Category: General

Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director of the Library and Information Service, has been appointed chair of the IFLA Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Advisory Committee for the period 2019 – 2021 at the recent IFLA World Library and Information Congress held in Athens.

IFLA is the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and the leading international body representing the interests of library and information services and their users. It serves as the global voice of the library and information profession.

FAIFE is IFLA’s Committee on Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression. It is an initiative to protect and promote the basic human rights defined in Article 19 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The FAIFE Committee fosters freedom of access to information and freedom of expression in all respects, directly or indirectly, related to libraries and librarianship. FAIFE monitors the state of intellectual freedom within the library community worldwide, supports IFLA policy development and co-operation with other international human rights organisations, and responds to violations of free access to information and freedom of expression. The chair of FAIFE plays an important role in supporting the work of the IFLA Governing Board on many key ethical and policy questions.

Ms Tise served as IFLA president from 2009 – 2011 and was appointed an Honorary Fellow of IFLA in 2012, IFLA’s highest award to a person who has delivered long and distinguished service to IFLA.

Ms Tise is wished much success during her term of office in this challenging role.

 

Sources:

FAIFE. https://www.ifla.org/about-faife. Accessed on 28 August 2019.

Freedom of Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) Advisory Committee. https://www.ifla.org/faife. Accessed on 28 August 2019.

IFLA. https://www.ifla.org/about. Accessed on 28 August 2019.

The Library now subscribes to PressReader, a platform that provides online access to more than 7 200 international newspapers and magazines, including about 200 from South Africa (such as Die Burger, Cape Times, Mail & Guardian, Financial Mail, Business Day, City Press, Isolezwe, The Guardian, The Sowetan and Huisgenoot). New issues of the newspapers and magazines appear on PressReader as soon as they are published. We also have archival access to publications for up to 20 years.

Articles or full publications may be downloaded to any smartphone, tablet or laptop to be read when offline. Access to these downloaded articles or publications never expires.

When accessing PressReader on your mobile device for the first time, you should do so via the Databases A-Z list on the Library website. This will authenticate your device and you will be able to continue using PressReader for up to seven days after leaving the campus. The timer on the welcome message will indicate how many days of access you have left on your device. Once the timer runs out, you simply need to re-authenticate your device through the Databases A-Z list on the Library website, or by bringing your device into the Maties Wifi range (if your device is registered for wireless connection to the University network).

PressReader has an audio feature that lets you listen to articles while you are on the go and offers instant translation in up to 18 different languages for most articles and even full publications.

PressReader’s popularity on campus is illustrated by the fact that, during the first month of access, 36 460 articles have been read by SU users.

For more information, please contact Naomi Visser at nrv@sun.ac.za or 021 808 4433.

Watch our SUNBibVideo How to use PressReader.

The Library and Information Service launched the institutional research data repository, SUNScholarData, on 12 August 2019. In the past decade, the management of research data has taken on a more prominent role in tertiary education institutions around the world. This has been primarily due to the increasingly data-centric nature that academic research has taken.

As a leading research institution, SU is helping to address this issue by taking the necessary steps to adopt appropriate data management practices. One of these steps is the establishment of an institutional research data repository. The implementation of SUNScholarData forms part of the Library and Information Service’s role regarding research data support which has been identified as a strategic objective of the Library and Information Service in terms of supporting research by providing world-class, diverse, innovative and client-oriented services.

Some of the set of services that SUNScholarData as institutional research data repository will provide is to capture, store, index, preserve and redistribute the University’s research data in digital formats. There are also two purposes for relying on an institutional research data repository. Firstly, this would create a medium through which SU’s research data can be made findable and accessible. Secondly, it would facilitate the interoperability and re-usability of the University’s research data.

The establishment of the repository is in line with SU’s vision of being “Africa’s leading research-intensive university, globally recognised as excellent, inclusive and innovative, where we advance knowledge in service of society” as well as the University’s strategy of supporting Open Science.

Pictured above at the launch, are (left to right): Prof Eugene Cloete (Vice-Rector: Research, Innovation and Postgraduate Studies), Prof Louise Warnich (Dean of Science), Prof Wim de Villiers (Rector & Vice-Chancellor), Ms Ellen R Tise (Senior Director: Library and Information Service), Ms Mimi Seyffert-Wirth (Deputy Director: Digital Scholarship, Library and Information Service), Prof Wikus van Niekerk (Dean of Engineering).

Several staff appointments have recently been made within the Library and Information Service.

Ms Elizabeth Moll-Willard was appointed as Faculty Librarian: AgriSciences from 1 May 2019.  Elizabeth previously held the position as Librarian in the Research Commons.  Elizabeth can be found at Desk 1, on the Upper level of Stellenbosch University Library, in her new role.

