Join Us
If you represent an institution or association
in Papua New Guinea which is actively involved in the research and development
sector (including fisheries, forestry and natural resource management), and would
like to participate fully or in part in NAIS, then there are three levels of
co-operation.
NAIS
Friend
At the basic level, you make available copies of
your institution’s own publications (e.g. leaflets, brochures, books, annual
reports, newsletters, journals) to any one of the NAIS partners at any site
(the one most convenient to you or the one most appropriate). Include also
details of where people might obtain copies of your publications, and any
charges you may levy. The NAIS partner will create a record in the database for
each of your publications and, eventually, these records will be accessible on
computers in
NAIS
Associate
The next step up is to become a NAIS Associate.
At this level, your institution is a small to medium-sized NGO, community-based
organisation, farmers’ association, church group, private company or similar.
Your institution is already carrying out farmer-centred research or has an
active outreach programme with rural communities, commodity-based or otherwise,
and you want to set up an information or resource centre. This might be a place
where people can come for information (oral or printed, or in video), advice or
resources (e.g. planting materials, seeds, fertilizers, hand-tools). In order
to help you establish such a facility, you turn to a NAIS partner and,
providing it is within their capacity, they will help you. As a result of
associating with a NAIS partner, not only will your institution be able to
display its publications in the database (as above) but your institution will
be plugged in to a national, integrated information network, which will enable
your institution to acquire extension materials and the like, possibly planting
materials, and most definitely, advice and training of the highest quality and
greatest benefit. Your institution’s contribution will be a commitment to and
wholehearted enthusiasm for managing and sharing information in PNG.
NAIS
Partner
As a full NAIS partner, not only will your
institution be making a commitment to managing and sharing information in PNG,
but will be able to access information to contribute to better decision-making,
more credible research, and better quality and more effective services for
farmers. This does not come without cost. In return for being able to manage
library and information resources efficiently, for training for staff as
operators and users, and for participating in the development of the system to
satisfy your needs, your institution will commit to recruiting staff of the
appropriate calibre as operators, to identifying, organising, documenting and
making available library and information resources to other partner
institutions, to maintaining the necessary infrastructure expected of a NAIS partner,
to facilitating the training as appropriate of staff both in your own
institution and outside, to engaging actively in the management of the system,
and in seeking out new ways of radically improving access to and use of
agricultural information in Papua New Guinea. There is an annual maintenance
cost for the software, and there may be other costs associated with equipment,
training and communication.
Much of the responsibility for looking after
NAIS and its development at this point in time is being borne by NARI, and
specifically, NARI’s Librarian, Irene Okpul. For more information about NAIS,
phone Irene at NARI’s Sir Alkan Tololo Research Centre Library on 475 1444.
Last updated 13 November 2005