indexers, has been chosen to organise the 2009 international indexing conference in South Africa. This is a great honour and ASAIB has already started with preliminary work for this conference. The theme will be: ‘Africa Visited and Revisited’ (in an indexing context).

We would like to have as many as possible indexers attending the conference.

We will keep you informed about details on a regular basis.

7 ITEM OF INTEREST: Karen Spärck Jones
Jackie Kalley alerted us to a very interesting article on Karen Spärck Jones, who died on April 4 (2007) aged 71, in the Telegraph.co.uk. We cannot reproduce the article here due to copyright restrictions, but it can be accessed at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/12/db1201.xml
Who was Karen Spärck Jones? She was Professor of Computers and Information at Cambridge University and, from 2000 to 2002, a Vice-President of the British Academy. She spent more than half a century working on information retrieval (IR) and natural language processing (NLP), fields in which she influenced a generation of computing scientists.
She received numerous awards such as the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, and in 2007 the British Computer Society's Lovelace Medal and the Association for Computer Machinery/AAAI Allen Newell Award.

8 REPORT ON ISAP AND NISCBase (A Kotze, 2007-03-30)

1. INTRODUCTION

The National Library of South Africa (NLSA) compiles and publish ISAP in terms of the National Library Act, 92 of 1998. ISAP is an acronym for the Index to South African periodicals. It is a subject index to articles in periodicals published in South Africa. Indexing of research journals forms the main part of ISAP. A number of periodicals on general and technical level (e.g. SA Food Review, Computing SA) and some popular magazines (e.g. Drum, Sarie) are also indexed for ISAP. Periodicals which are used in schools by learners and facilitators (e.g. South African Journal of Education, EnviroKids) were added for indexing in consultation with the Gauteng Department of Education.

ISAP went online in 1992. On-line entries now date back to 1919. The database is regularly updated with incoming records which the NLSA supplies on contract to database providers, e.g. Sabinet (South African Bibliographic and Information Network) and NISC (National Inquiry Services Centre).

ISAP has a record of being the most used indexing database on Sabinet, and the most used database on NISC’s South African Studies CD-ROM, which is made available internationally.

The NLSA’s Internet version of the ISAP database was launched in September 2000 as ISAPOnline.

2. NEED FOR ADVANCEMENT, STANDARDISATION AND QUALITY

Since the new millenium the need for ISAP to utilize available modern technology for furthering standardisation and validation of indexing increased dramatically. On the previous system the indexing software was outdated and the online system at NLSA used to process records was expensive, time consuming and unreliable. The indexing system did not operate in an interactive way with the processing system at NLSA and problems were repeated due to lack of features to control and support standardisation and data integrity.

After considering different options to improve ISAP, the NLSA accepted in October 2003, NISC’s offer to sponsor ISAP with the use of their NISCBase indexing and management software, with NLSA to cover expenses for customization, NLSA specific enhancements, training and related matters. NISCBase software is known as a relational system with powerful editing and database cleaning features. The more rigorous NISCBase data capture system was also in line with the need to improve standardisation and data integrity on ISAP.

Reporting here on preparatory issues for ISAP on NISCBase will focus on an indexing and library point of view at the NLSA and not on a system and programming point of view at NISC.

3. INITIAL STAGE FOR ISAP AND NISCBASE SOFTWARE

By March 2004 ISAP indexers had to have their machines upgraded according to required specifications for the NISCBase data capture system to be loaded on their machines. This was accompanied with a demonstration and initial training. Afterwards indexers could practice on a dummy NISCBase system and provide feedback and proposals to customize the system to the best advantage for ISAP indexing. Indexing for ISAP still continued on the old system while preparations for a changeover to a live NISCBase system were started at NLSA and NISC.

4. SYNCHRONISING THE LIST OF ISAP PERIODICALS

On the old system, the ISAP periodical titles were given on two separate databases, i.e. ISAP Main (with indexed records) and ISAP Journals (with periodical title information including see references, bibliographic and administrative notes on periodical titles). On the NISCBase system the periodical title information would be included in the publication history feature on one system only. A major preparation concerned the synchronization of discrepancies in periodical titles on the separate ISAP Main and Journals databases into one periodical list to be used on the NISCBase system. We aimed to bring in line ISAP journal titles with its required bibliographic description based on ISAP guidelines and its compliance with AACRII keeping in mind the need for balanced adjustment and technological advancement. Indexers, professionals in SANB and NISC staff and their production manual were important role players and sources of reference in this process. Decisions involved i.a. determining conventions e.g. for correct journal titles, continuity in reflecting correct changes in journal titles for applicable issues, linking of changed titles, the use of abbreviations or written out forms, correct spelling, etc.

5. TRAINING AT NISC AND THE SUBCONTRACTING AGREEMENT WITH CSIR:

The completed list of synchronized periodical titles arrived at NISC in October 2004. The data was converted, loaded and tested on a preliminary server version at NISC to be ready for my training on this version in Grahamstown in November. The training gave me a better idea of how the NISCBase system for ISAP would work and NISC also developed a better understanding of ISAP needs. With decisions made, it was kept in mind how best ISAP could be developed while trying not to compromise its inherent character.

With an increased understanding of the NISCBase software it became clear that with NISCBase allowing editing of delivered records only on the management system at NLSA and to have an intermediate editing function developed not being a viable option for NLSA, the subcontracting agreement with CSIR was at stake. Fortunately CSIR was in a process of reassessing their involvement with ISAP, which lead to a mutual agreement to have the NLSA /CSIR indexing contract for ISAP terminated by end of February 2005 in favour of improved record quality and a standardized process for ISAP. NLSA consequently either directly contracted previous CSIR indexers or used existing appropriate ISAP indexers to continue indexing done by CSIR.

Major issues still to be sorted out before going live on the NISCBase system were also identified for clarification with the Grahamstown visit.

6. CLARIFICATION OF ISSUES

The remaining issues for clarification included aspects like the following:

6.1. Download options from the server system for publication:
NISC needed a list of who downloads need to be created for, criteria and preferred formats for different database providers for NLSA to remain true to existing agreements on requirements for machine-readable record transfer. One example is the NISCBase indexing identity for Unisa that provides for a download to be generated of Unisa’s ISAP records done on NISCBase for importation in Unisa’s own database system.
After the changeover some download format problems were still experienced due to format needs not been clearly indicated beforehand.

6.2. Thesaurus terms (the list and terms used on ISAP):
6.2.1 The ISAP thesaurus list:
A proposal to consider replacing the ISAP thesaurus with the UNESCO or another appropriate thesaurus with changing over to the NISCBase system was looked into but decided against mainly due to the following:
- the UNESCO thesaurus would not be able to accommodate the comprehensive scope of subject fields on ISAP, e.g. the fields for technology, law and music are not well represented on a broad level of entry;
- the intrinsic hybrid character of the ISAP thesaurus to be used in combination with natural language keywords would have to be negated.

The ISAP thesaurus was consequently updated (though not in depth) with additional terms that were missing, unnecessary or unused terms were discontinued and proposals submitted by indexers were considered. Updating was done according to the following approach and criteria:

Approach:
The DDC (Dewey Decimal Classification) and to a lesser extend LCSH (Library of Congress Subject Headings) were followed to determine hierarchical relations for narrow terms (NT), broad terms (BT), relational terms (RT), use for terms (UF), use terms (U) and scope notes (SN).
It was aimed to remain true to the broad disciplinary character that the ISAP thesaurus should represent which, together with natural language keywords underlie the hybrid functioning of this system.

Criteria:
A term was considered for inclusion where:
- A gap existed in the ISAP thesaurus and existing terms could not be used instead.
- A term (or variation thereof in the keyword field) counted 1000 incidences or more, together with considering the first mentioned.

Other factors that played a role in determining inclusion or omission of thesaurus terms for ISAP were:
- Where a proposed term sorted under an existing ISAP thesaurus term that is already on a NT-level and comparing it with the level of NTs for other existing ISAP thesaurus terms.
- The depth or extensiveness to which a subject area is divided in DDC and LSCH as compared to that of other subject areas.

The updated list of ISAP thesaurus terms is now used on NISCBase so that only correct and used terms are allowed to be picked from a drop-down list by indexers and at ISAP.

6.2.2 Thesaurus terms used on ISAP:
All thesaurus terms used on the ISAP database was checked and cleaned to reflect only verified terms as listed in the updated ISAP thesaurus. Non-listed thesaurus terms were moved to the keyword field where appropriate so that record content could be kept in tact.

6.3. Number of names in the author field and year notes field:
The decision to continue the use of 3 authors maximum with et al for more than 3 authors, is based on AACRII advising the principle of choosing one main entry for each item described that is supplemented by 2 added entries. The decision is also in line with the character of ISAP as a subject index.
A four numeric string is stipulated for the year format on NISCBase. Additional information relating to the year (e.g. dual year coverage) could be entered in the Year Notes field.

6.4. Mandatory fields for Input:
Mandatory fields were determined for the input screen to ensure that necessary fields are completed but also to enable indexers to interrupt their indexing without losing data already inputted and complete such interrupted indexing at a later stage during editing required on the edit screen for inputters.

6.5. W- and P-numbers for periodicals plus alternate and subsequent titles:
Periodicals section participated in explaining options when W- and P-numbers would be used for closed down, current, re-opened and merged periodical titles. The way alternate and subsequent titles were to be dealt with were also taken into account.
The publication history feature on NISCBase would be used to enable actions related to these aspects.

6.6. ISAP existing record numbers vs Record ID’s for ISAPon NISCBase and indexer identities:
The ISAP record number included values for an interlending library code, an indexer number and a record number consisting of subelements. These needed to be interpreted by NISC for all previous and current ISAP indexers, for the information to be converted and incorporated into the new system appropriately. On NISCBase, indexers were to be identified separately from the record ID’s.

With the resend of the complete ISAP database to database providers in January 2007 all initial ISAP record numbers were replaced with NISCBase record ID’s.

6.7. Indexers retaining old records as examples and records over multi-series:
With NISCBase, indexers are not allowed to retain their records after a download has been made. If examples of records are needed for future reference, indexers have to generate their own selected copies as needed in a Word or Note text file. To have changed the download function for indexers to keep their records, would have involved changes compromising for the NISCBase system. Similarly, an earlier incomplete record can not be retained to be replaced by a later completed record for a multi-series entry. The indexer has to keep record manually of chapters in a multi-series and can submit only one completed record. This is a clear example of a stricter indexing process to be followed as required by the software.

7. GOING LIVE WITH ISAP on NISCBase

The clearing up of matters continued with teleconferencing, telephone and e-mail discussions.
By 14 November 2005 an ISAP project plan was drawn up in cooperation with NLSA IT and NISC with a timeline and requirements for completion and installation of the NISCBase data capture system for the production of ISAP on NISCBase after 31 March 2006

At NISC the NISCBase system was tested, manuals finalized, data converted and installed.

At the NLSA an SQL server had to be acquired and installed to run on a dedicated server, PC’s of all relevant staff were networked to this server with the SQL client installed on these PC’s and logons created.
An extra ISAP staff member with the required level of indexing and editing expertise was appointed at NLSA in February 2006 to assist with editing and database cleaning.

An additional NLSA/NISC agreement on NISC providing a database maintenance plan and disaster recovery plan for the ISAP on NISCBase database server and system was also concluded to ensure ongoing software maintenance and protection of the ISAP database.

From March 22-31, 2006, the ISAP NISCBase server system on the dedicated SQL server was installed at NLSA and tested, the ISAP NISCBase Input system was installed on all indexers’ machines, training on the Input system was provided to indexers and relevant ISAP staff, who also received training on the server system including workflow protocols.

From April – December 2006 followed an intense period of learning and adjustment with ISAP indexing. Run time errors, misunderstandings and technical problems had to be observed, accurately reported preferably in writing and then followed and cleared up. Sometimes, a solution could only be arrived at after several options were worked through. Much patience, endurance, mutual professional support and advice and also a sense of humour saw us through this teething period. Indexers and relevant staff at NLSA, NISC, including Sabinet and other outside database providers all participated in working towards a successful end result.

During this period both the inputters and servers system were upgraded.

While the indexing software and environment underwent a radical change from the previous ISAP indexing set-up, the indexers’ change was to adjust to the new software. Apart from additionally appointed ISAP staff and availability of NISC staff to provide support, the human indexing expertise previously used with ISAP is still active and producing albeit in a technologically changed environment. Without underestimating technological advancement, one would like to point out the value of previous and continued human expertise and potential, which also forms an integral part of a reliable and powerful environment for ISAP.

The supply of updated records was sporadically interrupted during April – December 2006, mainly due to sorting out a problem with the record download format and tallying on the new system of indexer record totals with month end totals to coordinate totals for invoicing. We are happy to say the last two download supplies in 2007 were successful without format problems. NISC’s support and Sabinet’s patience in this matter is appreciated.
Sending a complete copy of the ISAP database with a total of 522644 records in February 2007 was a further step in resolving discrepancies in download record totals supplied and received, which would also support correct invoicing.

