Author: Kirchner van Deventer (Page 5 of 5)

The two staff members who make sure that the Carnegie Research Commons is no common place have recently been promoted. Kirchner van Deventer’s title has changed from Head: Carnegie Research Commons to Manager: Carnegie Research Commons. His colleague, Letlao Seloma is no longer an Assistant Librarian, but now he is the Librarian: Carnegie Research Commons. With the new titles come new responsibilities, but their focus remains to provide excellent service to our clients.

Kirchner started working at Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service (SU LIS) in August 2019. His primary responsibility in the Research Commons were, and still are, to provide research support and training to Master’s and Doctoral students, as well as researchers and academic staff. This entails assisting clients with the various stages in the research process and referring them to relevant support structures, assisting with document formatting and other IT related issues, support with referencing and our reference management software of choice, Mendeley. He is also responsible for upholding the high standard of infrastructure in the Research Commons and he serves on several committees and task teams. Following his promotion, Kirchner has become the person responsible for organising the #SmartResearcher training programme and he also presents several of the webinars, including Mendeley for reference management, Tips on how to format your thesis (MS Word), Useful tools for research and the Literature Review.

Letlao began his career at SU LIS at the start of 2019, six months before Kirchner and, as Assistant Librarian, he was responsible for providing on-site technical support to clients with the Research Commons facilities, such as our videoconferencing facility, the computer workstations and the facilities in our seminar rooms. He is also responsible for providing research support and, since his promotion, the level of support he provides has increased. He has become more involved in the #SmartResearcher training programme and he also presents several of the Mendeley for reference management webinars. He also hosts weekly Mendeley Mondays webinars where clients can consult with him about issues they have regarding Mendeley.

International Open Access Week is an annual event aimed at promoting the Open Access movement’s principles and practices of free and easily accessible research outputs. This year’s theme is Open with purpose: Taking action to build structural equity and inclusion and it is being held this week (19-25 October) worldwide. It is an opportunity for the wider community to coordinate and take action to make openness the default for research:

“We need to examine who these spaces and systems are designed for, who is missing, who is excluded by the business models we use, and whose interests are prioritized. As we work together to rebuild these structures, we need to commit to moving from conversations to concrete commitments and to hold one another accountable for making real progress.” – Nick Shockey

In line with this theme, Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service has chosen to focus on Open Data (a sub-component within the broader context of Open Research) and to also showcase SUNScholarData. SUNScholarData is SU’s digital repository for research data and it was developed in line with the recognition that research data should be open, transparent and easily accessible.

For more information on Open Access initiatives at Stellenbosch University, you can view the video below: