The year is drawing to a close and we thankfully look back on a few highlights we accomplished since our last update in May:
Veterinary Science research support LibGuide
We published our Veterinary Science research support “LibGuide” during May and plan to expand it in the near future to add more valuable information for postgraduate students. We also provided a LibGuide for Veterinary Science legislation and training material.
ORCiD membership
The University of Pretoria recently signed an ORCiD membership agreement in its endeavour to improve the university’s research visibility. Researchers are encouraged to register for a unique ORCiD ID, to populate their ORCiD record with publications and professional information and widely use it during their scholarly life. Information specialists at the different Faculties were tasked to train and assist researchers in obtaining and using ORCiD ID’s. We found it very appropriate to market ORCiD during and beyond this year’s Open Access celebrations during October.
Conferences and Workshops
Staff members were fortunate to attend the following:
SARIMA (Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association): Creating an enabling environment for postgraduate research
LIASA Interlending Workshop, National Library of South Africa
Southern African Online User Group – 13th International Southern African Online Information Meeting
University of Johannesburg Library Conference: Reinventing African libraries
During September Amelia Breytenbach presented a “Dublin Core Metadata Workshop” to staff members of the University of Pretoria’s Department of Library Services.
Hybrid Fair participation
A Hybrid fair was recently held at the University of Pretoria to celebrate its hybrid model of teaching and learning. Our colleague Marguerite Nel was involved in preparing material for the exhibition and representing us at the fair.
Experiential training of final year Information Science students
A group of 58 students from the University of Pretoria’s Department of Information Science completed their Experiential Learning Project at the library. The library’s Open Scholarship Office and Digitisation section hosted them for the period.
The Veterinary Science library was fortunate to have a group of them working on digitising and uploading part of the “Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research” to UPSpace.
This gave our collection quite a boost. You can read more about this student project in the Dept of Library Services’ July/August/September 2016 newsletter.
With this we would like to wish our clients a blessed Festive Season and a well-deserved period of rest. May we all return in 2017 with renewed energy and innovative plans for the New Year.
Many things have been happening since the start of this year that is worth reporting about!
We started the New Year off with a brand new printing, photocopying and scanning system for staff and students. The TuksPrint system was implemented during the end of 2015 and was in full operation at the start of 2016.
Several library training and orientation sessions have been offered since the beginning of the year and until now we have had approximately 450 students attending approximately ten sessions.
The new OCLC WorldShare Management System replaced our Millenium Integrated Library System and went live on 4 April. The system was officially launched on 18 April. A lot of training and preparation preceded these dates and by now we feel comfortable to say that we’ve passed the biggest hurdle and are now getting to know the finer detail of the new system. You can read more about the launch of the system in a news post of the University of Pretoria.
During May we participated in celebrating the 10 year existence of the library’s repository UPSpace. UPSpace, which was once again ranked as the number 1 repository in Africa and amongst the first 100 repositories worldwide, was upgraded to a new version and also received a brand new landing page. The latest ranking web of repositories for Africa can be viewed here.
With the implementation of a new library management system, we had to start thinking about changing our library web pages to accommodate the new system. With the help of the library’s web master, Christelle Steyn, the new Jotello F Soga library landing page was finalised by Antoinette Lourens during April.
A less delightful task that we have to embark on during the year, is evaluating our current database, paper and e-journal and e-book subscriptions in order to recommend a sufficient number of cancellations to meet future unavoidable budget cuts. This will have to be done with great caution to cause the minimum inconvenience for our clients.
The year is heading to an end and we would like to wish everyone a joyful festive season and a prosperous 2016. We hope to contribute in some or other way to your scholarly success in the New Year.
For an interesting overview of what has been happening in our library over the past year, please read our two newsletters published in June and October.
We are looking forward to meeting again in 2016.
Staff – Jotello F. Soga LibraryEight of the ten newly released online lectures are part of a series covering “Animal models in Biomedical Research”.
The University of Pretoria has full access to all the lectures which can be accessed from the Library website: E-Resources – Databases – Henry Stewart Talks
"The new Webometrics ranking were announced earlier today at http://repositories.webometrics.info/en/Ranking_africa
UPSpace is still first in Africa. The repository performed well on the world ranking and moved up from 99th position to 73rd."
