This is an update about the ongoing refurbishments at the Stellenbosch University Library following our previous communication to you.
The renovations consist of upgrading the existing facilities and infrastructure to accommodate clients’ needs and create a contemporary aesthetic look for the SU Library while maintaining the integrity of the existing building. The primary focus of the project is to provide clients with comfortable and effective spaces in which to work while making it easier to use and navigate the library.
We are pleased to inform you that there has been tremendous progress with the project but also some delays, many of which were Covid-19 enforced.
Phase One
Despite the challenges, we are pleased to inform you that phase one of the project has been partially completed.
The students’ ablutions on the lower level have been completed and are in use (see pictures below).
Completed ablution facilities on the lower level of the SU Library
The client services and short loans sections on the upper level have been upgraded and are operational as from 22 November 2021. See pictures below.
The client service and short loans desk
Refurbished study areas on the upper level with new furniture
The study and computer areas on the upper levels are almost complete. The network is still to be installed in these areas and is scheduled to be completed by the end of January 2022.
Phase Two
This phase includes refurbishment of clients’ ablution facilities on the upper level, the reading area and the security gate. Work on these is in progress and scheduled to be completed by mid-March 2022.
There is ongoing work in the central section of the upper level. New flooring will be installed, and shelves will be re-assembled and books and journals reshelved.
Phase Three
The remaining construction will comprise the renovation of the entrance foyer, access turnstiles and installation of the new Tattle Tape security system.
Work will now be completed by the beginning of 2022.
During all phases of the construction, there is ongoing work to ceiling spaces and services for data activation.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused during the refurbishments. However, you can take solace from the fact that you will have access to comfortable and effective spaces at the completion of the project.
A unique collection recently launched by the Stellenbosch University (SU) Library sheds new light on how resolving the South African foreign debt crisis of 1985–1986 paved the way for Nelson Mandela’s release and the transition to democracy. It was donated to SU by Sir Claude Hankes (formerly Hankes-Drielsma) and was officially launched on Friday (7 May 2021).
Ms Ellen Tise, senior director of SU’s Library and Information Service, says the University is very privileged to receive a collection of this magnitude and historical value. It tells the story of the sovereign debt crisis that struck apartheid South Africa in the latter half of 1985, which forced government to declare a temporary moratorium on all short-term debt repayments.
Tise explains: “Due to overseas perceptions of South Africa’s political, domestic and economic outlook during the debt crisis, a major withdrawal of foreign bank credit to South African banks and businesses ensued. A ‘standstill’ on capital repayments in respect of the $14 billion foreign debt held by the banks was proclaimed. Negotiations with the banks ensued, and Dr Fritz Leutwiler, former president of the Swiss National Bank, was appointed as independent mediator, since several banks refused to deal directly with South Africa for political reasons.”
Leutwiler, in turn, requested Sir Claude Hankes, then chair of the Price Waterhouse and Partners management board, to mastermind the strategy for him and appointed the firm to provide the infrastructure. Sir Claude, knight commander of the Royal Victorian Order, had previously been involved in resolving the debt crises of Brazil and the Philippines respectively, which resulted from irresponsible lending policies by Western banks.
Significant addition to SU Library
Described as an “episode in the end game of the anti-apartheid struggle” (DD Bradlow, Don’t waste a serious crisis: lessons from South Africa’s debt crisis, 2016), the role of the 1985 debt crisis in South Africa’s transition to democracy should not be underestimated.
Says Sir Claude: “Few have ever fully understood how critical the resolution to the crisis was for the future of this great country. Far from prolonging the apartheid era, it facilitated the orderly change that took place.
“The challenge was to agree a rescheduling of South Africa’s debt based on the economic and political reality, unlike the rescheduling of debt to many other countries, where banks had forced unrealistic terms, which resulted in rescheduling again and again, at great cost. Against all odds, an agreement was reached.”
According to Tise, the collection illustrates just how far-reaching and potentially threatening the crisis was for the National Party government, and the key part it played in South Africa’s history.
