Now that I'm a graduate: My degree and the World

 Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari

A presentation to graduating students of Library and Information Science Department, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Nigeria on Tuesday, August 24, 2021. The central theme is getting the college grads inspired to think beyond their degrees as they transit to the larger society. A sub-theme is the touch on emerging technologies poised to change the world and the library and information science profession. Click to read and download.

Our Published Article on ICT Skills of University Freshmen and their Projections for Improvement upon Graduation...

 Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari

We researched and published the ICT Skills of University Freshmen and their Projections for Improvement uponGraduation: A Case Study of Elizade University, Ilara-Mokin, Nigeria. 

Authored by Adegbilero-Iwari, Idowu; Odefadehan, Oluwaseun O.; Owoeye, Olubunmi Idowu Mrs.; and Christopher, Abraham, the paper reported the outcomes of the assessment of the information and communication technology (ICT) skills of freshmen in a Nigerian private university and the projection of the students for improvement at graduation. It became necessary in this digital era, where it is assumed the Millennial are digital natives, to know what computing capabilities fresh university students are coming with from their earlier educational exposures and also to know their expectations for ICT skills honing at higher educational level. The findings show that although many of the students are proficient users of varying devices (desktop, laptop and mobile devices), laptop is their preferred device for academic work. It also indicated that laptop and smartphones are their best choice for a device combination. The students are more skillful in E-mail (59%), web browsing (53%), online registration (57%), mobile apps use (53%), e-banking (49%), e-commerce (44%). Whereas they show interest in learning other skills, they indicated that the ICT unit is the arm of the university perceived to contribute the most to their skills improvement during the study years. Recommendations were made based on the findings.

Having Both Landscape and Portrait Pages in the Same Word Document: How to Do It

The page layout of your Word document, usually, is either in Portrait (vertical sort of) or Landscape (horizontal so to say) format. However, there could be instances when yo want to combine both formats in a single document. The how to do it is shown in three steps below:

Step 1: Open the Microsoft Word document, place your cursor at the start of the page that you want to change to landscape or portrait.

Step 2: Select PAGE LAYOUT, then Breaks, then Next Page to place a section break where you had your cursor.

Step 3: While ensuring your cursor is still at the start of that page, go to the Orientation option. Select Landscape, and you’ll notice how everything after our section break has changed to horizontal.

All you have to do now is go to the next page, insert another break, change the orientation back to portrait, and the pages after will be portrait.

Repeat the same steps if your document is originally in landscape and you need to insert portrait in between.

Just Before We M…

by Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari

Source: https://www.dreamstime.com/

While you seek to mine the Moon and move to Mars,

Never forget to make it a duty, 

The Earth to mind, to mind the Earth I say;

To wane her many woes;

The myriads of mire that threatens her life.

Neither for her errors nor the Maker’s though,

But for the horrors of your works and time in her.

This also note, O man!

Less a safe Earth,

Your sail to Space beyond may not persuade.

Now, you must do all you can,

To delay, nay, avert her derail as Pangaea.

Should you not, and proceed as Babel,

You may not be the one to tell how unwarm the Earth once was. 

A sonnet, composed @Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti on 28th October, 2020.

My first book, There is a Country..., is published: Hurray!

 Fresh form the mills, There is a Country...: Poetic Comments on the Place of My Nativity, is published online and available on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08KWB9MGD?

The book is about Nigeria: her people, places, events (sweet and sour), her political struggles, insurgency and all. In the book, I have put together comments that events, places and peoples in Nigeria have forced my witty hands to print against the pulp. They cover various issues that may get you mad at my thoughts, plaster your face with irresistible smile or altogether get your head nodding agreement or bending down in pity and/or angst or stir you up to action. Having said that, There is a Country… has the central theme, Nigeria, and in it, patriotism, political activism, terrorism, people and an enterprise of Nigerian origin that I have reflected upon.

A comment from a Literature Scholar:

This book, a brilliant piece of art in your hand is a treasure of knowledge. I welcome you, the readers into the ‘Excavations’ of excellent and illuminating endeavors. There is a Country chronicles the inherent diseases that have crippled the nation, Nigeria—the land that flows with quality milk and honey. Each poem in this book points the readers to the moral and socio-political degeneration that has eaten deep into the fabrics of a nation. Mr. Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari expresses deep concern about the laxity of the leaders on the political, Social, Economic, and humanity at large, but not without hope for a better tomorrow.