8. IMPROVEMENT OF ISAP ON NISCBase

Improvement of ISAP on NISCBase can be described in terms of activities shared by NLSA, NISC and the indexers.

8.1. NLSA:
8.1.1 Correctness of periodical title: with periodical titles and appropriate issues been correctly accessioned at NLSA, the use of variant forms for periodical titles by indexers and at ISAP is prevented
8.1.2 Uniqueness of indexing: prevention of duplicating indexing is supported by the tightly controlled NISCBase system with unique indexer identities linked to accessioning and editing processes.

8.1.3 Up to date completeness of periodical title history and linking of relevant periodical titles: Having to update periodical titles with changed title information (e.g. previous, successive or merged periodical titles) before accessioning can continue, ensures up to date completeness of periodical titles’ history;

8.1.4 Formats for record transfer are programmatically secured based on database providers’ needs;

8.1.5 Indexer training was extended and intensified to support additional standardization of inputting records;

8.1.6 Quality control of incoming and existing records is regularly and continuously done;

8.1.7 Staff component: Additionally appointed ISAP staff, the training of all ISAP staff together with input and cooperation by NISC staff adds to an improved ISAP product;

8.1.8 A secure technologically advanced and interrelated IT component: effectively controlled interaction between inputters and server systems together with folders and program systems provides for a standardized product in a compatible format. Upgraded software is also supported by the NLSA contract with NISC for IT maintenance, backup and disaster recovery plan.

8.2. Indexers:
8.2.1 Indexers’ personal computer capacity was to be upgraded according to required advanced specifications for NISCBase software;

8.2.2 With more steps involved in inputting, indexing on NISCBase software is more time consuming than previously, but the result is a more standardized product in line with a controlled system. From April 2007 the NLSA has increased the tariff for ISAP indexing to reflect more realistically indexers’ actual time, expertise and effort;

Steps involving additional indexer input are e.g.:
- Additional verification of periodical titles and issues when inputting the Issue ID allocated with accessioning at NLSA;
- Additional content description is required e.g. for article type, taxonomy, abstract language;

8.2.3 Compulsory record editing is programmatically required before downloading of indexed records can be done;

8. 2.4 Managing of working copy updates, backups and downloads on program folders involve indexers in securing a controlled process during the compilation process of ISAP records.

8.3. NISC
8.3.1 An advanced technological environment and professional IT expertise at NISC has been secured with a contractual agreement between NLSA and NISC, to support the ISAP on NISCBase management system, inputters system, update versions, program IT components, maintenance, backup, disaster action plan and program training.

9. CONCLUSION

The changeover for ISAP to NISCBase software involved intense learning and commitment from participants.
The first year after the changeover has been successfully completed and announced as such at the official launch of ISAP on NISCBase 29 March 2007.
The role players are committed to continue producing a developing ISAP product.

9 BOOK REVIEWS

9.1 How LIS professionals can use alerting services. By Ina Fourie. Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2006. 178 p. ISBN 184334128X

Steven Cohen published a book Keeping current in 2003. In it he provided practical advice on how busy librarians can stay current while the Web keeps getting bigger and deeper. Cohen gives two reasons for why librarians need to keep current: monitoring news and resources for their profession and locating useful resources for their patrons. Keeping current offers the reader expert guidelines and insightful evaluations of software and products that help reference librarians do their jobs better, easier, and faster.

Other new publications published during the past few years aiming at assisting librarians in keeping current focused on being successful at the reference desk and on using the Web successfully to provide in their clients’ or users’ information needs. None of these publications, including the publication by Cohen, actually focused on the librarian’s own professional information needs. A very recent publication, How LIS professionals can use alerting services, by Ina Fourie is an exception. Like in the other publications, Fourie also looks at how LIS professionals can keep current, but, the focus is on how these professionals can monitor their own professional environment to remain current on events, trends and developments in their own personal fields of interest. With this approach Fourie hopes to widen LIS professionals’ concept of current awareness services (CAS) and to link the use of CAS to LIS professionals’ understanding of information seeking behaviour, and creativity and knowledge generation. Fourie also indicates (Chapter 5) that hardly anything is known about the information behaviour of LIS professionals, especially their information needs concerning alerting services, wondering how this would differ from other user groups.

The book is especially aimed at the possibilities offered by the Web to LIS professionals who do not otherwise have access to information resources such as academic libraries subscribing to services for LIS professionals, subscriptions to professional journals or membership of a selection of professional bodies.

In How LIS professionals can use alerting services, Fourie explores the potential of alerting services to help LIS professionals to enhance their professional development and to ensure a position in the roles they find exciting. It focuses on taking note of information, turning information into knowledge and using information in a creative and innovative manner. In doing so, she draws on the literature of current awareness services/alerting services, environmental scanning, LIS professional development, forecasting, learning theories, information behaviour, creativity, career planning, and time management.

Fourie starts off by looking at the concepts of current awareness services and alerting services by considering the early developments and the traditional rationale for offering these services. She also pays attention to ‘environmental scanning’ before differentiating between CAS/alerting services and retrospective searching. A more pragmatic view of how LIS professionals can consider their environment and make choices for where and how they will focus their awareness of developments then follows. Different types of alerting services that are relevant to LIS professionals are discussed in Chapter 4. Some examples of alerting services are noted and include websites specialising in alerting services, journal table of contents and journal table of contents alerting services; book announcements and online bookshops; electronic newsletters; discussion lists; weblogs and so on.

Fourie follows a more theoretical approach in Chapter 5 by looking at how LIS professionals can learn from studies on information seeking behaviour. Two issues are at stake in this chapter:
· Aspects that individual LIS professionals should note that could help them gain a better understanding of their experiences and feelings when using alerting services.
· Aspects that the profession should note in sharpening research on LIS professionals’ information seeking behaviour in order to offer more support to this user group.

Surviving the negative side of alerting services is the focus of Chapter 6. In it Fourie addresses the question of how information professionals can solve their own problems with information overload as well as other problems associated with alerting services. The final chapter attempts to pave the way for awareness of fields of theories that may be useful by considering a few actions LIS professionals may find useful in enhancing their ability to successfully put information to use.

An appendix listing useful Web addresses, an extensive bibliography, which can support academic discourse prompted by especially the final chapter, and a good index, concludes the publication.

Ina Fourie can be congratulated with this very practical and thought provoking book. It reads easily and is based on sound academic principles. How LIS professionals can use alerting services is a publication no LIS professional interested in putting information to work and becoming alert to his/her professional challenges can be without.

Sources

Cohen, SM. 2003. Keeping current: advanced internet strategies to meet librarian and patron needs. Chicago: American Library Association.
Owen, TB.2003. Success at the enquiry desk: successful enquiry answering every time. 4th ed. London: Facet.

Reviewed by Madely du Preez
Dept of Information Science
Unisa
E-mail: preezm@unisa.ac.za
[To be published in Mousaion volume 25 number 1 2007]

9.2 Crash Course in Web Design for Libraries. By Charles P. Rubenstein. Crash Course Series. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2007. 196 pp. Soft cover ISBN 1591583667

Librarians communicate with their patrons and staff in many ways, including Web pages posted on the World Wide Web and intranets. Yet planning, HTML coding and publishing web pages can be a daunting task to most people. Charles Rubenstein’s exciting new book Crash course in Web design for libraries gently introduces Web design and publishing, and takes reader on an adventure into the creation of a Web site for the fictitious/mythical Red Rose Library (http://www.redroselibrary.com/ )

Rubenstein developed the Red Rose Library web site as an example of a library’s website. It provides many of the services available in a normal library and which librarians would like to feature on their libraries’ web sites. In the text of Crash course in Web design for libraries, Rubenstein guides readers, through the development of a variety of pages for the “Red Rose” library; in creating their own Web pages. And by linking these pages together, in creating a Web site that will function internally on the library’s intranet or which can even be posted on the Web. The book is filled with tips and techniques on how to present ones library through the broadcast medium of the World Wide Web.

The text is intended to be used as a stand-alone, user-friendly workbook for individuals who have no programming background but have an interest in the rapid development of professional looking web sites. The examples in Rubenstein’s book were created using Microsoft WordPad™ (Version 5) and viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer ™ (Version 6) in the Microsoft Windows ™ XP environment. The focus is on the creation of HTML pages useful in libraries and information centres using the hypothetical Red Rose Library as a demonstration site.

The task of Chapter 1 is to give readers the tools to jump right into creating a Web page so that they don’t have to wait too long before they have their first page up and running. The rest of the book is designed to ease readers into good design of Web pages using common HyperText Markup Language (HTML) techniques without expensive software. Rubenstein first uses Microsoft Word™ with its built-in word to Web converter, and then creates HTML pages using Microsoft WordPad™ and simple HTML elements to “tag” the information. Microsoft Internet Explorer™ is used as the standard Web page viewer or “browser’. Using these two methods of creating web pages, allows Rubenstein to explain the effectiveness of both methods in web page creation.

Apart from teaching HTML coding, Rubenstein also describes how to use tables creatively in a web site and include forms for patron interactivity – like the inclusion of a Sudoku puzzle. In conclusion, Chapter 10 looks at a variety of techniques that could be used to further enhance web pages. These include adding image maps to create navigation bars and hypergraphics, as well as adding marquees and transitions to web pages. Web page accessibility for patrons with limited sight and how to optimize search engine use to get web pages noticed by vendor search engines such as Google.

Crash course in Web design for libraries is an easy to follow guide in web page design. It is filled with creative ideas in planning and designing a successful web site. It will be a handy reference for busy webmasters who need to refresh their memories when they make additions or deletions, or add new material to their web sites. It may even be used as a handout when presenting a workshop on web design.

Reviewed by Madely du Preez
Dept of Information Science
University of South Africa
E-mail: preezm@unisa.ac.za
[To be published in Online Information Review 2007]

10 TRAINING

ASAIB had several training sessions during the year in Cape Town, Bloemfontein and Pretoria. These workshops were well-attended. There will be another workshop in Pretoria in November, but the dates and venue are not available yet. Contact Marlene Burger burgem@unisa.ac.za tel 012-4296585 for more details.

ASAIB Newsletter no. 23

2006-10-03T05:03:00.000-07:00

No 23, September 2006

CONTENTS

NEWSFLASH: ASAIB AGM and breakfast 30 November 2006

1 ASAIB Conference 2006 report – Katrien Malan
2 A pleasant surprise
3 News from our secretary
4 News from Peter Underwood
5 Call for papers 2007
6 Six by Six. Views from Beyond Forty… : Maryna Fraser
7 Item of interest: Ancient prayer book
8 Nigerian travels – Terry Barringer

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWS
ASAIB AGM 30 November 2006 at 08:30 for 09:00

Venue: Wits Club, Dutch Cape Cottages
West Campus, Wits University
1 Jan Smuts Avenue
Milner Park

Cost: R60-00 pp (payable to Peter Duncan at the breakfast)

The breakfast will start strictly at 09:00. We must leave at 11:00 since the restaurant must prepare for a Christmas Lunch.

Guest Speaker: Gillian Carman will talk about her book, Uplifting the Colonial Philistine: Florence Phillips and the making of the Johannesburg Art Gallery.

Election of ASAIB Executive Committee: Nominations must be send to Marlene Burger burgem@unisa.ac.za or Madely du Preez preezm@unisa.ac.za Nominees must be able to attend a meeting once a month at 13:00 in either Johannesburg or Pretoria. The current committee is prepared to serve another term. There is one vacancy.

1 ASAIB Conference 2006 report – Katrien Malan

ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN INDEXERS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS
CONFERENCE: AFRICANA – FROM PAPYRUS TO METADATA
HELD AT THE MILITARY MUSEUM JOHANNESBURG 11-12 MAY 2006

The Brenthurst Library

The conference held at the Military Museum was attended by enthusiastic librarians/archivists /book sellers/academics from all over the country.

Papers were presented by skilful and dedicated people with expertise in their various fields. Annette le Roux of Unisa kicked off with her paper: Africana in context. She gave us background on the term Africana, when it was first used, what is new/modern Africana and what will become Africana in future. A highlight was the theme by Prof E.J. Carruthers on: Passages through nineteenth-century Southern Africa and beyond: re evaluating Africana - Thomas Baines 1825-1875. Mr Peter Duncan of the William Cullen Library University of the Witwatersrand gave some practical considerations on book restoration and conservation. We also had an auctioneers viewpoint on Africana collections by Mr Antony Wiley of Wiley Antique Valuers. There were also contributions by Ms HW Latsky, University of Johannesburg, Ms MA Coetzee of Unisa and MS M Graham of the Brenthhurst Library. The conference was concluded with the paper by Ms A.P.J. Watkins of Unisa library on Metadata: a tool for adding value to rare books.