“The process of dealing with the crisis seems to have been run as a rather clandestine operation, so the collection is likely to present new evidence to researchers interested in the issue. Correspondence with individuals such as business magnate Dr Anton Rupert, British-born anti-apartheid cleric Reverend Trevor Huddleston as well as former president PW Botha forms part of the collection and shows the breadth, depth and reach of the debt crisis.”
The withdrawal of lending to South Africa brought the country to the brink of even greater chaos.
“The collection is a record of how the crisis was averted,” says Tise. “It provides insight into how, with the help of Anton Rupert and Harry Oppenheimer in South Africa, the strategy to deal with the US banks’ unrealistic approach resulted in a lasting agreement. It became the only rescheduling of sovereign debt that did not have to be renegotiated subsequently.”
Sir Claude adds that the collection also shows how the crisis and the handling thereof “subsequently allowed British prime minister Margaret Thatcher and German chancellor Helmuth Köhl to send an ultimatum to president Botha to stand down” in order for South Africa to become a democracy and allow for Nelson Mandela’s release. In fact, included in the collection is a letter from Nelson Mandela to Leutwiler, written in 1994 in Mandela’s capacity as president of the African National Congress. In the letter, Mandela acknowledges Leutwiler’s central role in renegotiating the country’s foreign debt in the 1980s, and putting pressure on former president Botha to release him and his comrades from prison.
Of immense research value
The collection, which comprises general correspondence, press cuttings, memoranda, timetables of events, and minutes of meetings, constitutes a unique resource for researchers.
“Currently, there is renewed interest in the history and impact of economic sanctions against South Africa, as well as interest in what factors led to the eventual power shift in the South African government at the time,” says Tise.
“This collection serves these research interests well and could cast new light on what happened behind the scenes between 1985 and 1987. It provides unique insight into the world sentiment towards South Africa and its apartheid policies at the time. Moreover, it reveals the role that South Africa’s sociopolitical turmoil played in discussions, and the decisive impact of social stability in the perception of a country’s creditworthiness.”
According to Prof Eugene Cloete, Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies at SU, this addition to SU Library’s Special Collections forms part of an ongoing diversification of the University’s library collections.
“Over the past few years, the manuscripts collections have been diversified by adding collections that tell the story of South Africa’s road to democracy and its more recent history.”
Some of these include the Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert, IDASA and digital Vrye Weekblad collections and, most recently, the donation of the entire run of Noseweek.
“This debt crisis collection is an excellent addition, and it is a privilege for the University to be entrusted with preserving this knowledge. It does more than simply add to our collections; it creates a community of learning and knowledge-seeking,” says Prof Cloete.
Glimpse of the past, and guidance for the future
Prof Thuli Madonsela, incumbent of the chair in social justice in SU’s Faculty of Law and guest speaker at Friday’s launch event, says the collection is of enormous geopolitical significance, and part of the seismic shift that led to democracy in South Africa.
“It gives us a glimpse of past events unknown until now, and also a sense of where we are going. It reminds us that, at some point, South Africa was at an inflection point where it needed to decide whether to go left or right, and the leaders concerned had to choose between fear and hope in order to move forward. It seems to me that they chose hope.”
Madonsela adds that South Africa happens to find itself at another inflection point today, having to deal with debt and other concerning issues.
“Do we increase our debt as a country so that we can pay for inclusive development in line with the sustainable development goals and our constitutional promise of a democracy that is founded on social justice and fundamental human rights?” she asks.
“And how do we deal with matters such as land and climate change? What seems to be emerging to me through the backstory of this collection is the power of communication, and that, going forward, we need to have sufficient consensus on these matters.”
The collection will be available for research purposes as from 1 July 2021 and is housed in the Manuscripts Section of SU Library’s Special Collections.
Make-up of the collection
The SA foreign debt crisis 1985/86 collection is divided into four broad categories:
Banks. This section contains correspondence to and responses from chairpersons of overseas creditor banks, a summary of the banks’ technical responses, lists of banks contacted, and the debt amounts at each institution.
Material relating to the South African Debt Standstill Coordinating Committee
Off-the-record remarks and reflections on the entire process of resolving the crisis, providing a unique perspective
General. This includes both general and administrative correspondence, press cuttings, speeches, reports, timetables of events, and more.