 

Ms Yandiswa Nombewu was appointed as Clerical Assistant in Technical Services from 1 June 2019. Yandiswa’s work supports both the divisions of Metadata Management and Acquisitions. Yandiswa previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Desmond Tutu TB Centre at Tygerberg campus, for some six years.

 

Mr Jimmy Makoloane was appointed as Makerspace Technical Officer from 1 July 2019. Jimmy previously worked at the South African Weather Services, as a Senior Technologist. He has a National Diploma in Computer Systems Engineering and a BTech degree in Electrical Engineering from the Central University of Technology.

 

Also taking up her position from 1 July, was Ms Rhoda Moses, who has been appointed as Administrative Officer. Rhoda previously worked at the SU Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology (CIB) which is situated in the Natural Sciences Building.

 

Mr Kirchner van Deventer was appointed as Head: Carnegie Research Commons from 5 August 2019. Kirchner has worked at the Northwest University Libraries in Potchefstroom, most recently as Faculty Librarian in the Education Sciences Library. Kirchner has a BA in Humanities, a BA Honours in English Literature and a Postgraduate Diploma in Library and Information Science.

 

Ms Sizeka Lengisi-Sikhondo was appointed as Assistant Librarian in Metadata Management on 1 September 2019. Sizeka previously worked as Junior Librarian in the Documentation Centre for Music (DOMUS), the special collections division of the SU Music Library. Sizeka’s work included the sorting of collections and, the assigning of metadata.

 

We wish Elizabeth, Yandiswa, Jimmy, Rhoda, Kirchner and Sizeka well in their new roles.

The Library recently purchased Colonial Africa in Official Statistics, 1821-1953 as an online resource. This resource is also referred to as the “African Blue Books, 1821-1953”.

The resource provides rich statistical information about thirteen colonies across Africa during the colonial period. Statistics include the revenue and expenditure, population, education, trade, agriculture, and land of a colony. The Cape of Good Hope is one of the colonies included in the resource, with statistics provided for the period 1821 to 1909. Other colonies covered include Basutoland (Lesotho), Gold Coast (Ghana), East Africa Protectorate (Kenya), Lagos (Nigeria), Nyasaland (Malawi) and Tanganyika (Tanzania).

Colonial Africa in Official Statistics, 1821-1953 will be particularly useful to researchers who, equipped with new statistical tools, explore historical datasets to answer new questions about the African past.

Colonial Africa in Official Statistics, 1821-1953 is available via the Databases A-Z list on the Library website, on campus as well as off campus.

For more information, please contact Naomi Visser at nrv@sun.ac.za or 021 808 4433.

 

Sources:

Governing Africa: British records from African countries under colonial rule. British Online Archives. https://microform-digital.ez.sun.ac.za/boa/series/18/governing-africa-british-records-from-african-countries-under-colonial-rule. Accessed 13 September 2019.

 

On 13 March 2019, the Library and Information Service hosted visiting students from the Institute of Legal Practice Development and Research for training in the use of legal resources. Above, Ms Sibongiseni Mrwashu, Junior Law Librarian (on the right), is seen informing the group about important printed resources.

It pays off to attend Library Research Week. Mr David Okimait did just that! Not only has he had the opportunity to augment his research skills from expert presenters, but David is also the lucky draw winner of a Lenovo TAB7 Essential Tablet. The prize is sponsored by Sabinet. David is the lucky winner out of all attendees of Library Research Week.

On being informed, David expressed that he was excited and thankful to be the winner of this super prize. He also wrote:

The Library Research Week was both a humbling and learning experience for me as I have not seen libraries in other academic institutions go to such lengths to help their library users and researchers optimally utilise the different library resources. It’s my strong belief that my continued interaction and utilisation of the library and several opportunities it offers will immensely shape my research skills.

I once again thank you for the opportunity and I am humbled by the gesture of library partners like Sabinet. …

David is a doctoral student in Sociology. He is pictured above receiving his prize on Friday 31 May from Ilse de Lange (Director: Technical Services & Electronic Resources Management) and Pepler Head (Subject Librarian, and member of the Research Week Committee), at the Stellenbosch University Library.

Congratulations, David, and thank you for taking part in Library Research Week!

During Library Research Week, Glenn Truran, Director of SANLiC (the South African National Library Consortium), shed light on the current situation regarding open access publishing globally.

Glenn reminded the audience that we are still using a centuries-old model for communicating research which, once published, is hidden behind a paywall of annual subscription fees.

About 20 years ago, publishers started to move individual journals into journal packages (the so-called “big deals”) in order to provide libraries access to more electronic journals. This, however, is a double-edged sword. The benefit is that by paying a little bit more libraries suddenly have access to far more electronic resources than they would otherwise have been able to afford. The drawback is that big deals gradually can take up an increasingly larger portion of a library’s collection budget, leaving less funds for other resources.

