[EIFLoa] [EIFLcoordlist] My trip in Minsk

Tue Jul 5 12:07:14 EEST 2011

Dear all,
It is refreshing to hear that all travelled well back to their homes. Let me join those who have extended their gratitude to all the organizers of this event for the wonderful choice of venue and the beautiful and hospitable hosts at the National Library of Belarus. I have no complaints but praises for the EIFL staff and the National Library staff , including the Hotel Planeta staff for being so accommodating.

I would however like to raise an observation over some immigration issues. The point being that extra effort should be made to make it easier for those of us travelling from some parts of the globe not particularly known world-wide, to be treated like everybody else. Myself, Tsedi, Harry and Nanika had a very demeaning experience trying to exit Minsk. We were taken out of the check-in immigration line, our passports confiscated and later subjected to intense scrutiny which took more than the normal time for any other passenger. We were the last to be attended to. This treatment was particularly noticeable because the four of us were travelling together and we conspicuosly stood out in the crowd. Other than the fact that we were all  black, or from southern Africa, there was nothing else that was common among us. We made an attempt to establish why we were treated separately but never got a satisfactory answer other than tha we needed to be cleared by
 the Border security police. But why just the four of us, no reason was given. Internationally I am not aware of any specific crimes citizens of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia have committed.

I strongly feel that issues of immigration should not be trivialized, especially when some of our members are specifically targetted. EIFL and the host nations should go an extra mile to make sure adequate arrangements are made for ALL participants. When one of us cmplained about the apparent discrimination we were warned that if the Border police did not scrutinize our passports they would be returned to us and we would NOT be allowed to leave Belarus. We all wondered of what interest our continued presence would be in Belarus.

I just thought I could share our experience so that some precautions can be taken in future to avoid such things.

Charles 

From: Sania Battalova <battalovas at mail.auca.kg>
To: Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2011 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: [EIFLcoordlist] My trip in Minsk

Dear eIFLs,

I would like to join Paul and express my hearty thanks to Rima and the eIFL
team for the great chance to attend the GA 2011 in Minsk. It was great
professional event and a wonderful chance to meet with all of our colleagues
- eIFL members - to share our success, new ideas and future plans.

Thank you very much for the National Library of Belarus staff for their
hospitality and professionalism.

Good luck to you all,

Sania 

Sania Battalova
Vice-president
Assosiation "Library and Information Consortium"
#205, Abdumomunov street, 720040,
Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic
Tel: +(996 312) 66-10-88
Mob: +(996 777) 44-42-97
email: battalovas at mail.auca.kg
web: www.bik.org.kg 

-----Original Message-----
From: eiflcoordlist-bounces at lists.eifl.net
[mailto:eiflcoordlist-bounces at lists.eifl.net] On Behalf Of Paul Muneja
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 3:14 PM
To: eiflcoordlist; eifloa; eiflstaff at lists.eifl.net; eiflall at lists.eifl.net
Cc: paul at burgundyservices.com; rwlodarczyk at ebscohost.com;
Angelie.Torne at tandf.co.uk; karsten.sydow at cengage.com;
rmachkova at emeraldinsight.com; asakalou at ebscohost.com; ian at ebrary.com;
julita.madzio at oup.com; elica at burgundyservices.com; s.gonzalez at nature.com;
mfoster at cambridge.org; Danielle.Waugh at ithaka.org; Michel.GUINAND at oecd.org;
maria.romano at royalsociety.org; adina.teusan at oup.com;
Annika.Lindemann at tandf.co.uk; sdavis at cambridge.org; anna.lech at sagepub.co.uk;
reinhard.schuelke at wiley.com; MDembowski at emeraldinsight.com
Subject: [EIFLcoordlist] My trip in Minsk

Hi all,
I hope you traveled well to your home countries. I also had a nice flight
though it was too long, from Minsk to Instambul to Johannesburg and back to
Tanzania.

I thank the EIFL staff for giving me the opportunity to meet and interact
with the EIFL Family. I also thank the team for recommending Minsk for this
year's GA. the city is so clean and attractive with what I may call "the
first wonder" of libraries in the world. The director of the library was
very kind to all of us, I think he deserves to be part of eifl family in one
way or another.

Back to presentations: I thank all the presenters for their nice
presentation. I thank Anold for his presentation which recognizes the state
of the art of use of e-resources to eifl member countries including
opportunity and challenges. I also thank the technology presentation
including the Online DashBoard using Netvibe.com which I am going to use.

Last but not least. I  acknowledge the presence of many publishers during
the GA. I really enjoyed the speed dating session which gave me the first
hand information from publishers. It is not easy to acknowledge everybody,
but I appreciate to whoever I had a chance to interact with.

With those few words, I say thank you to all.

With Kind regards,

Paul
-- 
Assistant Lecturer/Librarian
University of Dar es Salaam
P. Box 35092
Dar es Salaam
*pmuneja at udsm.ac.tz* <pmuneja at udsm.ac.tz>
*pmuneja at libis.udsm.ac.tz* <pmuneja at libis.udsm.ac.tz>
+255 713798947
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