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UFS library services benchmarks with Silicon Valley-based university

20 January 2021 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied

Dr Anamika_web read more — Dr Anamika Megwalu, an assessment and engineering librarian at San Jose State University in California in the United States (US), addressed a group of staff from the UFS Department of Library and Information Services.

Dr Anamika Megwalu, an assessment and engineering librarian at San Jose State University in California in the United States (US), pointed out that building a lasting and sustainable relationship with departments and upholding quality in the library environment is key.

She addressed a group of colleagues from our Department of Library and Information Services (LIS) on 25 November 2020.

Tight budgets call for proper assessment

Her presentation, titled Library Collection Development, was aimed at sharing her experience of working in the collection development and liaison sections within the LIS ecosystem.

“This librarian-cum-computer science lecturer has the benefit of both worlds, having worked in private and public academic libraries such as Stafford University and City University of New York respectively,” says Monde Madiba, Deputy Director: Collection Development and Management of LIS at the University of the Free State.

San Jose, the oldest public university in the western US, is located in the heart of Silicon Valley, serving more than 33 000 students enrolled in 10 colleges and 67 departments.

According to Dr Megwalu, the tight budgets that public academic libraries such as San Jose receive, call for proper assessment of library collections in order to deal with the constraints. She emphasised the need to “uphold quality within the constraints”.

Moving from collecting information to creating information

Some of the ideas that Dr Megwalu shared for conducting assessment and collection development, includes the following:

• Change the library’s image from being a collector of information to being the creator of information.

• Consider the size of the different departments: some may need little or no attention due to size, while others may need close attention due to intensive research by lecturers within the department.

• Identify gaps and focus your attention on filling them with the relevant collection.

• Make sure that you are aware of the accreditation period of different programmes, since the role that academic libraries play in collection development is recognised by such agencies.

• Build a lasting and sustainable relationship with departments. This includes knowing the lecturers’ research interests, assisting the newly established departments, attending free webinars, and participating in student activities.

• Ensure equal distribution of the budget and ensure that everyone has equal access to it.

• Create a timetable where everyone knows when to submit requests for prescribed books. Make it clear that it takes approximately three weeks on average for ordered books to be delivered.

• Develop department-specific collection development policies.

• Be ready to move with the times, e.g. replace DVDs in favour of video-streaming services.

• Shift towards a 100% electronic reference collection.

• Consider having an electronic version for popular but currently in-print collections.

• Develop an indigenous collection based on the contributions of communities around the university.

• Create a portal for open educational resources (OERs) from participating institutions across the globe.

“Dr Megwalu’s presentation was not only informative but a testimony that collection development and assessment are dynamic and driven by passion and love,” says Madiba.

News Archive

Protection of Information bill- opinions from our experts

2011-11-28

Prof. Hussein Solomon
Senior Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of the Free State.

In recent years, given their failure to effectively govern, the ANC has become increasingly defensive. These defensive traits have become particularly acute in light of the various corruption scandals that members of the ruling party involve themselves in.

Given the fact that for now they are assured of an electoral majority (largely on account of their anti-apartheid credentials), coupled with the fact that they have managed to make parliament a rubber stamp of the executive as opposed to holding the executive accountable, it is the media which has increasingly held the ruling party to account by exposing such corruption and incompetence in government.

The passing of the information bill, therefore, is not merely an attack on the media, but an attack on the pivotal issue of accountability. Without accountability, there can be no democracy.

By defining national interest broadly, by refusing to accept a public interest clause in the bill, the ANC increasingly shows its disdain to South Africa's constitution and its citizens.

More importantly, as former Minister of Intelligence and ANC stalwart Ronnie Kasrils pointedly makes clear, the ANC is also betraying its own noble struggle against the odious apartheid regime. It was the media which played a key role in exposing apartheid's excesses, it is the same media which is coming under attack by the heirs of PW Botha's State Security Council - Minister of State Security Siyabong Cwele and his security apparatchiks whose mindsets reflect more Stalin's Gulag's than the values of the Freedom Charter.

The passing of this bill is also taking place at a time when journalists have had their phones attacked, where the judiciary has been deliberately undermined and parliament silenced.

Democrats beware!

Prof. Johann de Wet

Chairperson: Department of Communication Science

The ANC’s insistence on passing the Protection of State Information Bill in its current form and enforcing it by law, means that the essence of our democratic state and the quality of life of every citizen is at stake.

Yes, our freedom as academics, researchers, mass media practitioners and citizens comes into play. Freedom implies the right to choose and is, along with equality, an underlying principle which helps make democracy happen. While the South African state needs to protect (classify) information which could threaten its security and/or survival, the omission of a public interest clause in the Bill at this stage effectively denies a citizen the right to freedom of information.

Freedom of information, along with press freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association and religious freedom, are essential to democracy. These freedoms are granted because they conform to basic liberal ideas associated with (Western) democracy and which resonate with South Africa’s liberal constitution, such as (1) belief in the supreme value of the individual (and thus not of the state); (2) belief that the individual has natural rights (rights which belong to all human beings by nature – such as the right to life and to control government)) which exist independently of government, and which ought to be protected by and against government; and (3) recognition of the supreme value of the individual.

One wonders how many cases of South African government corruption and mismanagement would have been uncovered by investigative journalists over the past number of years if this Bill in its current form was on the statute books. This Bill represents a backward step from the promise of democracy of having an informed public. The former National Party government had similar laws in place and one does not want to go there again. The infamous Information Scandal in South Africa of some thirty years ago, or Muldergate as it has come to be known, reminds one of what governments can do when it works clandestinely.

What South Africans need, is more information on what government structures are doing and how they are doing it with taxpayers’ money, not less information. While information in itself does not equal communication or dialogue, it is an indispensable part thereof, and the need for dialogue based on verifiable information is urgent for meeting vexed challenges facing South African communities. Academics in all fields of specialisation are constantly in need of untainted information to pursue answers and/or offer solutions to where South Africa should be moving in all spheres of life.

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