Digitisation of legacy collections at ORI Library

As previously agreed on, I will be reporting on events that happen at our Library during the course of the year. On Wednesday (23rd February) amongst much pomp and fanfare, the Library held a launch of a special collection of slides under the theme" documenting and interpreting the !Xo San Cultures. This work is a collection of Dr.Hans Joachim Heinz , a trained parasitologist who came to Botswana in 1961 to study the biology of the bushman in the Okwa Valley and his work focused on documenting the culture and indigenous knowledge of the bushman in the Okavango and Northern Kalahari. In preparation for this event ,the Library staff travelled to Bere, a place where Dr. heinz lived and did most of his slides and brought in 10 members of that community for the launch, who also entertained the audience with some traditional dances. Several speakers praised the good work that was done by Dr. Heinz. However, one issue of concern that was brought up by one speaker was that so many researchers have come into the San communities, got the information they wanted and never give back anything to them, thus the need for practising ethics when carrying out research within these communities.For more on the event, you can see some of the pics on our weblog, Flow on http://flowhoorc.blogspot.com/