Farewell

We say goodbye to the following staff member and wish each and everyone of them the very best in all their future endeavors.

 

Ms Hilda Kriel retired from the Library Exco team at the end of November 2018.

Hilda Kriel’s farewell message....

If I were to write my memoirs, I would call them My Symphony of Grace.

I was born in Pretoria, but when I was two years old, we moved to Harrismith, a beautiful town in the Eastern Free State. I am the second child and have three siblings, two sisters and a brother. Both our parents have passed away but we are still a very close knit family. I had a very happy childhood and believe that that gave me a solid foundation.

I matriculated in 1971 and attended the Rand Afrikaans University where I studied Library and Information Science under the best South African library scholars of the time, e.g. PC Coetzee, Prof Zastrau, Prof Boon and a very young Rolf Tönsing. I obtained my B.Bibl. (Ed) and B.Bibl Honours in 1976 and 1977 respectively. In 2011 I obtained my Master’s’ degree in Organizational Leadership at the Regent University, Virginia, USA.

Although the longest period of my professional career was spent at the Department of Library Services (DLS), at the University of Pretoria, I also worked in public libraries. I established the children’s library section in Westonaria Public Library and also worked in the Welkom Public Library.

My long career at Merensky started in 1986 when I was appointed as one of the first hourly staff members. I worked on Level 5. There were no staff offices, we all had desks around the atrium and were very visible to clients. The current offices on the floors were all study cubicles for postgraduate students and they were allocated to specific students or lecturers. I still remember how nervous I was on the first evening but Piet de Kock was there to welcome me and he stayed a mentor until he retired. I never did a Dialog search without him because it was nerve-wrecking to see the dollars rolling and making a mistake literally cost thousands of rands. I was very relieved when databases such as Science Direct and others replaced the Dialog system.

Taking into account that I am giving away my age, I’ll make a few confessions to you:

• The first fax machine, which replaced the telex system, was mind boggling. At that stage the Interlending team and circulation were housed in the north-eastern corner of Level 3. Gerda Ehlers was head of the Interlending team and the staff took turns to work on the fax machine, it was such a privilege and saved a lot of time. I also remember that she as head of Interlending and myself as the head of Circulation, had to work out time tables for the teams and submit them to Annie Pienaar. Gerda was extremely good at it, I not so good. I always, somehow, convinced her to take my turn as well.
• I can recall the first time we saw the internet at work. Prof Gerryts took some of us to the CSIR to watch how one computer connected to another abroad and another and another. We then had a lecture on how they managed to create the network which became the World Wide Web. It was fascinating stuff (at that stage).
• The switch from dead terminals to desktop computers at the circulation desk, was also an outstanding event.

The University of Pretoria and the DLS in particular, provided me with fantastic opportunities to grow as a person and develop my professional career. For that I shall be eternally grateful. I was actively involved in many projects, such as the establishment of the Learning Centre, GIBS Resource Centre, and the Client Service Centre. I was part of the evaluation and implementation team for Erudite, Millenium and WorldShare. My participation in and being project leader for numerous building projects kindled my interest in library spaces. I recall two renovation projects on Level 3 - the establishment of the Study Centre and the Carnegie project - as well as several projects at the branch libraries.

When I was a young librarian, we regularly organised conferences. Although it was very hard work and was done in addition to our regular duties, it provided opportunities for team work, networking and lots of fun. Many of the older colleagues will remember how hard we worked for the IATUL Conference in 1998 and the Frontiers, Fundamentals and Futures for Knowledge Workers: Energizing Knowledge Flow through Communities of Practice Conference in 2002. In 2001 we organised the conference, Beyond e: Frontiers, Fundamentals and Futures. I think it was at that conference that a number of us disrupted Prof Johannes Cronjé’s presentation with pro-library posters as the message of his presentation was that he as a researcher did not need the library. I still remember the surprised look on his face – but it was all done in good spirit.

Seth Godin said: “Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” I always used all my leave days – I became exhausted from hard work and raising four wonderful children as a single parent. But I can honestly say that it was never necessary to use my leave to escape from my work! After all these years, I am still excited to come to work in the morning, facing new challenges every day and being stimulated by clients and colleagues and the university environment per se.

