In the end of March 2017 it was again a time for a project visit. This time Iiris Karppinen, Pauli Assinen and Päivi Helminen visited EIT. Pauli and Päivi also participated the joint coordination meeting of all projects.
The timing for the visit was exciting in sense that procured equipment arrived to the Asmara Airport on Friday March 24. So, during our visit the equipment was still in the customs office. Pauli had worked so hard to procure and send all the needed equipment. He waited for the truck to arrive while we were still in EIT. To our disappointment, the equipment did not arrive before we left EIT.
Staff training during the visit included preparatory work which need to be before digital library and library automation system can be used, such as defining circulation rules, documentation guidelines and many other rules. This may a little difficult and sometimes even boring but it is so essential. Fortunately training also covered practical things, such as RFID tags work and how books are tagged with RFID tags. We did have the real equipment in place yet but we practiced the process with the available items, such as books and bar code readers.
On the first week of April, the equipment will be in EIT. There will so much work to in order to get all the equipment installed and to figure out how all the equipment and software work. Luckily enough, it will exciting and challenging work. Fortunately, there are places where to seek for support: equipment providers, such as P.V. Supa in Finland, experts in University of Helsinki and University of Eastern Finland, international KOHA community, KOHA users, such as Kouvola City Library. Beletse Desbele and Samuel Tewelde visited Kouvola City Library in February 2017, and the staff of the Kouvola City Library welcomed Eritrean libraries to the KOHA community and promised kindly to share their experiences and knowledge.
EIT library will have an exciting spring and summer. This project is not just about equipment and library automation although we tend talk about those things about a lot. The project is about empowerment, excitement when faced new tasks and joy of learning.