The presentation of the poems in this book aesthetically details the personal experience of the author as profoundly expressed in the fluidity of the language that is beautifully woven in the manner that the readers become glued to the pages from the beginning to the end. The author’s thoughts are detailed lucidly in an easy to understand language that feels the readers with a mixed emotion of sadness and excitement....

 Ayoola Gabriel (PhD.), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 

Encouraging me will mean: one, getting your copy; two, recommending by sharing to your networks and communities.

The print edition is also being worked upon, to come out soon. So, watch out.

Mendeley Desktop App Fails to Launch after Installation: How to Fix it

 Mendeley is evolving a multipurpose scholarly technology given its widening capabilities as academic social network, data repository, literature database, jobs and grants hub and much more the reference manager it sets out to be. Operating as both a web site and a desktop application, users can optimize all of Mendeley's functionalities, but, the Mendeley Desktop app is needed to fully deploy the citation management capabilities of Mendeley. The app must be downloaded, installed, launched and signed on to. Kindly note that the Mendeley desktop app works well on any machine be it Windows, Mac or Linux to help researchers manage their citation database, and to do write and cite.

However, the app may fail to launch on certain systems indicating an error message like the one shown below.

This is how to fix it.

There are a couple of approaches but one of them which worked for me and others I have also helped is by updating your devices's (Windows) Visual C++ Redistributable  program. This is how to do it:

1. Go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145

2. Select your language and click on Download 

3. Download the appropriate Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable executable file based on your device's operating system, vc_redist.x86.exe for 32bits or vc_redist.x64.exe for 64bits.

4. Run the downloaded file and relaunch your Mendeley desktop app, it should be up and good.

 

I hope the information helps. Kindly bookmark and always check back this site for more useful information.

Idowu.

Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) Africa Chapter Approved

Olufunmilayo Fati

The Board of Directors of the Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) approved the new ASIS&T Africa Chapter on 17 June 2020.

The purpose of the Chapter is to provide an organization through which members of ASIS&T located within the Chapter area (Africa) may participate in and carry forward the programs and purposes of ASIS&T. The Chapter shall promote the interests of the Association and its programs and shall make every reasonable effort to involve students of information science and related disciplines who are located within its boundaries.

"The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) is the only professional association that bridges the gap between information science practice and research. For nearly 80 years, ASIS&T has been leading the search for new and better theories, techniques, and technologies to improve access to information.

Our members—thousands of researchers, developers, practitioners, students, and professors in the field of information science and technology from 50 countries around the world—have made ASIS&T an important part of their professional development.

Members share a common interest in improving the ways society stores, retrieves, analyzes, manages, archives and disseminates information."

Elected Founding Africa Chapter Officers

Chair:

Tandi E Lwoga (Tanzania)

Chair-Elect:

Noureddine Elmqaddem (Morocco)

Chapter Assembly Representative:

Andiswa Mfengu (South Africa)

Alternate Chapter Assembly Representative:

Marlene Holmner (South Africa)

Secretary-Treasurer:

Blessing Mawire (South Africa)

Webmaster & Social Media/Communications Manager(2 seats):

Olufunmilayo Fati (Nigeria)

Onan Mulumba (Uganda)

Advisor(5 seats):

Abebe Rorissa (United States of America)

Diane H. Sonnenwald (Ireland)

Daniel Gelaw Alemneh (United States of America)

Nadia Caidi (Canada)

Salah Eddine Bahji (Morocco)

A LIBRARY FOR UWA by Shade Adepoju

A library poem by Shade Adepoju

Uwaila Omozuwa

Those who raped Uwa Omozuwa, leading to her death, must have kept a trail on her. 

They must have known she was headed for the church at that point in time on that fateful day.

They must have known she found the church as an option to a library that was never available for her to study.

Uwa's is a story of failure

The failure of hope, in our desire to return the dying reading culture among young people.

Uwa's community failed her.

Her country failed her.

The lack of a library failed her.

We failed her.

We should have known better to avail Uwa a Library to read.

Her community would have obliged her a library to read

Her country should have obliged her a library to read

Maybe, just may be, she would have still been alive.

If only Uwa had a library in her community. 

She wouldn't have been exposed to the company of her rapists, alone.

If only governments funded libraries.

There would have been several for other Uwas who love to read.