An orchestra needs many different instruments to perform a symphony. The same is true of my life’s Symphony of Grace. Each one of you played an important part in the allegro (fast), adagio (slow) scherzo (dance) and rondo (with a refrain) parts of my life. No one was sent into my life by chance. All of you were part of the grace bestowed on me. For that I thank you and salute you.

Looking back on my life, which one inevitably does when one retires, I can see God’s grace like a golden thread through my life. He is the great conductor and although I am sad to leave the DLS, I am also extremely excited about the new season waiting for me. Under His baton, many more allegros, adagios, scherzos and rondos will follow, with current and new orchestra members.

May God bless the Department of Library Services and everyone of you.

Hilda Kriel

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Dr Heila Pienaar retired from the Library Exco team at the end of December 2018.

To innovate, or not to innovate ...

I started work in the Department of Library Services, UP, on 1 June 1988.  It was my third job and I already had more than 11 years’ experience in the profession. Although I held several different job titles in my more than 30 years in the Library, the content did not change much. It was always about strategic innovation.

Innovative projects

UP projects

The UP Portal was initially meant to be an academic portal supporting the research workflow. (Un)fortunately the then Director of UP IT saw the potential of the portal for giving access to administrative functions. The research portal could have been one of the first Virtual Research Environments (VRE’s) internationally, but it was not to be.

The Library took leadership on campus with the development of a competency-based performance management system. I was the secretary for the UP-task team that developed the first performance management system. Over the years this system has changed quite a bit.

Library projects

I am only going to list some of these projects:

- Digitisation

- Institutional repository (DSpace)

- Open Access (APC’s)

- Web design training for information specialists

- Social Media

- Overdrive

- RDM

- Makerspace

Collaboration with the CSIR Information Service

Dr Martie van Deventer and I started to collaborate on various projects after meeting as members of the Ford Foundation project on e-Research Services for South Africa. Our collaboration focussed on e-research, digital scholarship, RDM and open science/research. We organised several digital scholarship conferences in collaboration with the University of Botswana and did groundbreaking investigations into VRE’s and RDM. We are also the founding members of NeDICC CoP (Network of Digital Information and Curation Communities).

Academic activities

My main academic activity was my involvement with the Carnegie funded M.IT degree and CPD course for African librarians. In March 2019 there will be a UP-Carnegie conference for more of a hundred of the best students and I am co-responsible for the 2-day refresher workshop at the beginning of the conference. I am also study leader and external examiner for Master and Doctoral studies from time to time. I also review academic articles for professional journals. As part of my innovation role I presented many papers and wrote a few articles.

Strategic management

My responsibility for the Library’s strategic management was perhaps my most important (and often most invisible) contribution to the Library’s well-being. I started to play this role almost from the beginning. The e-Strategy was perhaps the most influential at the time. I see the strong focus on the client as the most important long-term change because of the strong emphasis placed on the client by Library strategies. Many consultants came and went, but in the end, somebody had to make sense of their advice for the Library. I remember one consultant’s focus on teamwork, another one pushed the Balanced Scorecard and most recently we were introduced to the Blue Ocean philosophy. I co-ordinated the focus areas leaders’ implementation plans that must move the Library to a Blue Ocean position.

In conclusion

I want to emphasise that no woman is an island. I could not have done what I did without the collaboration of other people, both inside and outside the Library. I sincerely wish you the best for the future and that there always will be high tolerance and support for innovation and innovative people.

Dr Heila Pienaar

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Dr Anette Ingram retired from the Library Technical Services at the end of December 2018.

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Liana Viljoen and Sonty Monakhisi are retiring from the Law Library at the end of January 2019. Both Liana and Sonty have spent many years in the Law Library and will indeed be greatly missed by students and staff members. We wish them both long and happy retirements! Thank you for all you have done over the many years.

Shirley Gilmore

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Miss Gertrud Meyer will be retiring from the Library Technical Services at the end of February 2019.