Librarianship in the South

The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) works with partners in developing countries to build their capacity in the field of information and library services. Based on the notion that access to relevant information is essential to virtually every development process, KIT makes its expertise available to support institutions in the developing world that offer development-related information to researchers, students or professionals in the field. The overall aim of KIT’s involvement is to build capacity at the partner institution leading to sustainable development that is driven from within the organization itself.

KIT’s Information & Library Services department (KIT ILS) has a longstanding history in disseminating information on international cooperation and development issues. Nowadays its services have shifted away from those of a traditional paper-based library, to include digital content, online access and electronic services. This makes the department well-placed to support partners in the developing world in various aspects of modern information and library services. KIT ILS offers expertise in a wide range of areas. Four areas have been identified as central themes for the capacity strengthening programme in the next couple of years.

• Library automation
  Building the capacity at partner institutions to install, maintain and use systems for library automation
• Open access electronic publishing
  Building the capacity at partner institutions to electronically publish research output through open access platforms, including institutional repositories.
• End-user training programmes
  Building the capacity at partner institutions to develop and implement end-user training, including information literacy programmes.
• Shared documentary heritage
  Building the capacity at partner institutions to preserve, restore and open up collections of documentary heritage from the colonial period, including digitization and making the content available online

In each of these areas, KIT’s experts work themselves on the institute’s own products and services, and are also available as trainers and advisors for international capacity strengthening projects. As a consequence, they have a hands-on and practice-oriented attitude. In recent years, the role of ICT-related expertise in information and library services has grown more significant worldwide. Also in KIT’s capacity strengthening programme, ICT has become a crosscutting theme, which puts strong emphasis on free and open source software solutions.

Contact
For further information, please contact:

Harry Heemskerk
KIT Information & Library Services
P.O. Box 95001
1090 HA Amsterdam
The Netherlands

T +31 (0)20 568 8320
M +31 (0)6 2537 5057
F +31 (0)20 665 4423
E h.heemskerk@kit.nl

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