Dr Bawa opened the meeting by reminding representatives to give feedback to their staff. In this post I will provide an overview of what has been discussed in the meeting, as well as the outcomes. Please note that in depth information relating to specific departments will be provided by the Team Leaders.
Visiting of campuses and other library departments
Dr Bawa will schedule visits to campus libraries as well as other library departments for Friday afternoons. These visits will take place on a rotational basis and will start as from June, as her diary for May is already full. You will be informed of the visits scheduled for APK in due course.
Progress regarding the Library Infrastructure
SWC - Already has a Learning Commons and plans to establish a Research Commons is developing well.
APB - The computer labs currently situated within the library will be moving out. Additional funding has been acquired in order to improve current air-conditioners.
DFC - Structural changes to accommodate the the Archives at this campus has started. A bid has been made to get additional funding to upgrade this library and the outcome of this is expected in June.
APK - More than halve of the number of users of UJ are making use of the APK library. The current facilities is inadequate to accommodate the number of clients. Short term planning is to make the facilities look better - medium term to establish a Learning and Research commons and long term to improve facilities.
Wi-Fi
The rolling out of Wi-Fi in all libraries will be completed by August this year. This should then also alleviate the pressure on the usage of library computers.
Library Governance
The sole purpose of the library is to assist staff and students in teaching, learning and research. In order to serve the needs of our clients, input from them is of utmost importance. In order to achieve this, Dr Bawa suggested to establish:
- A committee consisting of Faculty Librarians, Faculty library representatives, Director Clients Services and Campus Librarians. The idea of this committee will be to discuss library related issues and also address the spending of the information budget.
- An advisory committee for the archives.
- Friends of the library: which will be people who are willing to donate either time or money.
Internally, Dr Bawa has one on one discussion with all directors once a week and with all directors together every second week. Once a month, she has a meeting with all directors, campus librarians, HR and Finance.
The following committees will continue:
Systems Committee: known also as the IUGTT. Meetings will be held with current members four times a year. Sub-committees will be established for the role out of specific modules.
Quality Committee: also known as the Quality Task Team. The focus of this committee will be doing the LibQual evaluation with clients every two years and to improve the outcomes. Also to do benchmarking against other academic libraries and improve out rankings.
Collection Development Committee: Will function the same as previously, but will now be chaired by Mrs. Sander.
Risk and Disaster Committee: This committee will be headed by Mrs. Sander and Hettie. Their function is to facilitate training regarding disaster issues and ensure compliance to health and safety issues.
Bindery Committee: will function the same as last year.
Forums: This includes: Circ, ILL & ICL, Info Services and Shelving - will continue as last year, but champions of the forums will be held accountable for their performance.
Disaster Recovery Plan
Hettie is working with Protection Services and Health and Safety to develop a disaster recovery plan. Staff will be informed and trained accordingly and the first evacuation drill will be done within the next 6 months.
Important dates
On 17 May it is World Information Society Day and we will use this opportunity to launch Encore - more details on this will follow in due course
In August we will celebrate Women's month with the theme: 100 fabulous women. We will use this opportunity to formally open the new archives on DFC.
In closing, I would like to remind you that this is just a summary - for detailed info will be communicated to you via your Team Leaders.
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