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Library
Director of Ardhi University, Tanzania, visited the
Merensky II Library |
Dr Sophia R Lukwale,
University Library Director of Ardhi University,
Tanzania, visited the UPLS during 26-29 July 2009.
She was interested in interacting with colleagues
responsible for the e-Strategy (UPeTD, OpenUP,
digitisation, the Library web and
repositories), Information Literacy programmes &
innovations, and the services and products of the
Education Faculty Library.
Ardhi University is one
of the newly established public universities in
Tanzania. Established about three years ago, "Ardhi
University" (the then UCLAS) was a constituent
college of the University of Dar es Salaam since
July 1996. Ardhi University Library has a similar
historical development.
My sincere thanks to all
colleagues who contributed to Dr Lukwale's visit and
to Una Mgwenya for making all the arrangements.
Dr Sophia R
Lukwale and Mr Robert Moropa
Contributed by Ujala
Satgoor
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Project JJ and the Health Sciences Libraries |
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It all
started early on a cold April morning in 2005 on the
parking area of the Olympus residence of the Faculty of
Health Sciences. Three students, Frans Ndotoro, Israel
Dongwe and Odwin Gulwe met there at 05:00 for their
daily prayer meeting. You have a wonderful view of
Pretoria from this site, but you also look down on
Voortrekkers Road – a road infamous for its street
racing and homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks.
They were
deeply concerned about the well-being of the people with
no jobs and homes and realised that if they feel the
cold, it must be much worse for their homeless brothers
and sisters. They decided to do something and discussed
the issue with their class leader, Angela Smith. Angela
created the opportunity for them to discuss the issue
with their fellow students – and Project JJ was born.
The name comes from Jeans and Jerseys, because their
first objective was to collect clothes for needy people
in the community. They collected 250 items, which they
distributed at a shelter at Salvokop.
They
changed their collection strategy in 2006 and this is
where the Health Sciences Libraries became part of the
project. Frans asked the Medical- and Basic Medical
Sciences libraries to serve as collection points. With
2 boxes in every library, 350 items were collected. They
divided the clothes between the shelters in Sunnyside
and Salvokop, and the day of their visit was documented
on a video, so that anyone could see what a huge
difference a warm jersey can make to a person’s life.
They
started with tutoring classes at the shelters and
concentrated on English, Maths, Science and Biology for
the Grade 9-12 learners. They also used the opportunity
to get motivational speakers to talk to the children.
Project JJ is so successful that it is now driven by a
committee of 9 students, which include students from
other disciplines such as Nursing and Dentistry. The
clothes drive delivered about 930 items, which gave them
the opportunity to deliver a service to other shelters
as well.
The
students started an outreach project to Mozambique at
the end of 2007 after they were approached by people at
a shelter in Lorenco Marques. The centre has a school
for children from Grade R – 7. All the teachers are
volunteers and the children are mostly orphans – either
from the war or from AIDS. The group spent a week at
the shelter during which time they helped to run the
school, support the teachers and started a gardening
project. The lack of study material, books and
stationary spoke to them and they decided to make that
the focus for 2008. Eleven students went to Mozambique
in June 2008 with clothes, stationary, canned food and
toiletries.
They
spent a lot of time on health education and conducted
seminars on Tuberculosis, HIV, hygiene and STD’s. The
Dentistry students ensure that oral hygiene gets a good
portion of the time in these sessions. They also
practised their skills as future healthcare workers.
They had ample opportunity with 250 children and 50
adults with very limited access to health care. The
people were very interested and took notes at the
seminars and promised to share the information with
other people in the community. They begged the students
to come back in the future.
In 2009
the staff of the Health Sciences- and Basic Medical
Sciences Libraries decided to adopt this project as our
main community engagement project for the year. Frans
Ndotoro, Kabelo Nzima and Magriet Lee planned the drive
that involved all the library staff members and the
Faculty. Pamphlets and lollypops were distributed and
we used the plasma screen in the foyer of the HW Snyman
building to promote the work of Project JJ and market
the drive.
All the
information specialists had to compile a pamphlet on
topics such as Sex Education, TB, Breastfeeding, etc.
and the information assistants did their part with
pamphlets on topics such as the days of the week, basic
maths and numbers, which can be used in primary
education. All the pamphlets were printed on coloured
paper. We bought stationary which the students could
sponsor. They could also write a message on a bookmark
to the children in Mozambique. We continued the
collection of clothes and got bags full of very useful
stuff. The students contributed so much money as part
of their sponsorship that we went back to the shops and
bought even more stationary and some food and toiletries
as well.