Items in all categories and subcategories will be arranged alphabetically or chronologically, depending on the type of material. Eventually, a full inventory of the collection, with descriptions and summaries of prominent material, will be made available, accompanied by author, title and subject indexes, to allow researchers easy access to specific items in the collection. The collection will also be digitised in due course.
Editor: Read more about the SA Debt crisis collection and its launch here.
The entire run of 250 issues of the South African investigative magazine, Noseweek, was donated to the Stellenbosch University (SU) Library and Information Service by Open Media Trust earlier this year.
The donation includes physical copies of the magazine as well as a complete digital archive.
Published by Chaucher Publications, Noseweek sadly published its last print issue in March this year. The publication ran monthly from June 1993, with Martin Welz as editor.
The publication describes itself as “South Africa’s only investigative magazine and features irreverent, independent, inside information about business, the professions, politics and society in South Africa […] it is essential reading for anybody interested in what’s going on in the rainbow nation” (Noseweek, 2021).
The forerunner of the publication was titled Nose and was established by Martin Welz in 1983 with prize money he received as Parliamentary correspondent of the Sunday Express for an exposé of “the corruption of doctors and public health services by a major pharmaceutical group” (Welz, 1996). Nose was run until 1987 from Welz’s garage and importantly, some of these early typed and stapled issues form part of the physical collection donated to the Library.
The Noseweek collection is undoubtably a rich resource for research on contemporary South African history, politics, government, society, business and journalism. According to Prof Lizette Rabe, Chair of the Department of Journalism, SU, “It is thanks to journalism, especially investigative journalism, that South Africa’s brittle democracy has been safeguarded. Noseweek will provide rich material for further research thanks to the courageous work of Martin Welz over so many decades – from pre-democracy’s dark days of apartheid, and, since the dawn of democracy, the incredible range of corruption, fraud and state capture”.
The collection also enriches our manuscript collections which have over the last few years been diversified by the addition of more contemporary collections such as the Frederik van Zyl Slabbert Collection, the IDASA collection and the digital Vrye Weekblad collection. Most recently, we received the South African Debt Crisis 1985/1986 Collection, launched on 7 May this year. This critical collection is one very significant piece of the puzzle in terms of the road to democracy in SA and the end of Apartheid.
As an independent publication, Noseweek had “unashamedly taken up the cause of the underdog, spoken truth to power and managed to survive the odds with good humour for 28 years” (Welz, 2021). The magazine often featured the line-drawing cartoons of Gus Ferguson (1940-2020), celebrated poet, publisher, cartoonist, and pharmacist.
According to radio journalist John Maytham, Noseweek has “broken many major stories which subsequently appeared often without credit to Noseweek in mainstream media and [played] an invaluable role in our media ecosystem”. He also described it as an “idiosyncratic important publication that marches to a different drum” (Maytham, 2021).
Prof Janis van der Westhuizen, Chair, Department of Political Science, describes the importance of the resource as follows: “A vibrant and active civil society constitutes the lifeblood of a democracy, with a free and independent media sector playing a key role holding state leaders accountable to the people. As a small but vocal outlet, Noseweek played a critical role in exposing corruption and the abuse of power during South Africa’s recent history. As such, it made a considerable contribution to the creation of what the philosopher Karl Popper, described as an ‘open society’ in South Africa. In as much, as one is saddened by the closure of small, independent media outlets, such as Noseweek it is heartening to know that the entire collection of Newsweek will now be available to researchers and future generations through SUN’s digital media collection.”
The Library is honoured to make this journalistic jewel freely accessible to researchers and the wider public by hosting the digital collection on our digital heritage repository, SUNDigital Collections. The collection can be accessed at http://digital.lib.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.2/16692, where all 250 issues can be searched and viewed in PDF format.
For any queries or more information, please contact Mimi Seyffert-Wirth (mseyf@sun.ac.za).
Welz, M. 1996. All the names in Noseweek [excerpt]. Publication unknown. Frederik Van Zyl Slabbert Collection, Manuscripts Section, Stellenbosch University Library.
