Maria Musoke

Biography

Maria Musoke‘s professional background is in the biological sciences, but later she changed to information science. In 1984/85, she did a Master of Librarianship and Information Science Degree at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, specialising in health information. She started her PhD in October 1997 and completed it in February 2001 at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her study topic was ‘access and use of health information in rural Uganda'.

Dr Musoke is the head of Makerere University Albert Cook Medical Library, and she also lectures at the East African School of Librarianship and Information science, as well as supervising Master's degree students who write dissertations on health and related information fields.

She has been involved in disseminating information to rural health workers in Uganda for sometime, by (repackaging) abstracting it from e-sources and sending it out in print format. As a follow up to her PhD research work, Dr Musoke has been running a rural outreach programme to improve information access and retrieval for health workers in rural health units in Uganda.

Dr Musoke has established several documentation/resource centres in the country, as well as being a founder member of information bodies e.g. Uganda Chartered Healthnet and AHILA.

On the International scene, she was the First Vice President of the African regional Association of Health Information workers for two terms (1990-1996), she is currently the coordinator of Communications for Better Health in Uganda, and the Kent, Surrey and Sussex Link with Albert Cook Medical library.

She is a mother of two.

Abstract - The Benefits of an International Link Partnership: Albert Cook Medical Library, Uganda and Kent Surrey and Sussex NHS Library & Knowledge Services.  'Share what you know, learn what you don't.'

For the past three years Librarians from the Albert Cook Medical Library, Kampala and the Kent Surrey and Sussex NHS Library & Knowledge Services (formally South Thames Library & Information Services) have been visiting each others' libraries as part of a Link Partnership, under sponsorship and guidance of the charity Partnerships in Health Information (PHI) , and currently funded by the DFID/British Council.

The aim of the partnership is to encourage the free flow of health related knowledge between nations.  

Whilst many such partnerships have failed when key stakeholders/drivers move on, this presentation will provide evidence that one of the main reasons this project is thriving, is due to recognition of the inherent value it provides in developing the library & information workforce in both countries.

The primary purpose of the specific DFID/British Council funded project is to develop a culture of life-long learning, provide an understanding of the global knowledge base and how it may be accessed, so enabling health practitioners to improve the quality of healthcare for the people of Uganda.

This has been achieved through a series of visits between the two countries:

•  Year one (2002/3) involved three Ugandan Librarians, Maria Musoke, Joseph Nsobva & (the late) Beatrice Tushemereirwe visiting the UK, to improve their health information retrieval skills.

•  Year two (2003/4) led to Katie Street & Rachel Cooke visiting Uganda.   Whilst there, Library staff were trained as trainers, thereby developing their skills to deliver ‘E ffective Access and Retrieval of Online Health Information' skills programmes.   Rachel Nakalembe then visited the UK from Uganda in Feb 2004 on a fact-finding mission for setting up Library Internet pages, e-resources and enhancing skills in the automation of medical collections.

•  Year three (2004/5) will see two Ugandan colleagues visiting the UK, to plan the future of the partnership and to develop local databases.   This will be followed by two UK colleagues visiting Uganda to work with Librarians in developing their Internet skills, thus enabling them to develop and maintain their own web facilities.  

Benefits to information workforce development for UK Librarians in year two have included: stretching ones current skills through training in a new environment with different resources, including adapting training style and format to suit cultural and linguistic diversity; plus the benefits of reassessing ones own work in a different context - same work different surroundings.  

Changes to library processes and provision have already been implemented as a result of lessons learnt in Uganda, with new ideas for delivery requiring further workforce development.

The objective of the presentation is to share the benefits of such a partnership in terms of information workforce development for all concerned, with a view to encouraging similar projects elsewhere.

This page was last updated on: 2 September, 2004