Viva le consortium COBESS - sur la bonne way avec l'eIFL!

Senegal, a nation of twelve million people, lies on the most western tip of the African continent. Independent from France since 1960, its post-colonial democratic transition is hailed as a success story. An ambitious economic reform programme in the 1990’s saw a continuous growth in GDP throughout the decade, leading to one of West Africa’s highest economic growth rates. For outsiders, Senegal is known for its vibrant mix of popular culture from the pioneer film-maker Sembene Ousmane credited with making the first feature film by a director from sub-Saharan Africa, to its writers and musicians including Youssou N'Dour, described as the African artist of the century. For many, the capital Dakar is synonymous with the annual car rally from Paris, with hundreds of competing teams from dozens of countries taking part each year in this dare-devil race.

Dakar is home to COBESS, the Consortium of the Higher Educational Libraries of Senegal, headquartered at Cheikh Anta Diop University. COBESS formally came into being in 2006 with the mission to harness library expertise and information resources through cooperation to support teaching, learning and research in Senegal. With a focus on electronic resources, COBESS uses Information and Communication Technologies to improve the quality of services provided by its member institutions. Through collective negotiations for access to publisher databases, the creation of union catalogues and digitisation projects, it seeks to increase the visibility of learning materials for the benefit of all. COBESS also recognised early on the importance of people in the process and set staff training as a priority area.

“For a consortium that was little more than an acronym only three years ago, the accomplishments are amazing”, said Isabel Bernal from the eIFL.net team. “The ambition and drive with which the COBESS team has carried out its plans across a range library services, in collaboration with national and international experts is truly admirable”.

“With support from eIFL, COBESS was able to start up and grow”, said Youssoupha Gueye, eIFL Country Coordinator. “First we bought a computer and printer, then we gained official legal status, opened our own bank account and signed agreements with members to ensure their effective participation. Since then, we have strived to make the most of our partnership with eIFL, which has enabled us to develop training events and to take advantage of the electronic resources negotiated by eIFL”.

Workshop topics organised by COBESS include electronic licensing and negotiations and open source integrated library systems, which were well attended by participants from more than 29 institutions from all over the country. The most recent event, a “Train the Trainers” workshop on Greenstone was jointly organised with ASBAD (Association Sénégalaise des Bibliothécaires, Archivistes et Documentalistes) and EBAD (Senegalese School for Librarians, Archivists and Documentalists).

The great strength of COBESS is that there is a reaching out to other sectors and a real collaboration between higher education institutions across the country, not just in Dakar. This extends to government authorities and the academic community, whose support is vital to the success of any library consortium. COBESS has met with the Ministers of Education and of Scientific Research who warmly greeted the creation of COBESS and who have promised their support, as well as the Director of Higher Education, university Vice-Chancellors, Deans of Faculties and Directors of institutes and colleges. The consortium website, built using the content management system Joomla, is almost ready and will be an aid for promotion and fundraising.

“Collaboration with eIFL and its international network has been invaluable”, said Mamadou Lamine Ndoye, Library Director of the Universitè Gaston Berger de Saint Louis. With a firm legal structure in place, active and enthusiastic leaders at the helm, an agreed strategy and evaluation plan for going forward, and a keen spirit of cooperation with partners, COBESS is well placed to face challenges and to look forward to a sustainable future in 2009 and beyond.

A central part of eIFL.net's mission is to assist in the building of sustainable national library consortia. A wide range of activities underpin this goal including training events, national and regional workshops and meetings, individual country visits, grants, manuals, web resources. eIFL.net, in discussion with the country co-ordinator, tailors the activity to the stage of development of the country consortium. For more information, please contact us.

February 2009