However, while libraries are struggling, publishers continue to prosper. Glenn illustrated how Elsevier, the biggest publisher in the world, averaged an annual profit of 36,7% over the past 9 years.

In response to this situation, the Open Access movement started some years ago, with the aim of making research available online, free of the requirement to subscribe to a resource to obtain access. Open access did not grow as quickly as everyone had hoped, but in recent years a number of new initiatives have emerged around the globe, all with the intention of forcing publishers to change the way in which research publication is funded. For example, in July 2017 German universities cancelled their subscriptions to Elsevier’s ScienceDirect, and in the subsequent two years Sweden and the University of California did the same.

In September 2018, cOAlition S announced Plan S which requires that, from 2020 onwards, scientific publications that result from research funded by public grants provided by participating national and European research councils and funding bodies must be published in journals or on platforms compliant with open access. In February 2019 cOAlition S welcomed its first African member (the National Science Council of Zambia) and the African Academy of Sciences expressed support for Plan S.

In December 2018, representatives of 37 countries signed the 14^th Berlin Declaration, committing to

• authors retaining their copyright,
• complete and immediate open access, and
• accelerating the progress of open access through transformative agreements that are temporary and transitional, with a shift to full open access within a few years.

According to this statement these agreements should, at least initially, be cost-neutral, with the expectation that economic adjustments will follow as the markets transform. Publishers are expected to work with all members of the global research community to effect complete and immediate open access upon publication.

South Africa was represented by USAf, ASSAf, the NRF, DST, DHET and SANLiC. Afterwards USAf produced a briefing document, which includes a draft roadmap to guide South Africa’s negotiations towards open access to scholarly journals. The document ends with:

The success of the OA2020 campaigns in other national systems is driven by the level of consensus that exists in those scholarly communities. This requires engagement and discussion. There is need for urgency since the negotiations for the next set of contracts have already begun.

In his response to Glenn’s talk, Prof Michael Cherry of the Department of Botany and Zoology at Stellenbosch University agreed with Glenn about the value of and the need for open access publishing, but also lamented the fact that it was expensive and therefore difficult for researchers to afford.

Naomi Visser

 

 

The 7th annual Library Research Week was launched with Prof Johan Fourie, Associate Professor at LEAP (the Laboratory for the Economics of Africa’s Past) as the guest speaker. With his topic From documents to data: how digital tools can transform history research, Prof Fourie indeed showed his audience how new digital tools may turn old unremarkable documents into wonderfully rich historical sources that can reveal new narratives of the past.

According to Prof Fourie, 90% of the data in the world was generated over the last two years and paper often remains the best way to preserve information. We probably have better records of communication between people of the 1700’s than of the 1990’s.

Prof Fourie and his team use historical records that may seem unimportant e.g. inventories (lists of assets when people die), death notices, marriage registers, baptism records, petitions, auctions, slave mortgage rolls, and prisoners’ rolls. They are also using the Household Surveys available in our Library’s Africana section.

By transcribing and analysing the data some interesting trends and information emerge that can assist in understanding and explaining the long-term economic development of Africa’s diverse societies. This information can give an indication of what happened at a specific time in history, although the why cannot always be explained and needs further investigation and research. For example, baptism and marriage records can reveal the number of bridal pregnancies. By using these methods it is possible to dispel deep-rooted misbeliefs and myths about our collective past.

These historical records are handwritten and difficult to read and require manual transcription. In future though, new machine learning technologies will be used to transcribe handwritten records. Records that are available in PDF or XML are easier to read and to analyse and will open new research opportunities.

Libraries and archives play a vital role in preserving these historical documents (of seemingly unimportant nature). They are repositories of information and potential knowledge that can help to uncover the untold stories and histories of the past and give a voice to those often excluded in the past.

Hanlie Strydom

Photographs: Bronwyn Bruton

The Library and Information Service, Stellenbosch University, hosted three visitors from the University of Namibia (UNAM) Libraries on 24 and 25 July 2019.  The purpose of the visit was for UNAM Libraries to benchmark their key and emerging functions against the Library and Information Service, Stellenbosch University. Pictured below (left to right) are the three visitors from UNAM Libraries: Ms Anna Leonard, Librarian: Research Support Services, Mr Bravismore Mumanyi, HOD: ICT and Systems, and Mr Joseph Ndinoshiho, University Librarian. With the visitors, from the Library and Information Service, Stellenbosch University, are: Ms Ellen Tise, Senior Director, Ms Ilse de Lange, Director: Technical Services and Electronic Resources Management, and Ms Mimi Seyffert-Wirth, Deputy Director: Digital Scholarship.