In today’s world, the open sharing of information is more important than ever. It allows the Library and other GLAM Institutions to collaborate and learn, fostering innovation and progress. The open movement has given rise to the Creative Commons and Wikimedia, and the 21st Century Librarian has a crucial role to play.
In relation to this, members of the Free Knowledge Africa team organized a training session on the 1st of September 2023. It was held at the National Library of Nigeria Headquarters in Abuja. Those in attendance were staff from the Virtual Library Service Department, including the department’s Deputy Director, Mrs. Mistura Abdulazeez.
Topics Discussed at the Library
This training event had over 30 people in attendance touched on different trending topics. These topics includes The Open Movement and its relevance, The Creative Commons, Wikimedia. Librarians as content Curators and Producers, Digitization, and the role of Librarians in the Nigerian Public Domain was also emphasized.
It was indeed an impactful session as we could draw the librarians’ attention to the open Movement and the Public Domain. We received a lot of enthusiasm from the librarians for their willingness to join and contribute to the open movement. Following this, the Free Knowledge Africa Team created a community of GLAM professionals. The esssence of this community is to constantly discuss the open Movement and how the librarians can contribute. You can be a part of the community here.
The librarians also shared their concerns on copyright and the deteriorating state of public domain works in Nigeria. Here at Free Knowledge Africa, we have a mission to build a database of Public Domain works in Nigeria. This is to help people easily and accurately identify and use these works by digitizing them, which is the current Public Domain Digitization Project. We shared our experiences with the librarians and were able to learn a thing or two from them.
Overall, the training event was educative and eye-opening. Most Importantly, we were able to open the eyes of the librarians to all the opportunities within the open Movement and how they could join and contribute to this movement. We also centered on the importance of digitizing materials and releasing them under open licenses for adequate preservation and easy access.
