Wrapping up

Renfrew Christie's presentation was very timeous. I enjoyed his paper (apart from the sexist remarks) which summarised the challenges academic librarians face. His main points were:

• If we are to develop sufficient research in South Africa of high enough quality, we must double the number of good researchers in very quickly.
• There needs to be substantially more investment in academics, university buildings, research equipment, information systems and libraries.
  
• "PhD friendly" specialist librarians can make a difference to the quality of research produced in SA.
  

(Christie, Renfrew. 2007. University research development in South Africa: speech to the Research Libraries Consortium of the Universities of Cape Town, KwaZulu Natal andthe Witwatersrand. Cape Town: University of the Western Cape, Department of Research Development.)

Professor Christie also referred us to a paper from the University of Texas - Looking forward: research libraries in the 21st century.