A delicious lunch of soup and bread was served and there was even time to browse the exhibitions of military weapons, medals, armoured fighting vehicles, uniforms etc. on display on the grounds of the Military Museum

On Friday (12 May) we paid a visit to the Brenthurst Library, one of the foremost institutions in original material on the history and development of Southern Africa. (See photo at top)

The library, Lindfield museum

“Lindfield” museum, a lived-in Victorian museum was also on the itinerary. “This is a turn-of-the-century Herbert Baker home in Auckland Park where for two generations the women of the Love family have amassed and cared for a vast collection of 19th and early 20th century furniture, art, decorative and utilitarian objects representative of the entire Victorian, Edwardian and Art Nouveau period”. After lunch we went to the William Cullen Library to view their rare and special books and get a glimpse of what they are doing. The dedication and enthusiasm of the staff showing us around were remarkable.

Katherine Love, the live-in curator

A delightful conference with the opportunities to network with colleagues who are working in the same field as we do.

Katrien Malan
University of Pretoria
August 2006

2 A PLEASANT SURPRISE

Indexing for Southern Africa: a manual compiled in celebration of ASAIB's first decade: 1994-2004 / edited by Jacqueline A Kalley, Elna Schoeman, Marlene Burger. Pretoria: Unisa Press, 2005. ISBN 1-86888-380-9. Price: R109.00 (postage included) R160.61 in AfricaAvailable from Unisa Press, item number 7526Contact e-mail: thearl@unisa.ac.za (Laetitia Theart)

Our very first review by Johan van Wyk (Mindex)

Dear ASAIB Committee,
I want to congratulate the committee and specially the contributors to “THE BOOK” on a marvellous work! I bought mine at Unisa yesterday, and a glance through it gave me such pleasure. It was high time that such a comprehensive work on this subject is done from South African pens. I will be working through it with great enjoyment. Wow – look, it actually has an index …………..!

Keep up the good work!

REVIEW by Dr LM Cloete (Unisa)

The Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers (ASAIB) published this book in the form of a manual to highlight ten years of the organisation’s history and involvement in the Southern African indexing community.

Apart from the introduction, in which some background is provided to ASAIB’s work as well as the purpose and content of the manual is explained, the manual is divided into four parts.

Part one is devoted mainly to theoretical issues, including a brief overview of the history of indexing in South Africa, contextualisation indexing as an information retrieval tool, the complexities of conceptualisation, characteristics and evaluation of a good index and formulating an organisation policy.

Part two covers general applications of indexing, such as verbal subject description, book indexing, periodicals indexing, automatic indexing, web indexing, metadata and indexing, thesaurus construction and international standards, especially ISO 999 1900.

In part three, attention is paid to special fields and subjects of indexing, including Africana, antique maps, archives, education, environmental issues, health sciences, labour, languages, law, literature for children, museum objects, newspapers, politics and international relations.

Part four consists of one chapter in which the education and training opportunities are assessed for indexers and abstractors in Southern Africa, at university, technikon and indexing organisations.

The book is a source of reference on a variety of topics and aspects related to indexing for a wide-ranging audience: from information science students to practising indexers, occasional indexers, newcomers and anyone with an interest in indexing. Students of indexing will be able to use the book as a practical manual in their studies, especially the parts on theoretical issues and practical applications. The chapters on web indexing and metadata and indexing fill a gap in training material on these important and continually developing aspects. For experienced indexers and those already versed in specialised fields of indexing, the book provides useful insights into the latest issues and developments.

The last part on education and training highlights the importance of this aspect for all formal institutions such as universities and technikons, library and information science departments, as well as other organisations and individual lecturers, trainers and facilitators involved in teaching and training indexing and abstracting in Southern Africa. The competencies that indexers should possess are listed. This is followed by discussions and proposals of how the competencies could be taught through formal and informal education and training via distance education as well as short courses and workshops, i.e. to meet the varying training needs of Southern African students and indexers.

The book is a welcome contribution to Southern African literature on indexing. The contributors are all Southern African experts (from South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana) in the different aspects of indexing. The fact that the book is written by Southern Africans for the Southern African context makes it a unique publication. With new developments constantly taking place, especially within the electronic and digital context, the indexing community anticipates regular, revised editions of this manual.

3 NEWS FROM OUR SECRETARY, Madely du Preez:

q The Directory for Freelance Indexers has been updated and the newversion has been uploaded on the Websitehttp://www.asaib.org.za/directory.html Please check your details to see if it still is correct.
q I have updated the ASAIB Blog with some of the photos taken at the conference by member Hannalie Knoetze. I can unfortunately only upload four photos at a time, but I think this is a fair representation of some of the social part and visits of the event. The link to the Blog is:http://saindexers.blogspot.comEnjoy.
"The term 'free lance' comes from medieval times.
It describes a knight who was free to carry his lance (in other words to fight) for anyone who paid him."

[The kids' book of chess, by Harvey Kidder. New York, Workman Publishing, 1990.]

4 NEWS FROM PETER UNDERWOOD

q The National Forum on Information Literacy, in collaboration with the University of the Virgin Islands, is hosting the first international coalition conference on information literacy at the Frenchman’ Reef Marriott Resort Hotel, December, 10-13, 2006 in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Please visit the conference websitehttp://library.uvi.edu/InfoLitConf.htm for more details on how you can participate and contribute to a very worthwhile international effort.
q Virtually There: Managing the challenges of digital collections11-13 December 2006, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. Full details of this workshop and registration are now available at http://www.ched.uct.ac.za/cil/dils/Virtually%20there.html
The Centre for Information Literacy, University of Cape Town, isrunning a workshop of interest to senior management of academic,research and public libraries, using, or intending to use, electronicmedia. The contributors to the Workshop will include, from the United Kingdom, Chris Armstrong of Information Automation Limited and Ray Lonsdale of the Department of Information Studies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, Associate Professor Karin de Jager and Professor Peter G. Underwood of the Centre for Information Literacy, University of Cape Town.With the advent of collections of electronic resources and the concept of the 'virtual library', those concerned with managing collections are faced with new and difficult challenges. This workshop is designed to address some of the central challenges and to explore ways of accommodating them. In particular, delegates will have the opportunity to explore the issues of creating and administering a collection development policy and will explore the nature and use of Conspectus" and performance measurement methodology.
q For some years, two bookselling companies have supported the Centre for Information Literacy / Department of Information and Library Studies of the University of Cape Town through the award of prizes, in the form of book tokens, to its best students. This recognition is greatly esteemed by students and by the profession as evidence of career potential.The Exclusive Books Prize in recognition of the best academicperformance in the Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Science Programme in 2005 is awarded to Amina Adam.The Exclusive Books Award for leadership potential shown by a student of any of the Programmes in 2005 is made to Patricia Lumba.Wordsworth Books offers its prize to students undertaking the Honours Programme in Library and Information Science of the University of Cape Town. The Wordsworth Books Prize for best academic performance and leadership potential is rated highly by students and the profession as indicative of an excellent achievement. For the year 2005, the Prize is to Stephen Visagie. Please join me in offering congratulations to all prizewinners and the hope that the prizes will assist them with their studies.Mailing List Sponsored by Sabinet Online Limited.

5 CALL FOR PAPERS 2007

5.1 ASAIB Conference 2007

Conference theme: “Biography, The Beautiful…’. Suggested date: 10 and 11 May 2007. The venue and final programme will be communicated as soon as possible. Related topics to explore for the Conference include:
Autobiographies, Diaries, Memoirs, Historiography, Indexing a biography, SABC Documentaries (the research into the production of these documentaries) Obituaries, Genealogy; How does genealogical software work?; Genealogy Society’s Cemetery Project - Epitaphs; Heraldry – Coats of arms; Biographical dictionaries.
Please send your ideas/suggestions or proposals to Marlene Burger at burgem@unisa.ac.za

5.2 ASAIB Award

The ASAIB Award for best index and/or bibliography compiled during 2006 will be presented at the 2007 conference. Please mail your index or bibliography to Marlene Burger, Dept of Information Science, PO Box 392, Unisa 0003. Entries will be evaluated by an unbiased “outside” committee.

5.3 Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers Conference

Call for papers for the Australian and New Zealand Society of IndexersConference, Melbourne (Victoria), March 15-17, 2007Theme: The Indexing Life: The conference is being held at RydgesRiverwalk, Richmond and will celebrate ANZSI's 30 years.SCOPE THEMES:Book publishing/productionHistorical and retrospective materialsIndexing and abstracting for databasesIndexing electronic documentsLanguage in indexingProfessional issues for indexersTechnical issues for book indexingWeb indexing / Information architectureBibliographyPapers may be presented as full conference papers, or in forum (panel)sessions.We are honoured to have secured two prominent keynote speakers for theconference: Geraldine Beare, an eminent Freelance Indexer from the UK, and, Professor Pam Peters, Director of the Dictionary Research Centre atMacquarie University, and Editor of Australian Style.Thursday 15 March will be devoted solely to professional developmentworkshops. As further details about the conference program, registration and accommodation become available they will be posted on the ANZSI website: www.aussi.orgTo express an interest in presenting a paper or being a member of apanel please go to the conference section on the ANZSI website:www.aussi.org Abstracts (maximum 200 words) ideally should be submitted at the same time as your application, but no later than October 31, 2006.Max McMasterANZSI Conference Committeep/f: +61 3 9500 8715e: max.mcmaster@masterindexing.com

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWS
The cumulative index to The Indexer, vols 20-25 (1996-2006) is now on The Indexer Website(www.theindexer.org). Work on this will continue as time permits.From: Maureen MacGlashaneditor@theindexer.orgtd64@dial.pipex.com

6 Six by Six. Views from Beyond Forty…: Maryna Fraser

11 of my poems appear in a recently published anthology entitled:
Six by Six. Views from Beyond Forty. Six Poets Six Senses.

This is a collection of modern verse that combines the talent of six passionate poets who are not afraid to say that they are over forty.

I have been a contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography since 1994. Seven of my articles appeared in the 60 volume work published in September 2004. My most recent contribution was a 'navigation' entry on the Randlords which appeared with the new releases on May 2006. Queen Elizabeth II visited the offices of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, on the occasion.

The Association of Canadian Archivists are in the process of digitizing back numbers of their journal Archivaria. I have given permission for them to digitize my article ''Profile of a South African Company Archive''. Archivaria. 7:95-102 (Winter 1978-79)

I have also agreed to address Writers 2000 on the subject of "Good Research and Editing in Writing" in October.
Maryna Fraser

7 ITEM OF INTEREST: ANCIENT PRAYER BOOK

Ancient prayer book to be shown at V&ABy Duncan Gardham (Filed: 22/12/2005)
Illumination of the Nativity
For 300 years it has been a book without a beginning, middle or end. But thanks to scholarly detective work, a 15th century Book of Hours, written for King Louis XII of France, has been pieced back together and will go on display for the first time at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in February.
The prayer book was known as a book of hours because it had different prayers for different hours of the day and different times of the year.
It was illustrated with full-page illuminations, measuring 24cm by 17cm (9.5in by 6.7in), by Jean Bourdichon in 1498 and 1499 for Louis XII and may have been brought to England on his death by Mary Tudor, his third wife.
By 1700 two individual pages turned up in a volume of calligraphy compiled by the diarist Samuel Pepys. After that the pages appeared in various collections. In 1973 Janet Backhouse, the curator of manuscripts at the British Library, worked out that all the illustrations had come from the same book.
Two years ago a number of them were sold by the estate of an antiquarian book dealer to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Louvre and the V&A in London, who paid £250,000.

© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2006. Terms & Conditions of reading.
8 Nigerian travels – Terry Barringer

Terry Barringer is editor of African Research and Documentation and compiler of the annual Africa Bibliography. She was previously custodian of the Royal Commonwealth Society Library Collections. In April she made her first trip to Africa.
This is her account.

Until this year, I always felt uneasily fraudulent. Despite an increasing number of publications on Africa, I had never set foot on the continent. I was consoled by one friendly scholar who always said, “Never mind that you haven’t done fieldwork, you know a lot about [bibliographical] spades” but the invitation finally and unexpectedly came as I was drinking tea with Barbara Spina (formerly Turfan) and Tony Olden at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Barbara was largely responsible for setting up a Link Scheme between SOAS Library and three Nigerian partners: the Department of Library Archival and Information Studies (LARIS), Ibadan University, the Department of Library and Information Science (DLIS) at Ahmadu Bello University and the Kashim Ibrahim Library also at ABU.[i] “We could send you this year”, they said. I gulped but it would have been wimpish to turn down such an offer!

The Link is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) Higher Education Links Programme, managed by the British Council. 2006 was the third and final year of a scheme which brought Nigerian librarians to the UK and British librarians to Nigeria. On April 1st, I flew from Heathrow to Lagos with Dr Mandy Bentham, head of Teaching and Learning Strategy at SOAS and an expert on e-learning. Mandy had previously lived and worked in Mali so I was looking to her for West African street-cred.

Our mission (officially) was “To develop professional management skills, including staff training and development, in the overseas university library & information science departments… to enhance significantly information awareness among information professionals… [and] promote the DFID objective of investing in people, sharing, skills and knowledge”.

After a trouble-free flight, we were met by a British Council official to meet us who guided us through Lagos Airport (not nearly as scary as I had been led to believe). The following morning we were collected from our comfortable little hotel by the LARIS car and driven to Ibadan.

