RA 7: Field Trip to IRRI

*photo courtesy of Jhoanne


Last August 26, 2009 our class had a field trip in IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) in UP Los Baños Laguna. The aim of the field trip is to expose the students to the latest development of library and information science. The lecture/orientation was given by Ms. Mila Ramos, chief librarian with Ma’am Ems and Ma’am Lea, senior librarians. They talked of their services focusing mainly on CAS, SDI and document delivery. Document delivery (electronic and conventional) is a fee based service for faculty, students and staff of the university. Yet in IRRI, document delivery is free to scientists up to 50 pages. And for other users, the fee will be only based on the cost of the photocopying of the material. They also gave a description on their library system which is the Millenium (very costly) particularly the Circulation, Cataloging and Serials modules. The librarians also discussed about the access points of the electronic journals.


Three things I’ve learned:

1. Librarians are very resourceful in serving their clients better. They make a system on how to retrieve and get information for clients that organized, user-friendly and consistent like in the access points of electronic journals.
2. Web 2.0 applications are very effective ways to reach out to the library’s clients like blogs and chat service. They serve clients all over the world with different time zones yet the librarians are very reliable because users are their priority.
3. Open access journals that are selected and evaluated by the librarians are great help for additional information of researchers. They are free and openly available for public use.

Reflections:

It gave me a fresh perspective on how new technologies can be used to improve the library I maintain now. Moreover, one cannot overstate the value of experienced librarians such as those maintaining the IRRI library. They have showed me that even though I have been a practicing librarian for almost two years and I am immersed in new trends in the profession I feel that there is still much to learn particularly on the foundation skills on which the practice of librarianship is built upon.