This presentation makes the following case: that the world has changed over the past two decades, and while traditional tools of librarianship may have sufficed in the past, there is an urgent need for librarians to embrace open licences, open education resources, open access publications, open data, and open science. Each of these five major parts of the open ecosystem will be discussed, with a focus on how African librarians can learn about and adopt open practices for their own use and that of their clients.
The paper emphasises the need for professional development of librarians, and demonstrate ways in which individuals, groups and institutions can access free online open resources to empower themselves. The current collaboration between OER Africa and AfLIA includes reference to a continuous professional development (CPD) framework for academic librarians. Such a framework is an innovative planning guide for CPD that supports the career development of librarians, as an alternative to unplanned ad hoc development. The presentation will conclude with the draft professional development framework for academic librarians offered for comment.