Grace Ajuwon Receives First MLA Librarians Without Borders® Grant
The first Medical Library Association Librarians Without Borders® Grant for $5,000 has been awarded to Grace A. Ajuwon. Ajuwon is the reference and information services librarian at the E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library, College of Medicine, at the University of Ibadan in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Ajuwon’s winning proposal, Resource Needs and Capacity Development for E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library in Nigeria, will support the purchase of needed health sciences books for the library’s reference and general collections. The grant will also allow the purchase of three computer workstations with Internet access for the library’s e-classroom.
The E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library was established in 1967 and is named in honor of Professor Emmanuel Latunde Odeku, Nigeria’s first neurosurgeon. Although designated by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health to serve as a “central node” for a National Health Literature Services and Information Network, the library has been significantly underfunded for the past ten years. The result is that much of the libraries 60,000-volume collection is outdated. As Ajuwon noted,“The library subscribes to less than ten print journal titles yearly because there are no funds to subscribe to electronic journals and databases. Most of the books on our library shelves have been there for over twenty years without new editions purchased to replace older ones.”
Ajuwon cited the HINARI Access to Research Initiative, PubMed’s NCBI Bookshelf, and other free Internet resources as sources of current and reliable information. Unfortunately, the library lacks sufficient computing resources, as the “library serves the information needs of over 12,000 users with currently only 4 computers fully connected to the Internet.” The 3 new computers will be part of an e-classroom envisioned to have 50 computers for the training of library staff and more than 400 students in clinical training. The grant, along with providing for the purchase of much-needed print materials, will almost double the number of computers in the library with Internet connectivity.
If you would like to contribute to the work of Grace and her dedicated colleagues at the E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library, please consider making a financial contribution. Donations can be made to the MLA International Cooperation Section on behalf the “2009 LWB Grant.”
Shipments of medical books published in the last 5 years and in good condition can be shipped to:
E. Latunde Odeku Medical Library
College of Medicine, University of Ibadan
Queen Elizabeth Road, University College Hospital (UCH)
Ibadan, Nigeria
Before sending books and other materials, please contact Grace Ajuwon to discuss shipping arrangements and review the proposed donation.
More about the Librarians Without Borders® Grant (LWB)
The MLA Librarians Without Borders® Grant supports health science librarianship in HINARI Access to Research Initiative eligible countries by funding training opportunities and/or the purchase of materials that further the use of biomedical resources for education, research, or clinical practice. The grant was made possible by a $15,000 donation from the FlySheet Med-Informatics Company of Taipei, Taiwan. Additional $5,000 grants will be awarded in 2010 and 2011. The LWB grant application form is posted on the International Cooperation Section website.
Questions regarding the grant: please contact Daniel Dollar (ICS Section Chair).