Thirteen
students left on 4th April for Mozambique
with all the bags and boxes and arrived there the same
evening. They divided their group into two teams: a
Medical- and a Gardening team. The members of Medical
team were responsible for the health seminars and
medical assistance every morning, in which the pamphlets
were used extensively. The members of the community
were grateful for the seminars and mentioned that they
received much more information than they got from the
clinics. They donated the pamphlets at the end of their
visit to the clinics for future use. The gardening team
helped the community to start a vegetable garden and
create a compost hole for future use.
The
students wrote a play on HIV which they used at the
schools and it made a big impression on the community as
well. The students distributed the clothes, stationary
and sweets on the last day of their visit and they had
enough for all of the children. The members of the
community bookmarks went to the primary school children
as a special message to them. The members of the
community have also asked them to come back next year. |
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| Frans Ndotoro sit in front (with red
shirt) |
Frans
sees the biggest challenge in the community for the
teachers to improve their education as they only have a
Grade 12 education and are exploring ways of improving
their situation. This help can effect the whole
community in a positive way. He emphasised the role the
library played in the success of the visit and the
long-term improvement on the quality of life of the
people.
We
decided to focus on a local project next year. It was a
good experience for all the library staff. It was much
more than contributing money or clothes – everyone had
to use his or her creativity in developing the pamphlets
and we are all a lot more grateful for the opportunities
we have in life.
Contributed by
Magriet Lee
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LIASA CICD Winter Seminar |
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Annette Ingram and Mmakgoshi Prescilla Reetseng,
Information Specialist (Cataloguers) in the Library
Technical Services Department of the Merensky Library,
attended the first day of the LIASA CICD Winter Seminar
held on the 29th June 2009 at the National
Library of South Africa, Pretoria.
The purpose of the day was to keep librarians abreast of
new developments and trends in the library and
information sector and the focus was on Academic and
Research libraries. Ms Ujala Satgoor was the Programme
Director. She provided valuable comments and encouraged
dialogue from the delegates. Mr John Tsebe welcomed the
delegates, introduced the
speakers of the
day and thanked seminar organisers and the Carnegie
Corporation of New York for its financial support
towards the seminar.
Mr Robert Moropa was invited as the first speaker. He
spoke about what the university expects from the library
and outlined the University of Pretoria Merensky
Library’s mandate, which is to manage academic
information and knowledge and to lead the university in
information and knowledge innovation. He emphasised that
librarians should think out of the box and adapt to new
ways of delivering service to clients. They should
acknowledge the paradigm shift and not stick to
answering information queries with answers that were
relevant in the past as they might mean nothing to the
user today (back to zero). They should use new
technology and should not believe that they are “just”
librarians and therefore cannot add value to the
university. Mr Moropa also mentioned that if he had
enough money his wishes would be to develop the skills
and expertise of the UP staff, to bring experts to
evaluate and decide if the present Merensky building
still served its purpose and to establish a state of the
art training programme for clients.
Dr Abbey Ngoepe spoke about the role played by libraries
in assuring and promoting quality in higher education
institutions. He also emphasised the fact that
librarians are not just mere librarians and that
libraries have a critical role in supporting the core
functions of the university: teaching and learning,
research and community engagement. Libraries assist
their institutions to strive for continuous excellence.
He said that the inputs and processes of libraries
should be evaluated regularly, internally and externally
to ensure that they still meet the minimum standards
requirements. Libraries should maintain up-to-date
collections to support programmes because lack of
resources will affect accreditation of new programmes,
reviewing of existing programmes and the institutional
audit. A library that provides quality service is an
asset to the university it serves as it upgrades the
integrity of the university and the quality of the
graduates.
Ms Hannie Sander spoke about the future of university libraries and
the challenges posed by the so-called “millenials” to
whom technology is a way of life. University libraries
should adapt and provide new kinds of services for these
new clients as well as the older clients. Prof Archie
Dick challenged LIASA to be involved in the training and
development of a new generation of librarians. Ms Clare
Walker talked about the research librarian and the
challenges posed by new ways of doing research. She
emphasised the fact that, although researchers might
think that they can do everything by themselves by using
the Internet and other available electronic resources,
research librarians still have a crucial role to play in
the research process and their skills and efforts should
not to be taken for granted.
Dr Daisy Selematsela & Dr Martie van Deventer gave the delegates
guidelines on how to facilitate leadership continuity
and build talent and capacity within the National System
of Innovation (NSI):
Mr Isaia Mphaphuli informed us that ETDP-SETA has forged a
relationship with LIASA which is geared at providing the
LIS with training and development.
All the speakers encouraged delegates to change their
attitudes towards the profession and to learn more about
new technologies as the information needs of our clients
are changing. We have to adapt to new environments in
order to remain relevant in the 21st century.
