Department of Library Services Newsletter - Issue 1 - 2019
News and Events
Welcome back at the Department of Library Services (DLS) at the beginning of 2019.
Dear Colleagues
I wish to welcome you back at the Department of Library Services (DLS) at the beginning of 2019 – a pivotal year for the Library and the University:
- We start this year with the new Vice Chancellor Prof Kupe;
- We hope to announce the names of the two new DLS deputy directors before the end of January; and
- The DLS will end the year under the leadership of a new director.
We should also remember that we are faced with huge tasks ahead of us. We will switch into a higher gear regarding the 21st century library strategy. Our focus will shift from planning and conceptualizing to implementation. This therefore is the year of major changes at the University leadership level, the DLS top management level and at operational level. All this means that holding on to the “good old days” or entrenching ourselves in our comfort zones will certainly be ineffective as well as a futile strategy.
The internal changes are occurring in the midst of an external unstoppable revolution that is underway in the world. This revolution is enabling organizations to connect everyone, and everything, everywhere, all the time. Organizations now have the capacity to deliver instant, intimate, frictionless value on a large scale (S Denning “The age of agile”. 2018. AMACOM).
Denning (2018) has observed that for some, the revolution is uplifting and beautiful. But for others it is “dark and threatening” (p xiii). I want to believe that in the DLS we only have the former i.e.: those who view this revolution in a positive light.
We will all do well to accept that change is happening around us and that we have no control over this change. We, however, have control over how we harness this change or revolution for the good of the DLS and its users. Let us therefore embrace it, prepare for it and use it for the benefit of the University, the DLS user and ourselves.
It is my wish for each one of us that we can live out the following words by the late Nelson Mandela:
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Let us believe in ourselves. We must always remember that we have the capacity within us to conquer fear and other challenges that these changes taking place in 2019 will throw at us.
By believing in ourselves we will be ensuring that we attain higher levels of success in 2019.
Robert Moropa
DIRECTOR