Although often overlooked and unappreciated, human dwellings are an essential part of daily life, standing at the centre of work, ceremony, socialization, and human culture. Buildings, much like other artefacts, embody the values and culture of the people who design, construct and inhabit these spaces. This Heritage Month we would like to celebrate our shared cultural heritage through our diverse vernacular architecture and exhibit the creative ingenuity of our South African ancestors.
The exhibition is comprised of items from the James Walton Collection and the André Pretorius Collection that are housed at the Special Collections of Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service, and available on SUNDigital.
Take a walk through the virtual exhibition and immerse yourself in the daily lives of the South African people, through the eyes of their homes.
The Stellenbosch University Library is undergoing renovations. We apologise for the inconvenience caused during the refurbishments.
The renovations consist of upgrading the existing facilities and infrastructure to accommodate clients’ needs and create a contemporary aesthetic for the SU Library while maintaining the integrity of the existing building. The primary focus of the project is to provide clients with comfortable and effective spaces in which to work while making it easier to use and navigate the library.
Renovations include the installation of a new client service desk, new students’ workspaces, redesign of the reading area, new furniture, flooring and new toilets for students and staff.
The work will be completed in three phases. Phase 1 of the project runs until the end of July 2021.
Phase 1 comprises renovation of the client service desk, short loans and related staff work areas and staff toilets.
The central section between Special Collections and the Law Section is boarded off. Science and AgriSciences books and printed journals are not available for the duration of the project. However, the Law Section, Special Collections and upper level toilets are still accessible. The Science and AgriSciences faculty librarians are temporarily located in the Learning Commons.
The Library reminds researchers of the institutional open access publication (OAP) agreements reached with the following publishers, which afford article processing charge (APC) benefits, and which were communicated to the campus community on 26 February 2021:
Cambridge University Press (CUP) – no cost for SU authors
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – no cost for SU authors
MDPI – 10% discount for SU authors
Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) – 15% discount for SU authors
Regrettably, the Library’s fund in support of open access publication (OAP) funding has ceased to exist.
The Library had some funds available to support OAP author fees in 2021. However, due to the number of applications received, this amount has been spent and no further funding will be available in future. We therefore request that researchers do not submit any further OAP funding applications to the Library.
The Library will continue to administer the University’s deposit account with SpringerNature (formerly BioMed Central), which will allow SU researchers to submit open access articles to SpringerNature without having to pay author fees to SpringerNature before publication, at https://preview.springernature.com/gp/open-research/institutional-agreements/individual-institutional-agreements. Submissions under the University’s deposit account will afford researchers 15% discount on the article processing charge (APC) for some SpringerNature titles. However,in future researchers will have to refund the Library 100% of these author fees, plus 15% VAT, upon publication. By submitting an article to SpringerNature against the University’s deposit account, a researcher agrees to refund the full cost to the Library after publication. The Library will claim this refund from the researcher upon receiving notification from SpringerNature that an article submitted against the University’s deposit account has been published. (Rand value calculated at the exchange rate on the day of claiming the refund).
Queries about SpringerNature APC funding may be directed to Ms Naomi Visser, tel: 021 808 4433.
Mr Bruce Lewis is congratulated on completing his Bachelor of Arts in Communication and Library Science at the University of South Africa.
Dr Martha Susanna (Santie) de Jongh is congratulated on achieving her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Music from Stellenbosch University (SU). Santie’s thesis is entitled Music and militarisation during the period of the South African Border War (1966–1989): Perspectives from ‘Paratus’.
Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director: Library and Information Service, was a recipient of the University’s Chancellor’s Award. Ms Tise’s award was in recognition of her stewardship in various national and international library bodies. She champions access to knowledge as a basic human right.
New Appointments
Mr Jeremiah Pietersen has been appointed Manager: Learning and Training with effect from 1 February 2021. Jeremiah previously worked at UCT Libraries in various positions, most recently as Librarian: Science and Engineering.
We also welcome Mr Darryl Geldenhuys who has been appointed as Administrative Officer B1 in the Makerspace at the SU Library, with effect from the 1 March 2021. Darryl previously worked as an IT Technician at Bridge House School.