We spent the next week on the Ibadan campus, staying in a university guest house. A kaleidoscope of impressions, meetings, waiting for meetings to get organised, palavers and speechifying. We discovered that Nigerians talk about the power supply the way we Brits talk about the weather – and with good reason. The power supply failed several times a day, for several hours at a time. Most of the campus, including the libraries, was not provided with its own generators. Needless to say, this was not good for computers. Internet connectivity was also fraught with problems. In the whole week we managed to get online for a total of less than ten minutes. Senior librarians and academics told us of their frustration. Often they could access the internet and check their email only by leaving the campus and seeking out an internet café in town. (Many of these have their own generators).

We attended a large Ibadan University Distance Learning Stakeholders conference. I gave two linked presentations on Making African Scholarship Visible through bibliographies and book reviews. I explored the National Archives (very poorly housed and maintained) and the National Museum (interesting and well-displayed exhibits but apparently little visited). It was not all work. We watched guests gathering for a resplendent Yoruba wedding, explored the markets and a friend with influence got up into what might be the best swimming pool in Nigeria!

On Sunday 9th April we returned to Lagos for internal flight to Abuja then three hour drive to Zaria. Here we stayed in hotel (with generators!) which I was fascinated to discover was the old Institute of Public Administration building (established by some of my old Colonial Service friends to train the first generation of Nigerian civil servants). Monday was a public holiday for the Prophet’s Birthday so we could do no “real” work. This public holiday was only announced on the Friday before. The Head of the Library School gave us a tour of the Ahmadu Bello University Campus and especially its animal husbandry (ABU is strong on agriculture and veterinary science) and Zaria old city (ancient mud walls, colourful populace celebrating the Prophet’s birthday with processions and horse riding). Tuesday – met the Vice-Chancellor, gave our presentations to students and staff of the Library School, Wednesday – gave our presentations to the staff of the University Library. Thursday – Back to Abuja for debriefing meeting with the British Council. Rockview Hotel (nice – with pool and varied menu i.e. a few things other than chicken and rice). (Good) Friday – Saw dawn rise over Abuja before 8 a.m. flight to Heathrow. (6 ½ hours).

I’m still digesting the experience but here are a few impressions and questions.

All I’ve heard about book famine and the rundown state of African universities was confirmed by observation. There are universals in university politics (individual and departmental empire-building, competition for prestige and resources) but when complicated by the “Nigerian factor” things can only get worse. I’m tempted to say that “university administration” is an oxymoron and we saw little evidence of co-operation even between departments of the same university, let alone with universities elsewhere in Nigeria and Africa. Both Ibadan and ABU were without a reliable power supply and although there were computer and IT facilities and plenty of people able and eager to use them connectivity was fraught with difficulties. However I have abiding memories of some very impressive young scholars and professionals (mostly female) and am full of admiration for those who choose to stay and work in the situation rather than seeking comfortable and remunerative posts in the US.

Library and information skills are obviously valued. Both Library Schools were oversubscribed, their courses very popular. I asked where all these graduates found jobs and the answer was that many were recruited by the finance and banking sectors.

I returned, even more interested in political, social and religious developments in Nigeria and Africa generally. Fortunately, I can indulge this interest, wearing another of my many hats, as a member of the editorial team of The Round Table: the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs. Look out for our special issue on Nigeria next year! I was fascinated by the posters, camps and complexes of the new Christian churches (the Catholics and Anglicans were less blatant) along the Lagos/Ibadan road, proximity of chapel and big new mosque (Saudi money?) on the campus as Ibadan (screen erected so that Moslem worshippers were not confronted with large outdoor cross), the prevalence and popularity of religious tracts, political posters and agitated and partisan discussions in the local press. I don’t “do sport” so was disconcerted by the amazing popularity of football. Wherever a group was gathered around a television screen, they were sure to be watching an English or European feature. And LARIS, Ibadan was the extremely proud possessor of the university’s football trophy. Another, to my mind, undesirable import from the UK was “Big Brother”, very popular in its Nigerian version.

But perhaps the greatest symbol of Nigeria is the mobile phone. In a country where no other equipment can be relied upon, it is (relatively) cheap and effective. Everyone has at least one. Self-respecting professional carry at least two. Nigeria, for me, was encapsulated by the sight of a market woman, conducting business, with a basket on her head, a child on her hip and a phone in her hand.

Questions that remain:
What is generically African and what is exceptional about Nigeria?

How as bibliographers, editors and information professionals can we facilitate African scholarship and make it visible and available? What are the appropriate models and media? How do we avoid “cultural imperialism”? (And here I must warn my South African readers that in Nigeria, and no doubt other parts of Africa, it is they who are seen as the new cultural imperialists.)

Less seriously, I did not see one Nigerian female who was not the epitome of elegance. How do they do it?
[i] See Barbara Turfan, Practical applications in library and information management: the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)-Nigeria Link, 2003/2006. African Research and Documentation 94 2004 pp. 3-4

THE INDEXER

2006-09-07T07:50:00.000-07:00

Published since April 1958 ISSN 0019-4131

The International Journal of Indexing

The only periodical in the Western world devoted specifically to all
aspects of indexing.
Dr Hans H. Wellisch, author of Indexing from A to Z

I am impressed by the breadth of the coverage in such a highly targeted
journal.
Dr Gordon Graham, Editor of LOGOS: The Professional Journal for the
Book World

The information- and fun-packed publication for professional indexers everywhere
Marc Abrahams: Editor of Annals of Improbable Research

It should find a place in all library science collections and in the
personal collections of professional indexers and indexing researchers and
educators . . . a lively forum on highly specific questions representing a
concern for good indexing.
Professor Bella Hass Weinberg in Library and Information Science Annual

Anyone doing professional/academic writing in the field of indexing knows that The Indexer is the publication of reference for the profession.
Nancy Mulvany, author of Indexing Books

www.theindexer.org

THE INDEXER
The International Journal of Indexing ISSN 0019-4131

The Indexer is published twice a year (April and October).
Editor and Reviews Editor: Maureen MacGlashan (editor@theindexer.org)
Production Editor: Susan Curran (production@theindexer.org)
Assistant Editor: Sue Lambert (asset@theindexer.org)
Advertising Sales Manager: Jonathan Gordon-Till (advertising@theindexer.org)
Around the World: Glenda Browne (world@theindexer.org)
North American Reviews: Frances Lennie (reviews-america@theindexer.org)
Indexes Reviewed: Christine Shuttleworth (indexes-reviewed@theindexer.org)
Browser Bar Editor: Pierke Bosschieter (browser@theindexer.org)
Corresponding Members:
Australia and New Zealand: anzsi@theindexer.org
Canada: iasc-scad@theindexer.org
China: csi@theindexer.org
Germany: dni@theindexer.org
Netherlands: nin@theindexer.org
Southern Africa: asaib@theindexer.org
United States: asi@theindexer.org

Indexing is about helping those searching for information to find what they are looking for, whatever the medium – be it the printed page, still or moving images, artefacts in and out of museums, mathematical formulae and, of course, electronic data in all its vast variety.

The Indexer, a peer-reviewed journal, seeks to cover the full range of subjects, from articles at the cutting edge of new techniques to contributions discussing in a practical way the new tools available to indexers at all points in the technical spectrum, exploring how our predecessors did it back to the earliest of times, and considering the all-important human element. Its extensive reviews section covers both printed and electronic material, including websites and hardware and software of interest to the indexer, while ‘Indexes Reviewed’ highlights some of the best (and worst) examples of indexing in action. And, in ‘Around the World’, it keeps readers up to date with what is going on across the international indexing community. Stimulating and sometimes provocative, The Indexer is essential reading for everyone concerned with information accessibility and knowledge management.

A selection of articles is shown opposite. For a classified contents list and index to recent issues, visit

www.theindexer.org

THE INDEXER
The International Journal of Indexing ISSN 0019-4131

Some recent articles from The Indexer:

Chinese index science: stepping forward to the new century
Ge Yong-Qing (China)
Colloque International: Indici, Index, Indexation Lille, 3–4.XI.2005
Maureen MacGlashan (UK)
Continental European indexing: then and now
Caroline Diepeveen (Netherlands)
Embedded indexing
James Lamb (UK)
German indexing: some observations on typographical practice
Jochen Fassbender (Germany)
Indexation, memory, power and representations in 12th-century France
Jean Berger (France)
Indexing, a work of art or a sickness beyond cure?
John Sutherland (UK)
Indexing African musical instruments
Marlene Burger (South Africa)
Indexing cartoons
Nicholas Hiley (UK)
Indexing children’s information books
Paula L. Williams and K. G. B. Bakewell (UK)
Software for HTML indexing: a comparative review
Heather Hedden (USA)
The definite article: acknowledging ‘The’ in index entries
Glenda Browne (Australia)
UC Berkeley Extension Course: learning to index at a distance
Sylvia Coates et al. (USA)
Verifying personal names on the Web
Noeline Bridge (Canada)

To write for The Indexer contact the Editor (editor@theindexer.org)

To subscribe to The Indexer turn to next page or visit www.theindexer.org

THE INDEXER
The International Journal of Indexing ISSN 0019-4131

The Indexer is published twice a year (April and October) by the Society of Indexers.

Annual subscription (2007): £60 (postage paid). Members of the American Society of Indexers, the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers, Deutsches Netzwerk der Indexer and the Nederlands Indexers Netwerk may subscribe to The Indexer at a reduced rate through their national societies.
To subscribe to The Indexer, complete the form below and send it to:
Sales Administrator, Society of Indexers, Woodbourn Business Centre, 10 Jessell Street, Sheffield S9 3HY, UK. Fax: +44 (0)114 244 9563;
email:mailto:%20admin@indexers.org.uk. An electronic version of the form is available at http://www.indexers.org.uk/

I should like to subscribe to The Indexer starting with the
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ASAIB Executive Committee

2006-07-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

ASAIB Conference 2006 Visits - Lindfield House

2006-07-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

ASAIB Conference 2006 Visits - Brenthurst Library

2006-07-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

ASAIB CONFERENCE PHOTOS

2006-07-15T07:58:00.000-07:00

ASAIB Indexing Manual

2006-05-31T03:09:00.000-07:00

ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN INDEXERS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS CONFERENCE

2006-04-12T03:47:00.001-07:00

Africana - From Papyrus to Metadata: “A Bibliographer’s Delight”

Conference Presented at the Military Museum, 20 Erlswold Way, Saxonwold, Johannesburg on 11 & 12 May 2006

PROGRAMME: 11 May 2006

08:30-09:00 Registration
09:00-09:05 Welcome (Dr J Kalley, EISA)

The Passage ...

09:05-09:35 Africana in context (Ms A le Roux, Archives & Special Collections, Unisa)
09:35-10:05 Africana creative writing manuscripts (Mr RJ Pearce, Unisa
Library)
10:05-10:35 Passages through nineteenth-century Southern Africa and beyond: re-evaluating Africana - Thomas Baines 1825-1875 (Prof EJ Carruthers, Dept of History, Unisa)

10:35-11:00 TEA

The Journey …..

11:00-11:30 The Missak Collection (Ms HW Latsky, Rare Book Collection & Univ Archives, Univ of Johannesburg)
11:30-12:00 Going, going, gone … an auctioneers’ viewpoint (Mr Anthony Wiley, Wiley & Tenquist Antique Valuers, Johannesburg)
12:00-12:30 Conservation and restoration (Mr P Duncan, William Cullen Library, Univ of the Witswatersrand)

12:30-13:10 LUNCH

The Arrival …..

