General News
Environment and marine libraries throughout the Pacific region met this month to discuss ways of working smarter and keeping up with advancements in the digital world.
One of the biggest challenges facing the sector is how best to share environment-related information with remote communities in the Pacific, especially given the varying levels of Information Technology infrastructure in the region.
Establishing digital libraries using open-source (free to use) software called Greenstone, was one of the possibilities explored at the three-day workshop hosted at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) campus in Samoa.
The Pacific Islands Marine Resource - PIMRIS Portal, the Pacific Islands Protected Area Portal (PIPAP) and the Pacific Environment Information Network (PEIN) and the Pacific Climate Change Portal are examples of tools, partnerships and collaborative mechanisms that are underway in the Pacific region to help better manage marine and environment information.
"Getting the right information to the right people at the right time is significant in this age of information overload," said Ms. Miraneta Williams Hazelman, Manager of the Information Resource Centre at SPREP.
"We as librarians, information specialists or knowledge managers must be equipped with the best tools and techniques in our field of work. We learnt from each other on how we address similar challenges and issues, which was one of the best things to come from this."
Information managers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Great Barrier Reef Marine Protected Area (GBRMPA) and Alpha Indexing in Australia shared with their Pacific counterparts their experiences and knowledge on how to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange in their workplaces.
Participants at the workshop were from American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, University of the South Pacific Library, Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library, Kiribati Fisheries Division and Samoa Fisheries Division. This workshop was supported by the Government of Australia through GeoScience Australia. The workshop took place from 12 – 14 February, 2014.
One of the biggest challenges facing the sector is how best to share environment-related information with remote communities in the Pacific, especially given the varying levels of Information Technology infrastructure in the region.
Establishing digital libraries using open-source (free to use) software called Greenstone, was one of the possibilities explored at the three-day workshop hosted at the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) campus in Samoa.
The Pacific Islands Marine Resource - PIMRIS Portal, the Pacific Islands Protected Area Portal (PIPAP) and the Pacific Environment Information Network (PEIN) and the Pacific Climate Change Portal are examples of tools, partnerships and collaborative mechanisms that are underway in the Pacific region to help better manage marine and environment information.
"Getting the right information to the right people at the right time is significant in this age of information overload," said Ms. Miraneta Williams Hazelman, Manager of the Information Resource Centre at SPREP.
"We as librarians, information specialists or knowledge managers must be equipped with the best tools and techniques in our field of work. We learnt from each other on how we address similar challenges and issues, which was one of the best things to come from this."
Information managers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Great Barrier Reef Marine Protected Area (GBRMPA) and Alpha Indexing in Australia shared with their Pacific counterparts their experiences and knowledge on how to facilitate knowledge sharing and exchange in their workplaces.
Participants at the workshop were from American Samoa Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources, University of the South Pacific Library, Secretariat of the Pacific Community Library, Kiribati Fisheries Division and Samoa Fisheries Division. This workshop was supported by the Government of Australia through GeoScience Australia. The workshop took place from 12 – 14 February, 2014.