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03 February 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Anja Aucamp
Charlie Molepo, Deputy Director: Research and Scholarly Communications in Library and Information Services

The Interlibrary Loan (ILL) division in the University of the Free State Department of Library and Information Services has been recognised by a global library cooperative, OCLC. 

Peter Collins, Director of Resource Sharing at OCLC, says they chose to enrol the UFS Sasol Library in the OCLC’s Express Digital Delivery Programme because of the exceptional work of the staff in the ILL division.

This American non-profit cooperative organisation supports thousands of libraries in making information more accessible and useful to people around the world. 

Users prioritised for receiving service

According to Charlie Maphuntshane Molepo, Deputy Director: Research and Scholarly Communications in Library and Information Services, ILL staff members Jonas Mogopodi and Shaneulia Nel played a big role in ensuring the consistent delivery of articles and other digital resources within 18 hours or less through OCLC’s WorldShare ILL network.

The university’s ILL division, providing a service to academics and postgraduate students, is one of 1 100 institutions worldwide to participate in the Express Digital Delivery Programme. Only four South African universities have been included in this elite service (including the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, the University of KwaZulu Natal, and the UFS).

“This means that our users will be prioritised when they request articles delivered in an electronic format, receiving their requested information within 18 hours as part of the elite institutions. The normal turnaround time for requesting/receiving items from other institutions is three to seven days for electronic resources, says Molepo.

Shift to virtual learning

Collins explains that the Express Digital Delivery Programme was developed to help libraries respond to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic, tighter budgets, and the shift to more virtual learning. “It will provide the fastest available solution to issue requested articles to your library's users with your current resource-sharing service,” he says.

The service is also provided at no extra cost to the universities as it is included in the current ILL subscription.

Collins believes that no other resource-sharing service can match the speed, reliability, or breadth of materials available through this programme.

Enrolling the UFS Sasol Library’s ILL system in the OCLC’s Express Digital Delivery programme recognises that the UFS library is delivering a world-class service to its users and other partner libraries. It has always been the library's vision to differentiate itself in the service it delivers to the university community,” says Molepo.

News Archive

Three more Kovsie staff members involved in Olympic Games
2012-05-30

 

Dr Derik Coetzee
Photo: Supplied
30 May 2012

The South African men’s hockey team will practice on our Bloemfontein Campus from 28 May to 8 June 2012, and the team count on the assistance of three Kovsies to prepare them for the Olympic Games taking place in London later this year.  

Dr Derik Coetzee, senior lecturer in the Department of Exercise and Sport Science and Head of our High Performance Centre, has been appointed conditioning coach of the team. He will be assisted by Colleen Jones and Riaan Schoeman, also from this department.

The UFS team and Mr Gregg Clark, the team’s coach, will work out a periodisation programme for the team, which will continue until the hockey finals at the Olympic Games. The programme includes the correct exercises, volume, intensity and number of exercise sessions per week.

This is not the first time that Dr Coetzee has assisted sports teams to prepare for important events. In 2007, he was the conditioning coach of the Springbok rugby team that won the World Cup in France. He was also the conditioning coach of the under-21 Springbok team in 2002 that won the Junior World Cup Tournament. 

Dr Coetzee says it is a challenge to ensure that the team performs well at the Olympic Games. “The joy on the faces of the coach and players when they qualified in Japan cannot be described because many people thought they would not qualify.”

With the addition of Dr Coetzee, Ms Jones and Mr Schoeman, a total of six staff members from the UFS will be involved with the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games. The other three are:

  • Dr Louis Holtzhausen, Head of the university’s Department of Sports and Exercise Medicine, has been selected as team doctor for the more than 300 athletes that will represent South Africa at this year’s Olympic Games (in London).
  • Ms Ebeth Grobbelaar, Assistant Director of the South African Testing Laboratory for Prohibited Substances at the UFS, was invited to be involved in the Drugs Control Centre in the unit against prohibited substances which will test sportsmen and -women during the games.
  • Ms Hetsie Veitch, Head of the Unit for Students with Disabilities, has been invited to be a member of the Classification Panel at the final USA Paralympic athletics trials.

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