Farewell

We say goodbye to Ms Zani Swart and Mrs Martha de Waal and wish them the very best in all their future endeavors.

The time has come for Zani and Martha to spend the rest of their lives with their loving family and friends.  We wish them much joy and happiness as they begin a new chapter in their lives and the best for the future.

Zani Swart retired end July 2019

Martha de Waal retired end October 2019

Farewell message from Martha:-

My 10-year journey at the Department of Library Services (DLS) started with my appointment as Programme Coordinator for the Library Leadership Development Project (2009-2012), which was made possible with a grant of $1m from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Working with Ujala Satgoor, as Programme Manager, and getting to know 120 middle to senior library managers from all over the country and from different library sectors, was a beautiful fulfilling experience and certainly one of the highlights of my career of more than 40 years. Eighteen staff members from the Department of Library Services graduated from the Library Leadership Academies, with a renewed sense of creating change within their institution and in the profession. As part of the Library Leadership grant agreement, the Carnegie Centre for Library Leadership and Training was officially opened on level 3 of the Merensky Library, in November 2011.

For the past 7 years, I had the opportunity to lead the Cataloguing Team of the DLS. Together we journeyed through a number of changes and new developments in the area of bibliographic control. Some of those included the change from AACR2 to Resource Description and Access (RDA) in 2014, and the migration from the Millennium Integrated Library System to the new library services platform, WorldShare Management Services (WMS) in April 2016. The changes necessarily involved a transformation of the library catalogue (from the conventional library OPAC to a discovery tool), and at the same time expecting from the cataloguing professionals to change cataloguing practices and learn new skills. I can proudly say that DLS Cataloguing Team stepped up to every new challenge, to continue in providing timely access to all library materials.  Future challenges would include BIBFRAME as the new bibliographic data model and the use of Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) to identify linked data resources.

Cataloguing is a discipline that encounters change on a regular basis. Because of staff reductions along with technological and format changes it remains crucial that the Cataloguing Team has the support of Management to continue in maintaining a high level of professional proficiency.

I would like to thank the CATS Team (Raesibe Kekana, Mercia Moreana, Fay Fabris-Rotelli, Marinda Maritz, Annah Molefe and Emely Mabala) for their support, professional attitude and continued commitment in an ever-changing environment. We have reached many milestones and it has been an honour to work with a winning team! I wish you all the best in your future endeavours and in the new professional roles that you will have to adopt in order to stay relevant.

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in various continuing professional development initiatives during the past ten years. These include the Associates Program of the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs at the University of Illinois; the University of Alberta’s international relations program, Libraries Linked: Professional Library Immersion Program; as well as many programmes and events as offered by the Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA).

I wish you only the very best for the future!

Martha de Waal