The ‘Nimbe Adedipe Library of the University, in collaboration with the Information Training and Outreach Centre for Africa (ITOCA), held a “Train-the-Trainers” workshop on The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) and Access to Global Online Research in Agriculture (AGORA) for librarians, academic staff, researchers and students.
Declaring the programme opened, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Olusola Oyewole, represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Development), Professor Felix Salako, noted that the goal of the programme was to integrate library electronic resources in education and research institutions, through strategised, institutional training workshops. He added that ITOCA needed to Train-the-Trainers, who would in turn, teach others in the various institutions, charging the trainees to ensure they disseminated the knowledge acquired to other library users, colleagues and students in a bid to actualising ITOCA’s objectives of being advocates of the use of the e-resources for research and teaching.
The University Librarian, Dr. Mulikat Salaam, revealed that FUNAAB was the first University in Nigeria to acquire the TEEAL package, as well as conduct training in AGORA. She informed the participants that the new version of TEEAL was now available in the University Library and could be accessed by scholars and researchers. She also appreciated the Albert R. Mann Library, founder of ITOCA at the Cornell University, United States of America, for the successful collaboration, urging participants to seize the opportunity offered by the training to develop themselves.
The representative of ITOCA, Mrs. Olayinka Fatoki, expressed her delight over the training workshop, as a fall-out of the existing relationship between the University and ITOCA. She described FUNAAB as the home to TEEAL and ITOCA because her first contact with TEEAL was in the University. Mrs. Fatoki said the training, which signified the joint partnership between ITOCA and the Albert Mann Library, was funded through a grant obtained from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as she appreciated the Vice-Chancellor and Management for accepting to host the training workshop.
