Going Home...

My time at NEGST has come, again, to an end. When I visited the first time it was for about 10 days. Then I felt that it was much too short and that three weeks was a much better time frame to consider for future visits. As I finished this visit I find that three weeks is a long time to be away. I think that during my first visit I felt that there was so much to do and that time was needed to accomplish it all. I think that there will always be so much to do and this has nothing to do with the abilities of the people but with the place where they are--just like there would be librarians from other institutions, such as larger research universities that could provide us guidance and direction or could fill in an area in which we are lacking.

My last two days at NEGST were spent teaching the new cohort of PhD students research skills all day on Monday. And, on Tuesday most of the day was spent driving from Nairobi to Machakos (the early British East Africa colonial capital) to view a library software at the top end of the Softlink product (the maker of Alice). The goal was to determine if Liberty was a viable option to move to from Alice, which it wasn't, at least for a graduate school with a doctoral program. Though it was more time away from the library itself and its staff it was necessary in order to provide an informed recommendation.

This all led to a rather anit-climactic departure, though I was able to stop in and say goodbye to those staff that hadn't left on leave--roughly half. I did have some good discussions with those remaining.
Through the work that Mary Sue and I have had a chance to be a part of I think that we've left the library at NEGST, and through the CALA conference other librarians in Kenya, in a better place and with new skills or thought processes/procedures to grow in their librarianship.