Also joining the Library on 1 March was Ms Deborah Beerwinkel, who has been appointed as Administrative Officer B1 in the Library’s Finance and Maintenance Division. Debbie previously worked at the Department of Medical Imaging and Clinical Oncology on the Tygerberg Campus. Debbie has been with SU for 11 years.
We wish Jeremiah, Darryl, and Debbie all the best in their new roles.
Stellenbosch University Library launched its Makerspace on 10 March 2021. While not the first of its kind at Stellenbosch University, it is the first to be housed in a non-discipline specific space.
Ms Ellen Tise, setting the scene for the Makerspace before the tour of the physical space.
In her presentation, Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director of the Library and Information Service, articulated some of the reasoning behind having such a space in an academic library. She mentioned that the idea had already started taking shape when in 2016 at the Stellenbosch University 14th Annual Library Symposium, Jeroen de Boer presented on: “Makerspaces: a great opportunity to enhance academic libraries”. In his presentation Jeroen quoted David Lankes: “The mission of librarians is to improve society through facilitating knowledge creation in their communities”. This corresponds well with the missions of academic libraries, which support the mission of the academe – that often centres around societal impact through research – and encourage being active contributors in the knowledge production ecosystem. Stellenbosch University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies, Professor Eugene Cloete, commended the Library for seeing through the construction of a makerspace. “In future I would like to see many more spaces like this at the University”, he commented.
Attended by other members of the University Executive, the SRC Chairperson and various important stakeholders at the University, the launch was a success in re-emphasizing the importance of the academic library growing its span of services congruent with changes in the higher education landscape. It also showed the ways the Makerspace can enrich creativity and learning, as well as support existing curricula on campus. After the launch, guests were taken on a tour of the Makerspace with many expressing keen interest and delight at having such a space in the Library.
The first tour group comprising the University Rectorate, senior academics and other executive management.
With the space having formally opened its doors to the Stellenbosch University community on 1 April 2021, we have high hopes that it fulfills its purpose to provide a collaborative, technologically focused environment for students to invent, create and learn while sharing.
Mr Norman Hebler, Head of the Makerspace, explaining the various services and the equipment available in the Makerspace.
On 17 February 2021, the Library and Information Service launched the Course Reading Lists system. Some 116 colleagues participated in the launch, of which 70 were academic staff.
In her welcome, Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director: Library and Information Service, emphasized how this new system fulfills the need for comprehensive, structured, annotated and online reading lists available in the familiar environment of SUNLearn.
In her presentation, guest speaker Ms Amy Liakopoulos (Manager of Campus Engagement, Ex Libris North America) highlighted some of the benefits of Course Reading Lists for Stellenbosch University. It saves lecturers time in managing reading material for their courses: they can quickly and easily add diverse resource types to their lists and reuse these lists in subsequent terms or years through the rollover function. By organising resources into sections, tagging items as essential, recommended, etc. and by adding notes to resources, lecturers ensure students understand their expectations. A further advantage of the system is the integrated library support: with a single click, lecturers can send lists for Library review and students can report broken links directly to the Library. Comprehensive usage analytics measure student engagement with each resource; lecturers could leverage student feedback to improve instruction.
Two early adopters showcased their reading lists. According to Anria van Zyl (Senior Lecturer: School of Accountancy), Course Reading Lists helps her avoid clutter in SUNLearn, is easy to find, contains hyperlinks and exposes the Library resources to her students. Dr ZE Mashimbye (Lecturer: Geography and Environmental Studies) finds Course Reading Lists to be a convenient way to organise reading material and the Cite It! bookmarklet is a useful tool to quickly add resources to his list.
A demonstration of how to create a reading list and add resources, combined with a question-and-answer session, concluded the event.
Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service is pleased to announce the launch of the Research Data Management (RDM) Adventure Game. The RDM Adventure Game is a text-based role-playing interactive fiction serious game, based on the data management challenges of a research project. The game takes the form of an online choose-your-own-adventure format in which game players take a simulated research project through the following processes: data management planning, data collection/generation, data organisation, data description and research publication, while encountering data management challenges along the way. The game was developed as part of a collaboration between the University of Bath Library and Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service between 2017 and 2020 by Alex Ball (University of Bath), Samuel Simango (Stellenbosch University) and Nushrat Khan (University of Bath). In January 2021, the Wellcome Trust’s Early Career Researchers Advisory Board endorsed the game by including it in the Wellcome Open Research early career researchers pack, recognising it as a useful tool for researchers.