13:10-13:40 Finding aids (1910-2006) to access Africana collections (Ms MA Coetzee, Archives & Special Collections, Unisa)
13:40-14:10 Google’s Digitisation of 19th Century Books (Ms M Graham, Brenthust Library, Johannesburg)
14:10-14:40 Metadata: A Tool for Adding Value to Rare Books (Ms APJ Watkins, Unisa Library)
14:40-15:00 Discussion & Closure (Ms M Burger, ASAIB Chairperson)

Registration form and fees: http://www.asaib.org.za/
Enquiries: Madely preezm@unisa.ac.za 012-4296792
Marlene burgem@unisa.ac.za 012-4296585

VISITS: 12 May 2006

09:00 for 09:15 Brenthurst Library, Federation Rd, Parktown (off Oxford Rd), Johannesburg. Gems of the Brenthurst Library and Publishing in Progress
10:00-10:30 TEA
10:30 Leave for Lindfield, a Victorian/Edwardian House, 72
Richmond Ave, Auckland Park, Johannesburg
11:00-13:00 Lindfield tour
13:00-14:00 SANDWICH LUNCH
14:00 Leave for Wits
14:30-15:30 William Cullen Library, University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Ave, Milner Park (West of Braamfontein), Johannesburg. Tour to view Africana Treasures, visit Historical Papers, SAHA and Rare Books
15:30 TEA
Enquiries: Peter peterd@library.wits.ac.za 011-7171947/55

ASAIB Award for best Bibliography 2004-2005

2006-01-14T09:50:00.000-08:00

Mr Abdul Samed Bemath, winner of the the ASAIB Award for Best Bibliography 2004-2005 for his book The Mazruiana collection revisited: Ali A Mazrui debating the African condition: an annotated and select thematic bibliography 1962-2003. See the book review on this work in the ASAIB Newsletter of October 2005. The photographer was Mr Fakir Hassen

ASAIB Newsletter October 2005

2005-12-06T22:45:00.000-08:00

OCTOBER 2005

CONTENT

Newsflashes:
AGM November 2005
Awards for best index and bibliography
New ASAIB Blog
ASAIB Conference alert 2006
Feedback
IGBIS/ASAIB Pre-conference workshop
LIASA workshops
SI Conference (UK)
Cruden's window on the Bible
The Bodleian/Google library project in Oxford
Article: Should universities be taken to book?
Annual report 2005
Book reviews
NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEW

ASAIB AGM November 2005

The ASAIB AGM was held at the Wits Club on 24 November in the form of a breakfast. Joan Rankin, a well known writer and illustrator of children’s books, was a delightful speaker and brought many books along for us to handle and discover the world of the illustrator. After Marlene Burger discussed highlights from the 2005 annual report (see the full report in this newsletter), she presented the awards for the best index and bibliography (2004-2005) to Abdul Bemath (bibliography) and Marina Pearson (index), as well as a special award to Beth Strachan for her outstanding work on South African bibliographies over a number of years. This AGM was a wonderful event and members had the chance to chat and exchange information.

A full write-up of the books discussed by Joan Rankin, will later be available on the ASAIB website www.asaib.org.za

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEW

Awards for best index and bibliography 2005

Congratulations to Abdul Bemath and Marina Pearson. You are worthy winners of the awards. Thank you to all others who submitted their indexes and bibliographies for evaluation. In 2006 we will also add a category for electronic indexes and bibliographies.

To Abdul Bemath for his book:
Bemath, Abdul Samed (comp). 2005. The Mazruiana collection revisited: Ali A Mazrui debating the African condition: an annotated and select thematic bibliography 1962-2003. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa & New Dawn Press.

To Marina Pearson for her index to:
Coetzer, JAW & Tustun, RC (eds). 2004. Infectious diseases of livestock. Cape Town: Oxford Southern Africa. 3 volumes.

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEW

New ASAIB Blog
ASAIB strives to keep up to date with the latest technologies. For that reason, the ASAIB committee created and published an ASAIB Blog.

For those who are not aware of what a blog is, it is in essence an online diary. This makes for the ideal place to post messages and reports of ASAIB events and even the ASAIB newsletter. The Blog can never replace the ASAIB website. It is merely supplementary to it. You will still find all the important ASAIB information on the
ASAIB website, whereas the Blog will often be the place where you will find it first.

Please visit the ASAIB Blog at http://www.saindexers.blogspot.com and
let us have your comments. You could also send your postings to Karin McGuirk (mcguik@unisa.ac.za ), Marlene Burger (burgem@unisa.ac.za ) or Madely du Preez (preezm@unisa.ac.za ) for publication on the Blog. [Madely du Preez]

ASAIB CONFERENCE ALERT 2006

AFRICANA
FROM PAPYRUS TO METADATA

International Conference, 11 and 12 May 2006
At the Military Museum, Johannesburg

11 May will be devoted to the presentation of papers
12 May we will visit two libraries with outstanding Africana collections

For details regarding costs, venue particulars, programme, and call for papers, consult the ASAIB website www.asaib.org.za early in 2006

Contact: Marlene Burger at burgem@unisa.ac.za (012 4296585)
Madely du Preez at preezm@unisa.ac.za (012 4296792)

FEEDBACK

[Asaib] IGBIS Pre‑Conference Workshop on Indexing Basics ‑ Marlene Burger (Presented at the LIASA Conference 2005 held at the Tshwane University of Technology, Nelspruit, 26 September).

The invitation to the workshop said: “If you are in need of elementary indexing skills to cope with small indexing projects, this workshop is for you”. Due to the interest in this workshop, the presenter first had to find out what kind of indexing is needed in actual practice, especially in smaller institutions. The programme was compiled accordingly.

The Workshop was presented by Marlene Burger on behalf of IGBIS (Interest Group for Bibliographic Standards). The programme included lectures and plenty of exercises covering books, articles, photographs, community information, objects, CD’s, etc. The workshop was well-represented by novice indexers (including one or two experienced indexers!) who worked very hard with great enthusiasm. Thank you all for an enjoyable experience.

LIASA 2005: e‑books in libraries – Prof Peter Underwood

The Centre for Information Literacy, University of Cape Town, presented two workshops about e‑books at the LIASA 2005 Conference, in Nelspruit.

Pre‑Conference Workshop: Evaluating e‑books (Monday 26 September)
1. Exploration of types of e‑book publishing and a publishing chronology
2. Advantages and disadvantages of e‑books in the library
3. Implications for Information Literacy
4. Developing and testing evaluation criteria for the range of e‑books currently being made available to libraries, resource centres and information services.

Participants were introduced to an understanding of the meaning of the term 'e‑book', the advantages (and disadvantages) of the medium, the nature and content of e‑books, and learned to evaluate the range of e‑books available: for example, reference, monograph, fiction, textbook. Participants became familiar with a range of e‑book publishers and aggregators, as well as the range of readers and reader software commonly used.

Post‑Conference Workshop: Managing e‑book collections (Friday 30
September)
1. Exploration of types of e‑book publishing and a publishing chronology
2. Collection management principles for e‑books
3. Collection Development Policies (CDP) for e‑books

Participants were introduced to the nature and content of e‑books. The workshop provided opportunities to understand bibliographical control of the medium, and found out how to locate and access e‑books. Participants appreciated the collection management issues surrounding selection, acquisition and provision of e‑books (including licensing, archiving, hardware and infrastructure issues, evaluation of use, and access), and the value and content of a CDP. Finally, the workshop offered an opportunity to explore the different methods of the promoting e‑book collections.

Working in the Present – Learning from the Past

The Society of Indexers’ conference in 2005 was held at Exeter University, a beautiful campus in the southwest of England. We were accommodated in halls at the very top of a hill, and the dining room had magnificent panoramic views over the countryside and down into the ancient cathedral city.

To reach the lecture halls, we walked, in brilliant summer weather, through an arboretum – a fascinating collection of trees, interspersed with sculptures which made up a sculpture trail comprised of works by many well-known artists including Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore.

The scene is set – what of the conference? As ever, the content was varied to suit all tastes. Topics ranged from gardening, the Dictionary of National Biography, indexing of images, the myth of reusable indexes (reprinted in The Indexer) to seminars on a huge variety of subjects: science, social sciences, military indexes, educational texts and much more. The mix of conference papers with more informal seminars and workshops means that there was always something going on for all tastes.

In many ways, the major advantage of conferences is the opportunity to network, and the noise levels at coffee times and meal times reflected that. SI always tries to involve publishers and editors in the conference presentation, and this gives an opportunity for people to talk directly to them during the breaks. Many good contacts have been made this way.

The Wheatley Medal, the SI award for an outstanding index, was presented during the conference by Professor John Sutherland, the new President of SI, to Hazel Bell for her index to Seven pillars of wisdom: the complete 1922 Oxford text, by TE Lawrence (published in 2004 by J and N Wilson).

SI always welcomes members of other societies to its conference, so any ASAIB members travelling in the UK during the summer months (usually July) should think about taking in the conference. The 2006 conference will be held in Durham, another ancient cathedral city, in the northeast of England. The conference in 2007 will be a major event, to be held in London. It will be the 50th anniversary of the founding of SI, and the Society is planning a celebratory event and guests from the other indexing societies will be particularly welcome.

Jill Halliday
International Representative for SI

Cruden's window on the Bible

Of the many types of index encountered and used by scholars and librarians, the concordance must surely be one of the most complex. The dictionary defines it as: 'An alphabetical arrangement of the words contained in a book with citations of the passages in which they occur', which somehow makes it sound simpler than it really is. The concept of the concordance goes back to medieval times for use by religious bodies, Christian as well as Jewish, when parts of the scriptures were thus analysed. There were a surprising number of them in use. But it was not until the eighteenth century that the whole Bible was indexed in this manner. 'Cruden's Concordance' was a familiar title in one's list of reference books in student days, but little was known about the man behind its compilation. The title, Complete Concordance to the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to which is added a concordance to the books called Apocrypha, leaves one in no doubt as to the formidable nature of the undertaking.

Alexander Cruden (1701-1770) was an Aberdonian scholar, proof-reader and eventually a bookseller in London. In the midst of a turbulent and sometimes violent life, he managed to produce his monumental concordance in 1737. It seems that he was not another Dr Samuel Johnson in wanting to increase the sum of human knowledge. Cruden was a fanatical Calvininst who called himself 'Alexander the Corrector' with a direct line to God and who attacked, verbally and physically, those whom he suspected of violating the Sabbath and using blasphemous language. His activities caused him to be incarcerated in asylums at various times, and from which he escaped once or twice in an ingenious manner. He was also litigious by nature and so trouble and notoriety were his constant companions. Under these trying circumstances he nonetheless saw the concordance through three editions before his death; many more were to follow. His analysis of the texts was comprehensive, the references were accurate, and although he was ridiculed by students when he visited Oxford and Cambridge, the academic community recognised the scholarly quality of his work. Another remarkable intellectual feat was to provide, verbally, an index for Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol, to accompany his edition of Milton's works in 1669. Cruden died in the next year.

Cruden's concordance superseded all earlier indexes of the scriptures. Only many years later, in the nineteenth century, was his volume superseded by an expansion which combined the English with a Greek and Hebrew concordance. Subsequently, many revisions and variations have appeared, often with a special emphasis according to the needs of the user. The obvious value of biblical concordances stimulated the application of the method to the literary field, where we have comprehensive concordances to Dante, Shakespeare, Browning and many others.

Yvonne Garson

The Bodleian/Google library project in Oxford

Ronald Milne (Acting Director, Oxford University Library Services and Bodley's Librarian, UK) was one of the main speakers during the plenary sessions at The Third International Conference on the Book: Access, Diversity and Democracy, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, 11-13 September 2005.

His presentation, entitled 'Upholding Bodley's vision: the Google Library Project in Oxford', was very informative. The project is seen as an extension of Sir Thomas Bodley's dream, since 1602 when he founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford, for the then new library to "serve not just the University of Oxford, but [to] be open to all who had need." The project extends this ethos by means appropriate to the so-called Digital Age.

A certain amount of digitisation of early printed material has already been undertaken, but the Oxford Google Project specifically plans to undertake the digitisation of nineteenth-century public domain material. Most of this material is held in the Bodleian Library, but will also include related material held in the other libraries within the University of Oxford. An expected 1 to 1.5 million out-of-copyright books will be digitised! The digitised books will be navigable, including a link from the Oxford catalogue to the digital copy. A complete copy of a digitised, individual work within the Oxford programme, can be made available over the Internet subject to certain constraints protecting Google's investment.

Even though the process of digitisation will be on an industrial scale, that is, digitising everything within Oxford's nineteenth-century printed collections, Oxford retains the right to exclude material that are too fragile even for the non-intrusive scanning technology provided by Google. The nineteenth-century material collection is immense in scope and covers an extremely wide range of interests. All related material in every subject field will be digitised (academic books and journals), as well as initial non-academic material such as travel guides, trade and post office directories, recreational magazines, and railway timetables.

The expectation is that the outcome of the project will be of great value not only to scholars, but also to the intellectually curious worldwide. This project is a step in the direction of 'access for all' through the facilitation of access to information resources. There are still hiccups to sort out, and we will watch the progress of the project with interest.

Karin McGuirk

ARTICLE

Should universities be taken to book?
Courtesy Jackie Kalley

The New York Times

May 14, 2005

College Libraries Set Aside Books in a Digital Age
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL

HOUSTON, May 13 ‑ Students attending the University of Texas at Austin
will find something missing from the undergraduate library this fall.

Books.

By mid‑July, the university says, almost all of the library's 90,000 volumes will be dispersed to other university collections to clear space for a 24‑hour electronic information commons, a fast‑spreading phenomenon that is transforming research and study on campuses around the country.

"In this information‑seeking America, I can't think of anyone who would elect to build a books‑only library," said Fred Heath, vice provost of the University of Texas Libraries in Austin.

Their new version is to include "software suites" ‑ modules with computers where students can work collaboratively at all hours ‑ an expanded center for writing instruction, and a center for computer training, technical assistance and repair.

Such digital learning laboratories, staffed with Internet‑expert librarians, teachers and technicians, have been advancing on traditional college libraries since appearing at the University of Southern California in 1994. As more texts become accessible online, libraries have been moving lesser‑used materials to storage. But experts said it was symbolic for a top educational institution like Texas to empty a library of books.

