Page 31 - Library Annual Report 2019

Exhibitions at the Unisa Florida Library:
• Human Rights Month: March 2019
• Master of Disguises: April 2019
• AFCON 2019: July 2019
• Plants of South Africa in partnership with the Unisa Department of Horticulture (the focus was on Aloes): August 2019
• Heritage Day: September 2019 • Breast Cancer: October 2019
7.7. Ethics workshop for staff
The Library invited the Deputy Director: Ethics Management, Ms Zibu Jafta, to conduct ethics conversations with Library staff. Four sessions (one per Library Directorate) were held on different dates. The ethics conversations were implemented to create an ethics awareness culture, a culture where ethics is made an integral part of our day-to-day operations and conversations; where questions and conversations about ethics are not taboo and where those who see the need to raise institutional ethical issues feel safe to do so.
8. Unisa Library Challenges
8.1. Closure of the Johannesburg Library and Unisa Akaki Library
Two libraries, the Unisa Johannesburg Library and the Unisa Akaki Library in Ethiopia, are currently closed due to their relocations to new premises. At Akaki, the lease contract came to an end in November 2019 and the Unisa Centre is currently operating from the Harmony Hotel is situated at Addis Ababa, which houses the Unisa Ethiopia Centre/Of ce as a temporary premises. The Johannesburg Library is still closed after a year owing to serious defects in the building that led Unisa to vacate the building. The Gauteng Region is leading efforts to nd new premises for this Branch Library within the Johannesburg CBD precinct.
8.2. Aging of the mobile buses
The mobile libraries (buses) are aging and have begun to incur high running and maintenance costs for the Polokwane and Cape Town Regions. To keep the buses running is becoming more costly each year and is a signi cant nancial burden for the Regions. Service was disrupted when the buses broke down, and it can take a long time to get the buses back on the road owing to Unisa’s procurement processes. The planned refurbishment of the Polokwane bus was halted due to the challenge of getting suf cient service providers to provide a quote for the job. To cut costs, the mobile bus services of Cape Town and Polokwane had to cut back drastically on the number of stops and the number of trips, all of which has impacted negatively on the
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