We are proud to be part of this achievement as our Veterinary Science component within UPSpace is also growing continuously.
This year was unfortunately the year in which our much loved colleague Johannes Moropotli had to leave us.
Johannes Moropotli retired at the end of April 2014 after 33 years and one month’s service at the library. He started working as messenger at the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, Agricultural Research Council as early as 1970. He joined the veterinary library in April 1981 when it was still housed in the old main faculty building.
At his farewell function attended by colleagues, family and friends on 16 April, we took a trip down memory lane reminiscing highlights of Johannes’ time at Onderstepoort.
Erica van der Westhuizen, head of the library until August 2009, had the following to say:
“Johannes and I come a long way. In fact he was part of my 28 years of OP life from the beginning. When I started here in Nov 1981 as head of the faculty library he was already there, an essential part of the 3 person library team.
Johannes’ post in those beginning years was “bode” or library messenger. With his trusty bicycle (it lasted in more or less working order till quite recently!) he was a well-known fixture in the OP environment. Those early years were cosy at the faculty – staff and students were fewer than today so we got to know our library clients rather well!
In those pre-computer and pre-internet days lecturers and researchers got their information in paper format. It was Johannes as library messenger on his bicycle who delivered all their articles in brown cardboard files. Prof le Roux was the Dean in the early 8o’s and he would complain if his file looked a bit shabby!
Those were the days of Johannes’ sporting achievements, namely as Comrades marathon runner. With encouragement and support from Prof Koos Coetzer he was our pride and joy – there wasn’t another UP library who could boast of such an achievement! In fact, when a book was published to celebrate UP’s centenary, the Vet Library was especially mentioned for its Comrades runner!
Johannes’ fitness was a great help with our move in 1987 from the old library to the Sir Arnold Theiler building. We were still only 3 staff members and we had to undertake the move of books and equipment on our own, using the feed trucks kindly provided (and fortunately driven) by the Faculty.
Those were indeed interesting times!
As the computer age and the role of the internet in information provision expanded, Johannes’ role took on extra dimensions - from messenger to electronic information provider to information creator in the e-environment. Today Johannes can look back on his important contribution in providing an effective information service. From the electronic distribution of publications to faculty and students including external users, some even beyond SA’s borders, to the digitization of the first research accounts on animal diseases in Africa as published in the early SA veterinary journals. It is Johannes’ help in digitizing the OP Journal of Veterinary Research which has made this important early research accessible worldwide.
Johannes, na 44 jaar is dit nou tyd vir die welverdiende rus. Ons se baie dankie vir al jou harde werk, jou volgehoue vriendelikheid en geduld met al die vrouens van die biblioteek en jou lojaliteit. Geniet jou aftrede, ons beste wense vergesel jou!
Erica Makulu”
In her speech the library’s Deputy Director: Client Services, Lindiwe Soyizwapi, referred to recent interviews for Johannes’ post and the high standards that were set because it was felt that Johannes was almost irreplaceable! All the colleagues agreed that Johannes’ personality made him such a pleasant person to work with and that his smile and positive attitude will always be treasured.
It was a proud Johannes who delivered the last speech before everyone enjoyed refreshments and further conversations.
We will miss Johannes dearly but wish him well and pray that he may have a blessed retirement with his family.
Lucas Mmalefahlo joins the library staff
Fortunately Lucas Mmalefahlo joined our staff from 1 July to fill the empty space Johannes has left. We would like to extend a very warm welcome to Lucas and we believe he will enjoy his time with us as he has already settled in well.
Maria Mtsweni gets rewarded for 20 years’ of service
We are very proud of Maria who has completed 20 years’ of service at the University of Pretoria.
Maria began her career at the Department of Library Services in February 1994 when she started working at the Basic Medical Sciences & Dentistry library on the Prinshof Campus. She was initially responsible for journal shelving and photocopying. Her position changed in 2002 when she obtained a National Diploma in Library & Information Practice from the then Technikon South Africa. With her newly acquired skills she started working at the circulation desk in 2003 and in 2007 accepted the additional responsibility of interlibrary loans. In November 2010 she stated working at the Jotello F Soga library.
