Library Services
Background Information
The Library was established in 1953 together with Mt. Makulu Station itself. The Library is the focal point for Agricultural information, being the official depository in Zambia of all local and international documents dealing in information relevant to agriculture.
The Department of Agriculture Library at Mt. Makulu has served as Zambia’s chief agricultural information resource. It provides services and products to the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, the Department of Agriculture and other organizations, agencies, and individuals. The Library also coordinates a national network of Regional Research Stations and libraries.
Regional Research Station “Libraries” are generally inadequately stocked. On request, books and some times journals are purchased by central library at Mount Makulu and sent there. Scientific journals are now not circulated to Regional Research Stations because these were not returned to the central library thereby leaving gaps in the volume s and issues making binding difficult. Other publications may be borrowed or are sent on permanent loan. Journals too where there are more than one copy, are sent to the relevant regional research stations. Due to staff constraints it has not been possible to do abstracting and indexing to journals although this is a very important activity. However, indexing and abstracting used to be consistently done for the AGRIS systems.
Resources
The Government has been a major source of Financial Resources to the Library Additional Resources for publications, CD-ROMs and E-Resources have been provided by International Organizations such as FAO, CTA, CABI and INASP etc.
Staffing
One profession with MA in Library and Information. A Secretary, two Assistants and a General Worker available in the National Library.
Links
National library collaboration is available and International with agricultural Institutions and libraries for the exchange of publications especially Annual Reports etc. Locally apart from several agricultural institutions collaboration is mainly with libraries such as UNZA, British Council, Zambia Library Service (ZLS) and the American Centre library where most of the exchange of information is done . In 2002, the librarian was connected to an exchange programme in American for one month through the American Center library exposing more exchange programmes to other countries and librarians as well. INASP (International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications and other International funding organizations through UNZA where the secretariat is located has a PERI (Programme) for the Enhancement of Research for the online Journals including African Journals etc. Through PERI at UNZA a consortium was formed for major libraries in Zambia for cheaper purchase of Internet publications at reduced prices. Two meetings have been held for librarians recently which resulted that each library (institutions) is supposed to pay K500,000 for membership and another K500,000 for subscription each year.
International collaboration have played a very vital role in the development of the library and exchange of publication and CD-ROM etc. when we don’t have any to exchange to them at the moment. Such as Rockefeller Foundation. Cornell University for (TEEAL – updates) CABI, AGRIS (FAO), CIMMYT, CTA, ISNAR, UNESCO. SIDA and other several organizations. Cornell University had requested the library to work with them on a TEEAL impact study which consisted of a short questionnaire survey and participation of users of the TEEAL system at Mt. Makulu for 3 weeks, CTA has continuously been assisting the library with subscription Units (UNESCO coupons to pay every year using CTA catalogues to access the usage of CTA publications donated to the library.