The trend is being driven, academicians and librarians say, by the dwindling need for undergraduate libraries, many of which were built when leading research libraries were reserved for graduate students and faculty. But those distinctions have largely crumbled, with research libraries throwing open their stacks, leaving undergraduate libraries as increasingly puny adjuncts with duplicate collections and shelves of light reading.

Mr Heath said removal of the books had raised some eyebrows among the faculty and anxiety among the library staff. But he said the concerns were needless. "Books are the fundamental icon of intellectual efforts," he said, "the scholarly communication of our time."

So, Mr Heath said, speaking of the library, "if you move it, there's a pang, a sense of loss." He added that the books were merely being moved within the university's library system, one of the nation's largest, home to some 8 million volumes and growing by 100,000 a year. Basic reference books like dictionaries and encyclopedias will remain.

The move, Mr Heath said, would free about 6,000 square feet in the four‑story Flawn Academic Center, which opened in 1963.

Students at Texas, interviewed as they studied or lounged at the library tables, said that they would welcome extra computer space and that they got most of their books anyway at the far larger Perry‑Castañeda Library. But some said they liked the popular selection at the undergraduate library and feared the loss of a familiar and congenial space.

"Well, this is a library ‑ it's supposed to have books in it," said Jessica Zaharias, a senior in business management. "You can't really replace books. There's plenty of libraries where they have study rooms. This is a nice place for students to come to. It's central in campus."

Library staff members said they were taken by surprise when told last month of the conversion, which is how the news first emerged. At a retreat just weeks earlier they had brainstormed about ways to improve service and save money. They said they had been promised reassignment after the conversion and feared speaking out publicly at the risk of jeopardizing their jobs.

Many specialists said Texas was going along with an accelerating trend.

"The library is not so much a space where books are held as where ideas are shared," said Geneva Henry, executive director of the digital library initiative at Rice University in Houston, where anyone can access and augment course materials in a program called Connexions. "It's having a conversation rather than homing in on the book."

"We're teaching students how to do research," Ms Henry said. "Their first reaction is to Google. But they need to validate their information and dig deeper."

Carole Wedge, president of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson & Abbott, an architecture firm in Boston that has redesigned dozens of college libraries for the computer age, said most were built "as boxes to house print collections." The challenge, Ms Wedge said, is to adapt them to what she called "the Barnes & Noble culture, making reading and learning a blurred experience."

Rarely do today's students hunt for a book in the stacks, she said. Now they go online and may end up with a book, but also a DVD or other medium. But, she said, "it's unlikely there will be libraries without books for a long time."

Significantly, librarians are big supporters of the trend.

"There's a real transition going on," said Sarah Thomas, past president of the Association of Research Libraries and the librarian at the Cornell University Library in Ithaca, N.Y. "This is not to say you don't have paper or books. Of course, they're sacred. But more and more we're delivering material to the user as opposed to the user coming into the library to get it."

Southern California, which celebrated the 10th anniversary of its electronic center, called Gateway, last October, keeps about 80,000 books at Gateway, although millions more are available at the university's 15 other libraries, said Lynn O'Leary‑Archer, director of the university libraries.

Similar digital library centers have been built at Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Georgia, the University of Arizona and the University of Michigan. The University of Houston, which is doubling its library space, specializes in the publishing of scholarly material online.

"This is a new generation, born with a chip," said Frances Maloy, president of the Association of College and Research Libraries and leader of access services at Emory. "A student sends an e‑mail at 2 a.m. and wonders by 8 a.m. why the professor hasn't responded."

Ms Maloy praised the initiative at the University of Texas as signifying "that a great university with a fabulous library collection recognizes it's in the digital age."

Nathan Levy contributed reporting from Austin, Tex., for this article.

ANNUAL REPORT 2005

Report 2005 by the Chairperson, Marlene Burger

The year 2005 was a good year for ASAIB. For this, I must thank the members of the Executive Committee for their input, participation and hard work regarding all activities. The main events of the period were the following:

1 PUBLICATIONS
1.1 ASAIB has published two newsletters in electronic format, containing interesting reports, articles and book reviews. They were also published on the ASAIB website. Hard copies were sent to members without electronic contact details.
1.2 The proceedings of our annual conference, Beyond Book Indexing, have been compiled and were published.
1.3 An updated Directory of Available Indexers is available and can be
consulted on the ASAIB website. It can also be accessed by
subject. Thank you, Madely du Preez for this time-consuming task.
1.4 ASAIB has completed the manual, Indexing for Southern Africa. Dr Jacqueline Kalley, Elna Schoeman and Marlene Burger are the editors. It is now at the setters.
1.5 The executive committee has compiled all the conference proceedings for 1994-2004 in a single volume. It has been retyped and will be published in 2006. We still have some of the booklets containing the proceedings of each year available and can be ordered from Madely du Preez at preezm@unisa.ac.za

2 CONFERENCE
2.1 The annual conference has been postponed and will take place on 11 and 12 May 2006 in Johannesburg. The title is Africana: from Papyrus to Metadata and will be an international conference.

3 TRAINING
3.1 A book indexing workshop was presented in Cape Town on 15
and 16 February 2005.
3.2 A pre-conference workshop on basic indexing skills was presented in Nelspruit, as part of the Liasa Annual Conference 2005 programme.

4 WEB PAGE
4.1 The web page can be accessed at www.asaib.org.za
For contributions, comments, suggestions, etc, Marlene Burger at
burgem@unisa.ac.za can be contacted.

5 MEMBERSHIP
5.1 We are still a small professional society, but membership has
grown and we now have 152 members. A warm welcome to all
new members.

6 OVERSEAS CONTACTS
6.1 ASAIB was not represented at the annual SI conference in the UK.
However, the executive committee had constant contact with the SI, as well as with the ASI.

7 ASAIB BRANCHES
7.1 The Western Cape Branch, with Mary Lennox as chairperson,
organised a book indexing workshop early in 2005. The workshop
was presented by Marlene Burger. No report for 2005 was
received from this branch.
7.2 The KwaZulu-Natal Branch stopped functioning as a branch since
the chairperson, Umashanie Reddy, emigrated to Canada. A
renewed effort will be made in 2006 to revive this branch.

8 ASAIB AWARDS
8.1 Abdul Bemath received the award for the best bibliography
published in 2005, and Marina Pearson for the best index published
in 2004.
8.2 Beth Strachan received a special award for her outstanding work
on bibliographies in South Africa over a number of years.
8.3 In 2006 a new category for electronic indexes and bibliographies
will be added.

9 PLANNING AHEAD
9.1 ASAIB will continue with indexing workshops. For 2006, workshops in Pretoria, KwaZulu-Natal and Namibia, are planned. We will consider all suggestions regarding training.
9.2 We will investigate
better marketing strategies for ASAIB
Web indexing
more international participation
9.3 The 2006 conference will be in Johannesburg on 11 and 12 May. Details will be published on the ASAIB website.

One of our members, Christie Theron, passed away on 2 January 2005.
He was a valued member of the Executive Committee and will be remembered for his enthusiasm and friendliness.

ASAIB is well-established in the indexing environment in the Southern African region, and we hope to continue to make a worthwhile contribution.

BOOK REVIEWS

Weblogs and libraries. By Laurel A. Clyde. Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2004. 181 pp. 39.00 pounds soft ISBN 1843340852

One of Anne Clyde’s interests is research on the use of the Internet and online information services. Some of the projects she is working on are related to the development of school library websites. Weblogs and libraries is one of her many publications in this field. In it she discusses weblogs and libraries from two main perspectives: weblogs as sources of information, and weblogs as tools that could be used to promote library services or to provide a means of communication withlibrary clients (p.xx). The book begins with an overview of the weblog and blogging phenomenon and traces its development over the past few years.

Chapter 2 discusses weblogs as sources of current information, showing why the format of weblogs is perfect for current awareness services and advising on the evaluation of weblogs as information sources. Weblogs in the field of library and information science are the focus of Chapter 4 where they are considered from a number of different perspectives. These perspectives are based on who the weblog creator is and what the purpose of the weblog is. Chapter 5 attempts to provide a picture of the ‘state of the art’ of library weblogs (that is weblogs created and maintained by libraries). The aim of this study was to identify the kinds of libraries that have weblogs, to investigate the way library weblogs are being maintained, the purposes for which they were created, the intended audience, the content of the weblogs and some indicators of commitment to the library’s weblog project.

Although weblogs could be valuable sources of information, they are just as difficult to find. Chapter 3 is dedicated to a discussion on directories of weblogs and search engines for weblogs as well as some other useful strategies such as the use of weblog software sites, lists provided on weblogs and meta sites about weblogs. It thus attempts to assist readers in finding valuable information that could suit their specific needs.

Chapter 6 provides basic information about weblog software, weblog hosting and special features of weblogs while Chapter 7 provides information about the ongoing maintenance and management of a library weblog.

Weblogs and libraries reads easily, includes valuable references, bibliographies at the end of each chapter and a useful index. It concludes with selective lists where further information about weblogs and blogging can be found in printed sources, in web-based sources and in a number of specialist weblogs. This useful book can, be highly recommended to all interested in weblogs and the blogging phenomenon.
Reviewed by: Madely du Preez

Previously published in Online Information Review, vol. 29, no. 4, 2005 (p 432-433)

Bemath, Abdul Samed (comp). 2005. The Mazruiana collection revisited: Ali A Mazrui debating the African condition: an annotated and select thematic bibliography 1962-2003. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa & New Dawn Press. ISBN 1 932705 37 6 426 p.

This book is a revised and expanded edition of the Mazuiriana collection (published in 1998) compiled by Abdul Bemath, covering the writings and speeches of Ali Mazrui. Ali A Mazrui is one of Africa’s great thinkers and writers and many of the writings in this collection deal with issues pertaining to the co-mingling of the traditions that have influenced Africa’s heritage, such as endogenous African, Western culture, and Islam. Other subjects covered range from terrorism, globalisation, and dialogue of civilisations to technology transfer in the computer age. This new edition consists of 650 annotated entries covering Mazrui’s books, dissertations, edited works about him, major essays in books, academic journals and conference papers. Pamphlets, magazine and newspaper articles, and audiovisual recordings are also included.

From the extracts of reviews appearing in the preliminary pages to the book, the following have been selected to highlight the international value placed on this work. According to Terry Barringer (African Studies Centre, Cambridge University) the annotations are informative, providing summaries of content, without attempting evaluation; competent author and subject indexes enable the user to navigate with ease. Charles Armour (in The Journal of Modern African Studies) states that ‘… future Africanist historiographers will find this collection most valuable, not least in following up the cited reviews of Ali Mazrui’s publications and exploring the controversies they provoked.’ Abdul Bemath’s bibliography is not only an essential guide to Professor Mazrui’s works: It is a monumental work of diligence and scholarship by Abdul Bemath, a tribute not only to its subject but an outstanding example of the bibliographer’s art – as stated by Michael Holman, Former Africa Editor, Financial Times Newspaper, London.

Apart from preliminaries such as acknowledgements, an introduction to the bibliography, and an essay by Bemath on his interest in Mazrui, the bibliography itself is divided into five sections comprising Mazrui publications (Books, edited works and dissertations; Pamphlets and monographs; Major academic articles in books, periodicals, and select conference papers; Magazine and newspaper articles; and Radio, television and video recordings). The next part consists of a select thematic bibliography, major works on Mazrui, essays on and by Mazrui, Africanist scholarship, the triple heritage and global governance, Mazrui and gender, and petro-militarism and globalisation. The final part contains various lists, namely journals cited, acronyms used, subject index, author index, and finally a biographical sketch of Bemath and Mazrui.

The annotated entries are arranged chronologically from 2003 to 1962 according to a numbered sequence (the index refers to these numbers rather than page numbers). The majority of Mazrui’s articles are in English with some in French, Danish, Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish and Spanish, and the annotations have been translated into English. Each annotation has author and subject keywords. Since Mazrui is the principal author of most of the publications of the five sections of the main bibliography, they are entered under title (however, co-authors, editors, and so on, are indicated). Full bibliographic details are provided for each entry, followed by an annotation – annotations vary in length from brief to quite long (the latter are often in the instance of books where Bemath felt it useful to point out certain chapters).

In the select thematic bibliography of AA Mazrui’s writings, six major themes are focussed on: Oil, the Nuclear debate, Globalisation, the Gender debate, Language and literature and its impact on Africa, and the Clash of civilisations debate. These entries are arranged and presented as in the foregoing sections, but there are no annotations since the numbers of the entries refer to the entry number of the article in the main bibliography. Each of the six themes is preceded by a brief introduction to the relevant theme. This is the last of the bibliographic annotated sections. The final part of the work consists of various essays regarding Mazrui, that is Africanist scholarship, triple heritage and global governance, gender, petro-militarism and globalisation. Even though without annotations, these essays contain many source references with footnotes, end notes and bibliographies.

