Proud to be a LIBRARIAN!!! Love the L-sign

Teardrops and Closed Caskets!!!Our forgotten Movers & Shakers Ranganathan’s faithfuls, let’s take a walkabout to explore the Zimbabwe LIS professional recognition or honouring structure. The objective is to discover what the (LIS) field values in terms of bestowing honors at the individual level, and in which ways the awards system will perpetuate or progress those values. In general, the dialogue attempts to inquire where librarian honors fit into the larger context that includes other major Zimbabwean professional awards such as CZI Manager of the Year. Ultimately we may interrogate the following questions: what qualifies as prestige within our field, and how is that scale of prestige viewed from outside librarianship? My intention is to expand the dialogue, to quiz our current rewarding structures and to inspire professional competitive spirit. But, the major underlying theme for this dialogue is the many teardrops and closed caskets (painful losses of 10+ just in 2015...

MZINGWANE HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY BURNS DOWNS TO ASHES http://www.chronicle.co.zw/mzingwane-library-burns-down-to-ashes/

Dr Hikwa's desire to take the library as we know it to the people saw one of the most amazing projects come of library land in Zimbabwe.....He was among the people that came up with the unique donkey-drawn mobile library. http://www.herald.co.zw/go-well-hikwa-you-did-us-proud/

A CHAMPION of rural libraries and former Dean of the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), Lawton Hikwa subscribed to the creation of a just society where libraries and information services were made available to all people, including rural communities, as a matter of right and not charity. http://www.southerneye.co.zw/2015/10/14/tribute-to-lawton-hikwa/  

Academic Hikwa dies. Prominent NUST Lecturer and political commentator Dr Lawton Hikwa has died. He was 50......  http://www.herald.co.zw/academic-hikwa-dies/

It's important for people to tell you what side they are on and why, and whether they might be biased. A declaration of members' interests, of a sort. So, I am going to be talking to you about reading. I'm going to tell you that libraries are important. I'm going to suggest that reading fiction, that reading for pleasure, is one of the most important things one can do. I'm going to make an impassioned plea for people to understand what libraries and librarians are, and to preserve both of these things. And I am biased, obviously and enormously: I'm an author, often an author of fiction. I write for children and for adults. For about 30 years I have been earning my living though my words, mostly by making things up and writing them down. It is obviously in my interest for people to read, for them to read fiction, for libraries and librarians to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur. http://www.theguardian...

Teaching information literacy to students has been a core service for academic and research libraries for decades. However in recent years it is now increasingly common for libraries to offer programs teaching researchers different kinds of information skills including how to track their research impact. Traditional librarian skills in teaching how to seek and interpret publications  are repurposed in this environment to teach researchers how to seek and interpret data about their publications including citation counts , research metrics such as h-indexes and altmetrics . http://interlibnet.org/2015/10/06/librarian-as-teacher-research-impact-tracking-services-for-researchers-and-academics/