Since our last entry at the beginning of January a lot has happened and we’d like to share a few news snippets.
Book launchDuring February we hosted a book launch for Prof William Beinart & Dr Karen Brown for their book “African Local Knowledge & Livestock Health: diseases and treatments in South Africa”.
William Beinart is Rhodes Professor of Race Relations and a Fellow of St Antony's College, University of Oxford. He played a leading role in setting up the African Studies Centre at Oxford and was its director from 2009-13. He has published widely on environmental and rural issues in South Africa and was commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a book entitled Twentieth Century South Africa which has been an academic best seller. His main environmental publications include “The Rise of Conservation in South Africa” and “Prickly Pear: the social history of a plant in the Eastern Cape” with Luvuyo Wotshela. He has also written extensively about the political and social history of the Transkei and researched land reform issues.
Karen Brown was a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at Oxford and is now a researcher at the African Studies Centre. She has published a number of articles on environmental and veterinary history in South Africa, covering subjects such as silviculture, wildlife conservation, the evolution of veterinary science in South Africa, entomology and tsetse control. Her book “Mad Dogs and Meerkats: A History of Resurgent Rabies in Southern Africa” was published by Ohio University Press in 2011. She also co-edited “Healing the Herds: Disease, Livestock Economies and the Globalization of Veterinary Medicine” which looked at the history of veterinary medicine from a global perspective.
A presentation on their book by the authors and an interesting discussion afterwards lead to a memorable evening enjoyed by everyone who attended. The audience included staff and students of the Veterinary Science Faculty, researchers from the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute and other interested parties. Prof Pete Irons, Head of the Department of Production Animal Studies, Faculty of Veterinary Science, made some concluding remarks.
Information literacy trainingWe completed the information literacy training for the 2nd year undergraduate veterinary science students during February and March and the assessment results indicated that our labour was not in vain! Next year we are planning to implement clicker training to ensure that we improve on engaging the students and creating a more interactive learning experience.
First issue of InfomaniaWe published the first issue of our newsletter Infomania in May which you can read online here
Final LibQual feedbackFinal feedback for the LibQual survey that was done during August 2013 was communicated by the Department of Library Services’ Assistant Director: Marketing & Quality Assurance Mrs Elsabé Olivier in June this year. You can view the feedback here
A journal publication by one of our colleaguesWe are very proud of our colleague Tertia Coetsee who published an article on “Key professional principles for South African academic librarians” with Sandra Weiner from the Purdue University library. The article was published in the Mousaion: South African journal of information studies, a journal of the Department of Information Science and the Department of Library Services at the University of South Africa. Coetsee, T. & Weiner, S. A., 2013, ‘Key professional principles for South African academic librarians’, Mousaion: South African journal of information studies 31(3), 110-126.
A visit from students of the University of LimpopoOn 19 June approximately 28 Information Studies students from the University of Limpopo visited our library. The visit was requested by their lecturer Mr Lefose Makgahlela. They endeavour to expose their students in their final year to as many different libraries as possible and asked that we give them an overview of our library and take them on a guided tour. The other half of the group visited the library of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute where Mr David Swanepoel addressed them. We experienced the students as very motivated and interested and believe that they have benefitted from the visit.
A “Relationship building workshop”On 26 June four of our library’s information specialists attended a relationship building workshop facilitated by Dr Madeleine Nolte, Head of Student Support at the University of Pretoria. The workshop was presented at the Merensky library on the Hatfield campus and was arranged by Lindiwe Soyiswapi and Hilda Kriel. Dr Nolte specialises in student relationships and leadership development. The workshop was presented around the theme of “How to woo your professor” and challenges and practical advice on successfully managing interactions with your clients and applying effective communication skills were covered. Antoinette Lourens, information specialist for Production Animal Studies and Centre for Veterinary Wildlife Studies gave a presentation on what wooing clients meant to her. Danie Malan, information specialist for Economics, Financial Management and the African Tax Institute also shared his impressions.