Aim of the Game
The objective of the RDM Adventure Game is to demonstrate and teach good practice in research data management and assist researchers in understanding good practices related to RDM. The specific learning outcomes focus on the following aspects:
Data management planning
Designing participant information sheets and consent forms
Choosing appropriate equipment for research projects
Acquiring suitable third-party research data
Organising research data
Storing research data appropriately
Analysing and documenting research data
Preparing research data for archiving
Publishing research data
The Audience
The RDM Adventure Game is aimed primarily at postgraduate students as well as early career researchers and academics. Anyone who has an interest in understanding how RDM works on a practical level, e.g. research support staff, could, however, also find the game helpful.
Game play
The game takes players through different stages of the research data lifecycle, presents them with a data management challenge and allows them to make decisions that affect the success of their research project. Players progress either by making straightforward binary choices or by completing puzzle-like options. In the process certain challenges test the effectiveness of the decisions made by the players. The tone of the game is light-hearted to maintain its entertainment value, despite it being a serious game.
Since the game simulates the entire RDM lifecycle, the repercussions of decisions researchers make can be experienced in a safe environment, permitting them to make mistakes and hopefully learn from them without suffering the associated real-life consequences. Game players can opt to play the entire game or can select to only play specific stages of the RDM lifecycle.
Find out more and play the game
The RDM Adventure Game was launched in December 2020 at the University of Bath. The game has been released under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA) and is hosted on GitLab. If you are interested in playing the game, click here.
For more information, please contact Samuel Simango at ssimango@sun.ac.za
The Library and Information Service is pleased to announce that we have signed agreements with a number of publishers that make it easier for our researchers to publish in open access with these publishers, and in some cases to even publish in open access without paying any article processing charge (APC).
BioMed Central and SpringerNature
Our agreement with BMC has been replaced by an agreement with SpringerNature and now includes all fully open access journals of BMC, Nature Research (including Nature Communications and Scientific Reports), Palgrave Macmillan, Springer and SpringerNature. Under this agreement, the APCs for these journals will be deducted from Stellenbosch University’s prepaid deposit account with SpringerNature. Articles published in BioMed Central and SpringerOpen journals will receive a 15% discount on the APCs.
Before submitting a manuscript to one of these journals, corresponding authors affiliated with Stellenbosch University should complete an Open Access Publication Fund application form. If the application is approved, they may submit the manuscript, stating Stellenbosch University as their affiliation. When an article is accepted for publication, SpringerNature will ask the Library to verify the submitting author’s SU affiliation. The full APC will then be deducted from our deposit account. However, since the Open Access Publication Fund funds only 50% of the SU authors’ share of the publication cost, a refund will be claimed from the author in the form of a corrective journal transaction on the SUN system.
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
The Library has signed a Read and Publish agreement with CUP, which covers APCs as well as subscription payments. This agreement allows all corresponding authors from Stellenbosch University to publish research articles in open access in CUP journals at no extra cost. Authors must use their @sun email address when submitting an article to a CUP open access journal.
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
The ACM is a non-profit society publisher, which plans to achieve full open access within five years. The Library’s agreement with ACM includes access to ACM journals and allows SU authors to publish in open access in ACM journals at no cost. It is a 3-year agreement (2021-2023) with a fixed price for the length of the agreement. Authors can opt out of the open access arrangement and publish behind a paywall if they so choose.
MDPI and Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC): APC discounts
SU authors will receive a 10% discount on the APCs for any paper accepted for publication by MDPI and a 15% discount when publishing with RSC.
More information regarding the SU Open Access Publication Fund is available on our website.
Enquiries: Ms Naomi Visser, nrv@sun.ac.za, Tel 021 808 4433
The client service and short loans desk
Renovations include the installation of a new client service desk, new students’ workspaces, redesign of the reading area, new furniture, flooring and new toilets for students and staff.
