“Re-inventing African libraries with e-books” Seminar at the University of Johannesburg

On the 14^th of September 2018, the University of Johannesburg (UJ) held an e-book seminar in their Kingsway Library. The theme of the seminar was “Re-inventing African libraries with e-books”. The aim was to further explore e-books and the expansion of e-book collections in academic libraries.  .

There were a variety of presentations, ranging from the management of e-books in libraries (as experienced by NWU), e-book usage at the University of Ghana, Open Access and e-books, today’s generation’s perceptions and challenges with regards to e-books, and how to get students to read and use e-books.

The seminar was attended by Marguerite Nel, Chrissie Boeyens, Martha de Waal, Carin Bezuidenhout, Pfano Makhera and Maritz Visser from the DLS. Maritz also delivered a paper at this seminar. His presentation, titled “Vanquishing dragons: overcoming challenges in providing access to e-books”, likened e-book administrators to modern day dragon slayers and compared e-book related challenges to dragons that needed to be slain or tamed. He gave a brief overview of UP’s e-book holding statistics and of some challenges experienced in managing e-books, as well as strategies to approach them. Maritz also argued that e-books held a number of advantages for users. He concluded by providing some useful tips on managing e-books more efficiently.

From left to right: Chrissie Boeyens, Marguerite Nel, Martha de Waal, Maritz Visser and Carin Bezuidenhout