Page 112 - UniZulu Annual Report 2020

HONORARY DOCTORATE AWARDS
To commemorate the University’s 60th anniversary, six honorary doctorates were conferred. The details appear in the Vice-Chancellor’s report in this Annual Report.
LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SERVICES
The University’s LIS, under the Directorship of Ms Laila Vahed had 45 full-time permanent staff members during 2020, which included three appointments and two retirements. LIS includes a main library at the KwaDlangezwa campus and a branch library on the Richards Bay campus. Facilities at the KwaDlangezwa campus library included, inter alia, 14 seminar rooms, 80 study cubicles, an e-classroom, two e-labs, Info Cellar, Research Commons reserved exclusively for master’s and doctoral students and researchers, a conference room and a committee room. The seating capacity in the Library is 1 750. The Richards Bay campus library, albeit small, is very well utilised and provides access to all the e-resources that are subscribed to, which are also accessible by authenticated staff and students off campus from any remote location.
UNIZULU LIS participates actively in the Committee for Higher Education Libraries of South Africa (CHELSA), the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC), the eastern seaboard Association of Libraries (esAL) as well as the Library and Information Association of South Africa(LiASA), among others. The Director currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of SANLiC.
Materials Budget
The materials budget for 2020 amounted to R21.5 million.
Table 41: Electronic Resources Downloaded
COVID-19 Impact and Issues
From the start of lockdown in March 2020, the Library took a proactive approach to ensure that LIS continued as fully and as efficiently as possible. To this end, several communications were sent out via UNIZULU notices and direct communications to some academics. Library staff also prepared a communication about COVID-19 that was circulated via multiple mailers. Remote library services were available from the start of lockdown and continued through lockdown levels 4 and 3.This included, inter alia, the following:
This amount was apportioned as follows, noting that a distribution formula is used to calculate the Faculty disbursements:
Table 39: Materials Budget
Print Journals
R3 000 000
E-resources
R11 000 000
Faculty of Arts
R896 416
Faculty of Education
R437 785
Faculty of Commerce Admin and Law
R521 172
Faculty of Science and Agriculture
R1 136 156
Faculty Reserve Funds
R208 469
Library General
R4 300 000
Total
R21 500 000
The amount allocated to print journals purchased 201 titles, while 93 electronic resource packages were purchased, resulting in subscriptions above 35 million individual titles.
Library Holdings
Holdings at UNIZULU Library 2020:
Table 40: Library Holdings
Electronic Resources
The following table reflects article downloads per database for 2020.
• Responding to queries via direct email or the ‘Call a Librarian’ feature via the Library webpage. A roster was put into place that included all professional Library staff who responded in real-time to user queries using this feature
• Interacting with users and colleagues via email, WhatsApp calls and video calls
• Organising remote access to the Library Catalogue, which is accessible via the Library webpage
• Providing online electronic resources through the proxy server OpenAthens
CAMPUS
VOLUMES 2020
KwaDlangezwa Campus Library
327 930
Richards Bay Campus Library
2 250
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
TOTAL
12 794
43 277
12 367
9 961
11 709
9 983
11 178
10 042
9 983
12 718
22 965
12 373
179 350
UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND ANNUAL REPORT 2020
1 1 0