A bird's-eye view on research 4

Day 4 (Thursday 15 April):

Today focused more on postgraduate studies, funding and support services. We started the day by giving feedback on our group discussions from yesterday afternoon, followed by the following talks:

1. Ms Lisa Kane (UCT Honorary Research Associate & PhD student, University of Lancaster)
She didn't give up on doing her PhD regardless of struggling to find someone to be her supervisor. Time-management is important. Set aside time for your family, for work, for research and stick to it. Often a librarian can offer a shoulder to cry on, and the library can become a sanctuary. Librarians should show interest in research conducted by students, and be flexible. There is a huge need for more digitised material (e.g. maps). She has never made use of a librarian, but would have liked to have one ...

2. Dr Saurabh Sinha (UP, Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering)
Gave us some valuable information re the PhD research journey. Research groups need meeting places to solve problems themselves; access to e-libraries; state of the art equipment (attracks top researchers). You have to "own" your research topic. During the proposal phase libraries need to access Scopus/ ISI Web of Knowledge. Students submit up to two papers for journals, and one for an international conference.

3. Prof Deborah Posel (UCT, The Institute for the Humanities in Africa)
Innovative research becomes more inter-disciplinary. Create new connections, network. Inspire postgraduate students by pulling them into inter-disciplinary communities.

4. Dr Gaelle Ramon (UCT, Research Office)
Also didn't give up on her research, regardless of not being able to speak English in the early days. Supervisor plays a very important role. The library can play a role on giving input re where to publish, etc.

5. Dr Andrew Kaniki (NRF)
Lots of funding available for researchers. We can help making them aware of it. Major challenge for researchers is access to knowledge.

About the program so far: Very well structured, with sufficient breaks in between. Thanks Pat!

About my fellow colleagues attending the academy: This is a great bunch of people. I have learnt so much from them and from the questions they asked, as well as the talks we engaged in on professional level and over lunch/dinner during the past days.

To summarise/my personal opinion:
- We can learn from researchers, and they can learn from us. Communication is very important!
- In order to conduct our research, librarians can do with some study leave as well :)
- Re searching for theses & dissertations - try out IRSpace, along with Current & Completed Research, Nexus
- Subject librarians should - and in most cases I believe they do - also follow an inter-disciplinary approach.
- Maybe librarians will be able to better identify with the research process by also enrolling for their Masters/PhD's? A tough one ...
- A state-of-the-art library can also attrack researchers worldwide?
- A question: How can we become a world class and internationally competitive university and compete with researchers in the USA, who have access to a vast amount of databases/e-journals?
- Inter-disciplinary communities can spontaneously evolve within the Research Commons ... different postgraduates from different disciplines informally engaging in social areas of Research Commons.

Highlights: Drumming session, and potjiekos-dinner with Julene, Danie, Saurabh, Wynand, Pieter (I think Saurabh now have a completely different perspective of librarians :))

Carnegie Day 4

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