We would like to thank Management for the opportunity to
attend the seminar.
Contributed by
Mmakgoshi Prescilla Reetseng
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SLIS
workshop on the formulation of an e-Strategy for your
library |
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On
Friday, 28 August 2009 Drs Martie van Deventer and Heila
Pienaar facilitated a SLIS workshop on the formulation
of an e-Strategy for your library at Mintek,
Johannesburg. It was a highly interactive workshop that
was attended by about 45 special librarians from all
over the country. Martie concentrated on the use of the
SWOT-methodology, while Heila used the Balanced
Scorecard framework to demonstrate the formulation of an
Library 2 e-Strategy. The presentation: “Using the
Balanced Scorecard to formulate your Library’s
e-Strategy” is available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/heila1/using-the-balanced-scorecard-to-formulate-your-librarys-estrategy
Contributed by Hiela Pienaar
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September boek van die
maand / September book of the month |
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Flora Herscheliana : Sir John and Lady Herschel at the Cape
1834 to 1838 / Brian Warner and John Rourke
Contributed by Katrien Malan
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Flora Herscheliana; Sir John and Lady Herchel at the Cape 1834 to 1838
Sir John Herschel (1792-1871) has long been recognized as one of Britain's great nineteenth century scientists. His accomplishments in astronomy, mathematics and physics are well known, but this publications focuses on his private interest in botanical matters.
A visit to the Cape of Good Hope from 1834 to 1838 to survey the southern skies exposed Herschel to another great natural wonder - the beauty and diversity of the Cape Flora. The profound impact this encounter had on both John and his wife Margaret resulted in a magnificent portfolio of botanical drawings, outlined by John using a camera lucida for scientific accuracy and painted in watercolours by Margaret. Herschel's restless, analytical mind also led him to consider deeper issues, among them the morphology of bulbs, the diversity of species, and botanical scents and perfumes.
Something about the authors:
Professor Brian Warner, Head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Cape Town, trained as an astrophysicist at University College London, and has D.Sc degrees both from the University of London and Oxford University. Although principally an observational astronomer, his interest in the history of astronomy at the Cape has resulted in the publication of seven books and about twenty articles.
Dr John Rourke, Curator of the Compton Herbarium, National Botanical Institute, Kirstenbosch, studied botany at the University of Cape Ton where he was awarded the degrees of M.S.c and Ph.D. His special research interest is in the systematics and phylogeny of the family Proteaceae. He has published extensively on all fourteen genera of this family in southern Africa, including two popular works, Proteas of Southern Africa (Cape Tons, 1980, 1982) and the elephant folio volume, Mimetes (Cape Town, 1982. Botanical history is another of his fields of interest in which he has co-authored several works, notably those on the famous eighteenth-century botanical explorers, Carl peter Thunberg and William Paterson, the latter published by the Brenthurst Press in 1981. Dr Rourke was elected one of the select group of only fifty Foreign Members of the Linnean Society of London in 1996 |
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Library
Intranet Newsletter Publication /
Publikasie van die Biblioteek Intranet Nuusbrief |
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Indien jy enige kommentaar
of voorstelle oor die nuusbrief het, epos ons asseblief
by
diana.gerritsen@up.ac.za
- ons hoor graag jou opinie.
If you
have any comments or suggestions about our newsletter,
then please mail us on
diana.gerritsen@up.ac.za
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we are very keen to hear your opinions.
j
I J ? o Q
To contribute, please e-mail
Diana Gerritsen.
Contributions can be in Afrikaans or English.
Om 'n bydrae te maak e-pos asb. vir
Diana Gerritsen.
Bydraes kan in Afrikaans of Engels wees. |
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Events this
month ...
Gebeure dié
maand ...
Birthdays this
month ...
Verjaarsdae dié
maand ...
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5 |
David Mahlangu |
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9 |
Marquerite nel |
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10 |
Alet Nell |
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11 |
Heidi Visser |
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12 |
Magda Engelbrecht |
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13 |
Helmien van der Berg |
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Moitshepi Thuso Mathulwe |
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14 |
Eridine Roux |
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Madira Makhubela |
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15 |
Maggie Moropane |
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Zebulon Malatsi |
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Sonja du Plessis |
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16 |
A Roberts |
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Barend Steyn |
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17 |
Heleen Steyn |
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20 |
M G Ramafemo |
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21 |
Abel Maboko |
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23 |
Annemarie Pienaar |
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25 |
Jacob T Mothutsi |
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27 |
Erica van der Westhuizen |
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29 |
Simon Grimbeek |
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Bettie de Kock |
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"A simple
positive gesture can make a world of difference in a person's life.
We all impact each other's lives."
Catherine
Pulsifer
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