The Research Libraries Consortium: a Project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York

Abstract

The project - A New Model for Research Support: Integrating Skills, Scholarship, and Technology in a South African Library Consortium - aims to model the transformation and enrichment of support to researchers offered by South African academic libraries. The guiding premise of this project is that the three institutions should take advantage of existing strengths as South Africa’s leading academic libraries to sustain, improve, and consolidate the troubled research enterprise in South Africa. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation this innovative program seeks to achieve its objectives through a multi-pronged project with three closely interrelated components: 1. Building a sophisticated Web-based shared portal which will provide access to a wide range of international and local electronic content for postgraduate students and academics; 2. Enhancing the skills of existing library staff in order to create a critical mass of support for research to be offered by librarians with real subject expertise (the South African Library Academy at the Mortenson Center and observation at a major US research library). 3. Creating a technologically sophisticated physical space - a 'one-stop shop' - for postgraduates and academic staff who need assistance with research.