The list of journals cited is arranged alphabetically according to journal title. Place and/or country names are added to most titles, firstly to reflect the wide geographic area where publications by/on Mazrui can be found, and secondly to differentiate between similar titles. The list of acronyms is useful, since they are often used in the annotations and/or text. The author index refers to bibliographic entry numbers and includes personal names as well as corporate names (e.g. associations, conferences, meetings). Some of the entries in the author index are subdivided by subject so as not to have a large block of numbers, but perhaps entries for Amin, Kenyatta, Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Obote are in need of subdivisions since the many entry numbers under these names can result in frustrating searches for specific information.

The subject index is one of the best features of the book. It is arranged alphabetically with references to bibliographic entry numbers, and is a two-level index (i.e. only one subdivision (indent) per subject entry is used). This makes the display of the index easy on the eye and location of specific subjects without problems – the subdivisions are, in their turn, arranged alphabetically. As with the author index with a large block of numbers, a long list of subdivisions can be just as tiresome, but in the subject index it cannot be helped that subjects such as ‘Africa’ and ‘Islam’ have almost two pages of subdivisions. Bemath is not only an excellent bibliographer, but also an outstanding indexer.

In conclusion, ‘The Mazruiana Collection is the best reference work on Africa’ – Africana Librarians Council, USA & Library of Congress (India).

Reviewed by: Marlene Burger

ASAIB Newsletter no. 20, 2005

2005-09-02T02:36:00.000-07:00

ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN INDEXERS AND BIBLIOGRAPHERS

Report 2004 by the Chairperson, Marlene Burger
The year 2004 was a good year for ASAIB. For this, I must thank the members of the Executive Committee for their input, participation and hard work regarding all activities. The highlights of the period were the following:

1 PUBLICATIONS
1.1 ASAIB has published two newsletters in electronic format, containing interesting reports, articles and book reviews. They were also published on the ASAIB web site. Hard copies were sent to members without electronic contact details.
1.2 The proceedings of our annual conference, Beyond Book Indexing, have been compiled and will be published in 2005.
1.3 An updated Directory of Available Indexers is now available and can be consulted on the ASAIB website. The Directory can be accessed via personal name of indexer, or subject field. Thank you, Madely du Preez for this time-consuming task.
1.4 ASAIB has completed the manual, Indexing for Southern Africa. Dr Jacqueline Kalley and Maryna Fraser are the editors. The first pre-publication editing has been done.

2 CONFERENCE
2.1 The annual conference, entitled Beyond Book Indexing was held on 16-17 September 2004 in Johannesburg. This was ASAIB’s first international conference and two speakers, one from the UK (Janet McKerron) and one from the USA (Lori Lathrop) presented papers. Part of the programme was electronic indexing demonstrations and a visit to the Brenthurst Library. On the evening of 16 September, the indexing manual was launched at the Johannesburg Country Club. The conference was reasonably well attended and superb papers were presented. Our sincere thanks to everyone who has helped with the conference arrangements, and also to the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa and the American Embassy for providing venues and facilities.

3 TRAINING
3.1 The Executive Committee of ASAIB presented a pre-conference workshop on reference techniques and bibliography in Polokwane, as part of the Liasa Annual Conference programme. The workshop was attended by 36 participants.

4 WEB PAGE
4.1 The web page can be accessed at www.asaib.org.za For contributions comments, suggestions, etc, Marlene Burger at burgem@unisa.ac.za can be contacted.
5 MEMBERSHIP
5.1 We are still a small professional society, but membership has grown and we now have 142 members. A warm welcome to all new members.
6 OVERSEAS CONTACTS
6.1 ASAIB was, as usual, invited to the SI's 2004 conference. Marlene Burger attended the conference on 2-4 April in Chester, UK. She presented a report on ASAIB at the conference, and also had the honour of attending an editorial committee meeting of the periodical, The Indexer.
6.2 Christie Theron is still responsible for the Around the World section in The Indexer.
7 ASAIB BRANCHES
7.1 The Western Cape Branch, with Mary Lennox as chairperson, plans a book indexing workshop early in 2005. Unfortunately, no report for 2004 was received from this branch.
7.2 The KwaZulu-Natal Branch, with Umashanie Reddy as chairperson, plans to organise the 2005 conference in Durban. This branch has regular meetings and publishes a newsletter.
8 ASAIB AWARD
8.1 Yvonne Garson received the award for the best index/bibliography published in 2004, and Shelagh Willet of Botswana was the runner-up.
9 PLANNING AHEAD
9.1 ASAIB will continue with indexing workshops. We will consider all suggestions regarding training.
9.2 We will investigate
marketing strategies for ASAIB
Web indexing
more international participation
9.3 The 2005 conference will be in Durban. The KwaZulu-Natal Branch will be the organisers.

We also took leave of one of our founder members, Elna Schoeman. She was a valued member of the Executive Committee and responsible for the publication of the Newsletter and the Conference proceedings. Thank you, Elna, for your loyalty and hard work.
ASAIB is well established in the indexing environment in the Southern African region, and we hope to continue to make a worthwhile contribution.

Please note: The ASAIB List is for use by all members of ASAIB. You are welcome to send news, information, communications, etc.

2 Report back on indexing workshop, Cape Town

On 15 and 16 February 2005, a workshop on book indexing was presented in Cape Town to 30 participants. We started off with problems such as the air conditioning not working and the text with group indexing exercises for manual indexing not reaching the Cape Town computer. However, the air conditioning system was fixed before lunchtime and the text for the electronic indexing exercise turned up – the manual indexing exercises are still lost somewhere in cyberspace! We managed to work from the handouts that contained some of the manual indexing exercises, as well as with periodical articles, but circumstances were not ideal. The participants were very supportive and coped with all the technical problems. For this I thank them all. Such a large group from diverse professional backgrounds and various degrees of indexing experience was a real challenge. A very special thanks to Mary Lennox for organising the workshop as well as to Professor Peter Underwood of UCT for providing the venue. Welcome to all the new members in Cape Town, who joined ASAIB after the workshop. [Marlene Burger].

3 Newsflashes

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASH
Hon Treasurer of ASAIB, Peter Duncan, was one of the recipients of the Long Service Award at a ceremony held in November 2004, in recognition of 25 years of service to the University of the Witwatersrand.

NEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASHNEWSFLASH

Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers
GPO Box 2069, Canberra ACT 2601
email: aussi@aussi.org or president@aussi.org
home page: http://www.aussi.org
phone: 0500 525 005
AusSI is now ANZSI

On 17 November 2004, the Australian Society of Indexers (AusSI) adopted a revised constitution that, inter alia, changed the name of the Society to Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI). This name change reflects our increased membership from both sides of the Tasman, evident in the recent formation of a New Zealand Branch of the Society. The Society now has formal branches in the ACT Region, New South Wales, New Zealand and Victoria, as well as interest groups or members in all other states of Australia.

From 2005, the Newsletter of the Australian Society of Indexers will be renamed ANZSI Newsletter. In the short term, the website address will remain at http://www.aussi.org/
Please note these name changes for your records.

Lynn Farkas
ANZSI President

4 Correspondence

ASAIB member eligibility to join ASI Special Interest Group
Heather Hedden, the coordinator of the America Society of Indexer's Web Indexing Special Interest Group has requested that we bring the following information to the attention of ASAIB members who are interested in joining this Interest Group:
According to the international agreement between the Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers (ASAIB) and the American Society of Indexers (ASI), ASAIB members may join ASI Special Interest Groups.
The Web Indexing Special Interest Group has been reactivated. It has a new website: http://www.web‑indexing.org , and has a new online discussion group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/webindexing/
ASAIB members are most welcome to visit this site and participate in the discussion group.
For any enquiries you may contact:
Heather Hedden
Coordinator Web‑Indexing SIG,ASI
President: Hedder Information Management
98 East Riding Drive
Carlisle MA 01741‑1602
USA
Tel: 978‑371‑0822
heather@hedden.net
http://www.Hedden‑Information.com

Exchange newsletters from indexing societies
Below are full contact details for Mr Qin Banglian cnindex@fudan.edu.cn , the CSI corresponding member. This is the address to send exchange newsletters to, etc.
The new contact of the CSI is:
China Society of Indexers
Mr.Qin Banglian
Secretariat of the CSI
Fudan University Library
403 Room 220 Handan Road,
Shanghai
200433
PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA
tel:86‑21‑55664454
website: http://www.cnindex.fudan.edu.cn/

5 Indexing book and commemorative volume

The indexing book manuscript came back from outside evaluators with highly positive comments. The book has been through its first editing and will soon be in the printing process. More details on price and ordering will be available at a later date. Consult the ASAIB web page http://www.asaib.org.za/ for this information.

Another book, a commemorative volume including all the ASAIB publications of its first ten years of existence, is also under way. The idea is to launch it at the ASAIB Conference in October 2005.

6 Bibliography and indexing award

Yvonne Garson received the ASAIB Award prize for the best bibliography/index in Southern Africa for 2004. The work is entitled From myth to reality in the cartography of the Colonial Era: historical maps of Southern Africa and islands off its coast.

The runner-up was Shelagh Willet for her publication, The Khoe and San: an annotated bibliography.

This award is made annually by ASAIB and the deadline for 2004-2005 bibliographies and indexes is 20 September 2005. The winner and the runner-up will be announced at the ASAIB Conference in October this year. Entry forms will be available on the ASAIB web page, or can be requested from Marlene Burger, tel 012-4296585, e-mail: burgem@unisa.ac.za

7 Conference alerts

7.1 ASAIB Annual Conference 2005

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the conference will not take place in Durban as initially planned, but at the Military Museum in Johannesburg. The main theme is “Diverse Interests in Indexing.” The format will be two parallel Round Table discussions and garden sessions. The topics for the two round tables are Access to information in children’s literature, and Metadata & Indexing Digital Resources. It will take place on 6 October 2005. During the conference the Award for Best Bibliography/Index will be awarded, and the commemorative volume will be launched. Tea and lunch will be served.

Conference fees: R200-00 pp for ASAIB members; R220 pp for non-members.
Times: 9:00-13:00, followed by lunch.
Programme: The full programme will be available on the ASAIB web site.
Registration form: See the ASAIB web site at a later date.

The conference will also be announced in the ASAIB List and the IGBIS List.

7.2 SI Annual Conference 2005

CONNECTIONS: WORKING IN THE PRESENT - LEARNING FROM THE PAST
Put it in your diary now! 8 to 10 July, Exeter (index below for your convenience):
Devon cream teas, requirement to eat whilst in Exeter Cathedral, very nice place to visit

transport links

air: flights to and from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin
rail: Exeter St Davids Station
road: MS located within few miles of university

Accommodation

University accommodation in students rooms with en-suite showers
buildings, handsome early Victorian to brand new car parking on campus, availability of conference facilities, spacious grounds, lovely and mature
position, north of city centre
venue of SI Conference 2005
AGM Sunday morning
meeting fellow indexers, necessity of
music, Thomas Tallis during reception in chapel
networking, importance of
sessions and workshops
skills updates
speakers, interesting variety of
seafaring
Drake
Raleigh
Trafalgar, 200th Anniversary of Battle of
surfing, availability of good beaches for those so inclines
swimming see surfing

For more information: http://www.indexers.org.uk/

7.3 Canadian Indexers Conference 2005

Mark June 8 and 9, 2005, on your calendars and set your sights on Canada's capital, because this year's IASC/SCAD (Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada) conference is already shaping up to be a winner, with some terrific speakers and really helpful sessions. Topics include: Indexing in a Multicultural Environment, Thesauri and Controlled Vocabularies, and Helping Editors and Authors to Evaluate Indexes.
We've also lined up two great panels on Parliamentary Indexing and Scholarly Indexing and an information session on the SI Course and Accreditation. Speakers include Michèle Hudon, Christine Jacobs, Kate Mertes, Gay Lepkey, Ruth Pincoe, Patricia Buchanan, Noeline Bridge, and Joan McGilvray of McGill‑Queen's University Press.
If you want to make a week of it, come for one of the two days of pre‑conference software workshops: CINDEX ‑ 1‑day workshop, June 7; MACREX ‑ 2‑day workshop, June 6 and 7.
Then head to Toronto for the Editors' Association of Canada conference, June 10‑12.
All conference sessions and workshops will be held at the University of Ottawa. This beautiful downtown location is within walking distance of many of Ottawa's finest attractions, including Parliament Hill, the National Gallery of Canada, the ByWard Market, and the Rideau Canal.
For more information, check out the conference URL: http://www.indexingsociety.ca/conferences.html

7.4 2005 Advanced workshop on bibliographic standards: preliminary announcement

The 2005 Workshop will again be hosted by the LIASA National Interest Group for Bibliographic Standards.
Date: 19‑22 July 2005
Venue: CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria (http://www.csiricc.co.za/)
Target audience: Experienced descriptive and subject cataloguers
The Workshop will cover 4 days of practical sessions on AACR2, MARC21, DDC, LCSH and Authority control.