If only governments would do better, virtual libraries will offer benefits to users with remote access.

For every Uwa out there in search of a place to read.

You don't deserve to die in pursuit of it.

It should not be.

Your community owes you a library, if government fails to provide one.

We owe one another a  library.

As everyone deserves one

Just as Uwa did.

#FundLibraries

#SafeSpace

-Shade Adepoju. 

National Library of Nigeria

Abuja

Note:

Uwaila Omozuwa simply known as Uwa, was the first-year Microbiology student of the University of Benin who was raped and brutally murdered while studying in a church in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria on May 27, 2020.

THE NEED FOR FUNCTIONAL PUBLIC LIBRARIES: A ThisDay Editorial

A ThisDay Newspaper's editorial published June 23, 2020 laments the poor state of Nigerian public libraries in a rare show of solidarity for the library sector by the Nigerian press. This effort is commendable and more of such is needed.

The piece goes thus:

The recent death in Benin, Edo State, of a university undergraduate inside a church where she went to read highlights the necessity for public libraries in Nigeria. If there were public libraries, perhaps she would not risk being alone inside a church to read. Sadly, even where they exist in Nigeria today, public libraries, often named “the poor man’s university,” are kept unattractive and poorly maintained while in most cases, the infrastructural facilities are inadequate. Besides, the books in stock are dated just as it is a rarity to stumble on new and current journals. Indeed, reference materials, where they exist, are old and dusty. Audio-visual materials are hard to come by. The quality of manpower is another story altogether....

 Follow link to read the full article http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/23/the-need-for-functional-public-libraries/

This corroborated my 2017 post on library culture. Read it here https://blograrianinfo.blogspot.com/2017/06/nigeria-concerning-library-culture-or_9.html?m=1

Mendeley MS Word Plugin Not Working: See How to Fix it

Idowu Adegbilero-Iwari

Normally, the Mendeley MS Word plugin should be seen in Word especially within the Reference tab when successfully installed. See picture below:

However, it doesn't work like this for every computer all the times. Kindly follow the steps below to fix the issue if you are currently experiencing it. 

Note: Kindly ensure that the MS Word Plugin is successfully installed. Go to Tools in the Mendeley Deskstop app to confirm this. When you see Uninstall MS Word Plugin, it means the plugin is successfully installed and you are good to go.

Steps to Follow to Fix the Non-Showing of the MS Word Plugin:

1. Open MS Word, then go to File and select Options at the bottom left of the File menu as as shown below: 

2. From Options, click on Add-ins, then Manage and click the arrow to show other menus in Manage and Choose Word Add-ins, then click Go....

At  this stage, you will see all your Add-ins and they will be marked or checked if working well. Mendeley would not show or not be checked.

3. Select Add, then choose Local disc from the corresponding pop up, double-click on Program files or Program Files 86 depending on your OS, look for the Mendeley Desktop folder, double-click and double-click the Word Plugin folder, Select the only file inside and Click OK.

Check back References in MS Word and Mendeley MS Word Plugin will be right there.

If this one helps, kindly bookmark, navigate the site and always check back for more useful information.

Reference Management Systems for Research Support

Photo Source: EV Science Consultant 

At the prestigious Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, through the University Library, a university-wide training workshop was organised for faculty members on the above topic with special focus on Mendeley. The training was rotated among the five colleges of the university over three days in five different training sessions at AM and PM.  The comments and responses from the faculty members show their commitment to learning and relearning new tools, and the Library cum Librarians are ready partners every step of the way.

The event also gave us the opportunity to promote Open Science ahead of several Open Science initiatives the Library will be presenting to the university community in the coming months.

Click here to access the full presentation slides.

Science communication and collaboration for Open Science: Tools and Platforms for Internationalising Nigerian Research

I was a guest speaker at the Eko-Konnect 2020 Users Conference along other leading speakers (scholars and business/tech leaders) from Japan, Germany, Cote d'Ivoire, South Africa and other parts of Nigeria. The general theme of the conference was: "Developing the National Repository for Science & Humanities". I spoke on the above topic, i.e.: Science communication and collaboration for Open Science: Tools and Platforms for Internationalising Nigerian Research.
Click here or the title above to access full presentation of my slide and others.
In attendance were key stakeholders from government, tech sector and the academy (Higher education); and great were the conversations that ensued. Talking scholcomm and Open (Access, Science and all) was particularly interesting to me.