Workshop registration fees:
Full workshop fee: R700,00 pp (IGBIS members) and R900,00 pp (non‑members)
Daily registration fees: R200,00 pp (IGBIS members) and R300,00 pp (non‑members)
Accommodation arrangements:
Contact person ‑ Liza Borstlap: Casa Toscana ( http://www.casatoscana.co.za/ )
Tel.: (012) 348‑8820 or 082‑453‑1859
e‑mail: liza@casatoscana.co.za
More detailed information to be circulated soon, which will also be available on the IGBIS Web page http://www.liasa.org.za/interest_groups/igbis.php
Any inquiries may be addressed to:
Martha de Waal
IGBIS Communications Officer
Tel: (012) 401‑9719
Fax: (012) 325‑5984
e‑mail: martha.dewaal@nlsa.ac.za

7.5 LIASA pre-conference workshop on indexing basics

This workshop will be presented as a LIASA pre-conference workshop on Monday, 26 September 2005 in Nelspruit. It is organised by IGBIS. The details and bookings are on http://www.liasa.org.za/ ; and details will be posted on ASAIB List.

8 Notes on Jeffrey Klass’ “The second hand booktrade and the internet.” Impressions of, and notes on, the AGM 2004 talk, by Madely du Preez.

Jeffrey Klass briefly attended to aspects relating to the Internet, raising some points and making some comments. He noted that the 10 years of ASAIB’s existence roughly spans the existence of book sites on the Internet. Since then there has been some major advances and ABE made more than 1 million books available in 1997. In June 1998 it had 1200 dealers with more than 2 million books. Today there are 13000 dealers.
User and dealer perceptions of what constitutes a book are now changing. The notion of the traditional bookshop has been eroded. One no longer needs to visit a bookshop or own a book to be a dealer. Amazon, for example, does not own any books, but can supply rare books, available books and second hand books – seldom in the past did new and second hand books meet via the same dealer.
People have lost the smell of the book and the dusty piles that constitute a second hand bookshop. They no longer come into contact with the staff. It seems as if there will be fewer real bookshops in future. This is an economic matter as, due to the Internet, stock no longer needs to be visible, less staff is needed, and rent does not have to be paid. It should also make the product cheaper and more accessible. Printed paper catalogues have now become a rather scarce commodity due to cost implications. Cheaper lists will disappear in future, but the feeling is that status or prestige catalogues will continue.
Criticism is aimed at the levelling of prices and price-cutting. Where the dealer pitches a book is an interesting exercise. The competition has changed. It is no longer the bookshop up the street, but the invisible bookshop somewhere in the global space. The notion is to go for scarcity and rarity – one is more aware about the existence of this notion.
An advantage is that bookshops are now open 24 hours a day and the world has become the market place. Dealers are no longer limited to local markets. The range of material that can be offered has been widened. The dealer is able to offer new stock on a daily basis. His stock is changing and instant gratification of the client is a possibility, instead of taking 6 weeks. The client can also immediately be informed if a book has been sold out.
Disadvantages:
· Extension of the fact that there is not much personal expertise. Site managers can do the trade great harm.
· Fraud is the biggest problem – credit cards don’t always belong to the client placing the order, for example a R42000 book was lost this way.
Electronic auctions – people list books on the auction that don’t belong to them and will then buy it once they get a higher bid that what they have to pay the dealer.
Too many members of the trade. There is a need to police bookselling.

The Internet has seen quite a boom. It has a language of its own that has to be interpreted and learnt by all. Jeffrey Klass sees a major future in the bookselling trade. The most rare items, though, will continue to be sold on a personal basis.

10 Preface to “the Mazruiana collection revisited.”
THE MAZRUIANA COLLECTION REVISITED. ALI A. MAZRUI DEBATING THE AFRICAN CONDITION. AN ANNOTATED AND SELECT THEMATIC BIBLIOGRAPHY,1962-2003. Revised and Enlarged Edition. Compiled by Abdul Samed Bemath. Foreword by Chief Emeka Anyaoku with an Introduction by Indiana University based Professors AB and YM Alex-Assensoh. NEW DELHI, INDIA: NEW DAWN PRESS (An imprint of Sterling Publishers, and PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA: AFRICA INSTITUTE OF SOUTH AFRICA, 2005. 426p. 650 Entries. ISBN: 1 932705 376 (Hardcover). PRICE: UK ₤24.99. USA $39.95.

PREFACE
In this revised and updated edition of my bibliography, The Mazruiana Collection, that covered the period 1962-1997, I am continuing my bibliographical discourse with the works of Professor Ali A Mazrui, updating the collection to 2003 with an additional 136 entries. This comprehensive annotated bibliography of the works of Ali A Mazrui spans four decades and is a contribution to the growing interest shown by social scientists, policy makers, scholars and students in the political thought of one of Africa’s most accomplished and prolific writers.
This revised and expanded edition consists of 650 entries: Section I lists 31 books, section II 11 pamphlets, Section III details 386 of his major academic papers, Section IV lists 198 magazine articles and Section V lists 24 video and film recordings. The annotations are detailed, and each section has a keyword index. A separate, detailed authors’ and subjects’ index is included for easy reference.
I have outlined in the section: Major works on Ali A Mazrui an interest reflected by the written works, electronic and seminar debates, and audio-visual recordings about him and his works. The study is also a biographical sketch of him and I have included several essays written by him and scholars familiar with debates on Mazrui’s works.
I have included a Select Thematic Bibliography on major themes of his writings.
The study has a foreword by former Commonwealth Secretary-General Chief Emeka Anyaoku and an introduction by Professors Akwasi and Yvette Assensoh.
In his tribute the House of Lords function (June 2000) in honour of Professor Mazrui and his works Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, had the following to say: “This moment in history is ours. The international community is showing a growing interest in helping Africa realise its potential. At the same time, Africa is growing increasingly aware that the key to many of its problems can be found only among Africans themselves. African scholars like Professor Mazrui are at the vanguard of this renewal. Their work holds the key to what we all want and need: African answers to African problems.” *
As Mazrui puts it: “Many people disagree with me. My life is one long debate.” May this, The Mazruiana Collection Revisited, contribute to the debate on Mazrui – the man and his works!
*Message read by His Excellency Dr Yakubu Gowon (Q-News, London, July 2000).

OBTAINABLE FROM:
USA: Independent Publishers Group. 600 North Pulaski Road, Chicago, IL 60624. Phone: 312-337 0747
Contact person: David Gebhart. David@ipgbook.com
UK: Sterling Distributors. 2 Tintern Close, Slough, Berkshire, SL1-2TB, United Kingdom. Phone: 01753820091. E-mail: sterlingdis@yahoo.co.uk
INDIA: New Dawn Press. A-59 Okhla Industrial Area Phase II, New Delhi.
Phone: +91 11 26386165. E-mail: ghai@nde.vsnl.net.in
South Africa: Africa Institute of South Africa. P.O.Box 630, Pretoria, 0001, South Africa. Phone: (012) 328 6970. E-mail: beth@ai.org.za

1 Book reviews

Internet and personal computing fads, by Mary Ann Bell, Mary Ann Berry, and James L van Roekel. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Information Press, 2004. 210 pp. ISBN 0789017717

Internet and personal computing fads is intended for all the people finding themselves totally out of their depth with all the computer jargon and internet buzzwords. It is a perfect introduction to the world of computers and the Internet and offers a well-documented overview of events and developments relating to the explosion of computer technology and the Internet.
It takes an encyclopaedic look at Internet buzzwords and provides a one-stop shopping for the hottest terms, both historical and present-day terms. Terms representing variety fields of interest, including general computer use, business and entertainment are briefly explained. The book offers an interesting retrospective view of the development of computer and Internet use, a description of current fads and trends, and predictions on how the technologies will develop in the future. The short bibliographies at the end of each entry provide for more complete information, if needed.
Entries are in layman’s terms, making the book approachable and useful for the novice computer or Internet user. It could be very useful in all types of libraries, or even for general use by readers wanting to become more familiar with computer terminology. A feature of this work is that there are definitions as well as coping strategies. How to deal with all these culture-benders may be the most outstanding facet of the book.
Some of the terms appearing in Internet and personal computing fads include acceptable use policy, geek speak MP3s, viruses and Y2K. It even looks at computer Easter eggs – generally harmless messages or software included inside other computer programs. Did you know that Microsoft Excel 97 had a flight simulator game hidden within it? I didn’t, until I read the entry on Easter Eggs.
Internet and computing fads is a well-researched and written book. A useful index completes the volume. The index has many see and see also references to assist readers in finding the correct term or entry when they find themselves caught in a jungle of computer terminology. It is very concise and written in language most appropriate for the layperson, but also more than adequate for use by technology professionals. I find it a great asset to my personal collection on Internet and computer literature.
[Reviewed by Madely du Preez]

Thirty years of electronic records. Edited by Bruce I Ambacher. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. 2003. 190p. Paperback, ISBN 0-8108-4769-8.

The contributors in this collection of essays have all been involved in the development of the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It is not only about appraising, accessioning, preserving, describing, and providing access to archival electronic records. It also includes discussions on the application of archival theory and practice, and their evolution. The main focus is on archival electronic records, which makes this collection essential to the current challenges faced by libraries, archives, museums, and similar institutions, regarding the preservation (and related activities) of contemporary and future types of electronic records. Of great value is the inclusion of the history and evolution of the records creation, use, and disposition of electronic records, as well as broader governmental and societal understanding and use of electronic records.
Two sections precede the chapters. The first section ‘Chronology’ offers a useful chronological record of NARA and of electronic records, as well as organisational names. This is followed by a section entitled ‘Recollections’ by Fishbein, which provides an account of the convergence of technology that resulted in the need for an effective electronic records program to be developed. A logical progression from this section is Chapter 1 (Brown) on the history of the NARA program. It reflects the development, setbacks, and progress of the NARA program, and it parallels the evolution of archival processing and services for electronic records and of the archival community’s efforts to address this new form of records. The electronic records program of NARA has undergone changes in addressing the issues related to the identification, acquisition, preservation, and use of archival electronic records. Brown shows that these changes coincide with major phases in the evolution of the information technology field.
The main functional aspects of appraisal, accessioning, preservation, description and reference as they related to electronic records, are developed further in chapters 2 (Henry), chapter 3 (Ambacher), and chapter 4 (Adams) respectively. Chapter 5 by Thibodeau provides insight into the Electronic Records Archives Progam (ERA) of the future. Baron in chapter 6 gives a perspective on the impact of litigation on government electronic record keeping. He analyses two case studies to illustrate his perspective. The chapter on ‘Views of Managers’ (chapter 7) provides insight into the electronic records program of NARA from the standpoint of the officials tasked with managing the program. Chapter 8 is an appropriate conclusion by Conrad. He details the significant contributions of NARA to the development of archival electronic records theory and practice through the National Historical Publications and Records Commission’s electronic records research agenda and its grant program. Even though NARA is specifically a U.S. archival electronic records program, it still attends to universal problems regarding such records. It may prove to be an important source for those involved in archival studies. The only pity about this collection is the absence of an index.
[Reviewed by Karin McGuirk; published by Emerald in 2004, Online Information Review, 28(6):465-466.]

12 Obituary: Mr JC Theron (1948-2005)

Christie Theron passed away on 2 January 2005. ASAIB received this news with great sadness. He was a member of the Executive Committee for the past four years during which he made various contributions such as presenting papers at some of our conferences, helped organising conferences, and above all, supported the Committee in all its tasks. With his happy smile, he was a friend to all of us.

As a member of the editorial board of The Indexer, he was responsible for the section Around the World, published in each issue of the periodical. That way he made valuable contact with overseas indexing societies, which was a benefit to ASAIB.

Christie was a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Information Science at Unisa since 1987. He was responsible for teaching undergraduate subjects like Archival Science, Bibliology, Information Science, Library History, and Applied Record Studies. On honours level he taught Philosophy of Information and Record Studies, Readership, Theory of Library Science, and Information Technology. He was also responsible for a number of Masters students. During this time, he published a range of interesting articles. At the time of his death, he was working on a D Litt et Phil thesis entitled, Separate personal book collections in urban public and university libraries in South Africa. Christie presented many papers at both national and international conferences.

As a long term member of LIASA, he was committed to its vision and willingly served on the Representative Council as Chairperson of the Research, Education and Training Interest Group (RETIG) for the period 2002-2004.

Christie grew up on a sultana farm in the Upington district and matriculated at the Upington High School. Thereafter he studied at the University of the Orange Free State (BA and the Higher Diploma in Librarianship), the University of Stellenbosch (Hons B Bibl) and the University of South Africa (M Bibl). He was a librarian at the UOFS Library and the UWC Library; a lecturer at the UWC Department of Library Science; then joined Unisa in 1986.

Christie’s diverse interests are reflected by the many professional and other societies he joined, such as SHARP, SA Society of Cultural History, SA Museums Association, SA Society of Archivists, SA Online User Group, Society of Bibliophiles (Cape Town), Africana Society (Pretoria), Friend of the National Library of SA (Cape Town), Friends of the War Museum (Bloemfontein). He was also the chairman of the Reading Circle Constantiapark.

His commitment, enthusiasm, sense of humour, and passion for book collecting, information technology and philosophy, will be sorely missed. [Marlene Burger].