Karin de Jager

• PhD
• University of Cape Town

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how an innovation in the University Management Information System was leveraged to incorporate library data by an initially sceptical strategic management team. The rationale was to extract evidence of correlations between library use and student achievement. This kind of information is of particular...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore from a number of points of view the perceptions of mainly undergraduate students at the University of Cape Town (UCT) about the value they derive from visiting the physical library. Design/methodology/approach – Data from different investigations were assembled to derive a composite view of undergr...

This article attempts to demonstrate how libraries may assess the impact of the Lyon Declaration by using the recently developed standard; “ ISO 16439 Information and Documentation: methods and procedures for measuring the impact of libraries ” . According to the Lyon Declaration on Access to information and Development (2014), the right to i...

The project “We are all on the same page” was launched by the South African Library for the Blind (SALB) in April 2010 to create access to libraries and reading material for the visually impaired in impoverished rural areas of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. A decentralised approach was adopted, by locating new services in established public libr...

Objective measures of the impact of library services are difticult and in view of some writers even impossible to obtain. As part of a major investigation into the support provided by the University of Cape Town Library Service for both the studying and research activities at the university, an investigation was launched to establish objectively wh...

To launch a major research project into the state of information literacy at the five institutions of tertiary education in the western Cape, the INFOLIT project of the Cape Library Cooperative (CALICO) appointed a Research Team to conduct the investigation. The first part of the investigation consisted of an attempt to obtain an operational defini...

Electronic resources represent a large portion of many libraries' information resources. This paper sets out how and why international and South African librarians keep statistics for electronic resources, which statistics are kept, and what the issues and concerns are with regard to statistics for electronic resources. The responses were very simi...

This is a report and evaluation of a project specifically intended to enhance mid-career librarians’ understanding of the research process, to encourage their willingness and ability to support research in their own libraries and to motivate them to participate in the knowledge production enterprise in their own institutions. Outcomes of the projec...

Web users are becoming more critical of the web sites they use. This paper evaluates the information architecture of the academic library web site at the University of Cape Town with more of a focus on the usability testing of the University web site. Two approaches to evaluation were completed to evaluate the library web site. Firstly, a formal us...

Students today are faced with many difficulties in finding information, because new technology makes information available in different, mainly electronic, formats. For this information to be accessed and used properly, students are required to be information literate. It is a duty of today's libraries to equip students with the necessary informati...

Following the publication of the report of the Public and Community Libraries Inventory of South Africa (Paclisa), an issue for further investigation was raised given the difficulties that many libraries had experienced in completing the questionnaire. A Working Group on Public Library Statistics (WGPLS) was established to work on the drafting of a...

The paper analyzes problems of theorizing and evaluating a short series of ‘Library Academy’ events within a Carnegie Corporation-funded project to improve library service to researchers in six South African universities.

This paper focuses on the principles proposed in the "Library and Information Services Transformation Charter", exploring the extent to which two public/community libraries in the Western Cape Province of South Africa are already engaged in charter activities. Interviews were conducted with directors of the library services who identified libraries...

This article considers the problematic question of student plagiarism, its causes and manifestations, and how it is addressed in academic environments. A literature survey was conducted to establish how higher education institutions approach these issues, and a twofold investigation was conducted at the University of Cape Town. Data was gathered fr...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the use made of the Research Commons during its first year of operation in an attempt to establish whether it actually provides a genuinely new and different service from the point of view of the end‐users, and whether a facility such as this could indeed be presumed to support research and enhance re...

Mpumalanga Provincial Library Services, South Africa, offers public library services in a largely rural `new' province created in 1996. Many of the libraries are in isolated areas and have to meet the very diverse needs of their communities. This paper reports the results of an information literacy intervention designed for public library workers i...

Recent demands for evidence of quality and the impact of library services on teaching and research require libraries to demonstrate accountability and responsiveness to a divergent range of user needs. In 2004 the Committee for Higher Education Librarians in South Africa (CHELSA) recognized a need for an agreed set of criteria, standards and models...

While libraries still spend much time and money on building and maintaining catalogues according to accepted international standards, there is considerable evidence that users are inclined to bypass libraries and their catalogues in their search for information and to rely solely on information provided by web search engines. This paper discusses t...

States that in 2001 the University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries opened a new and integrated learning centre based on the “information commons” concept fairly common in the USA today and first encountered at the Leavey Library of the University of Southern California. Discusses the results of a series of interviews with student assistants working in...

An investigation was launched at the University of Cape Town (UCT) with the aim of determining measurable competencies in students' information literacy at tertiary level educational institutions. It is increasingly clear that students need both technological skills and information competencies in order to access and employ a wide range of electron...

One of the most important products of the academic endeavour is students’ success in their courses of study. However, despite various attempts over the years, it has seldom been possible to demonstrate conclusively that undergraduate library use significantly contributes to student success. Four studies which document improvement in academic perfor...

This paper presents an overview of the development of current practice in information literacy education in tertiary institutions in South Africa. The policy framework affecting information literacy is examined from multiple perspectives. An examination of the literature identifies key concerns that are used in the compilation of a small survey ins...

Contributes to the Global Information Virtual Conference by examining training needs in the higher education sector which will be engendered by the information revolution in the developing world. Focuses on the situation in South Africa, and considers a number of social processes that are driving developments in higher education.

Students from historically disadvantaged educational systems have not been exposed to information technologies and information sources. The School of Librarianship at the University of Cape Town has recognised the need for information literacy training that would be appropriate for students from the developing world. It is therefore offering a sing...

Reports the results of a study at the main library of Cape Town University, to investigate complaints about ageing book stock and declining resources and observations that many books were hardly circulating. The study aimed to establish the proportion of the books in the library which were actively circulating and whether the accepted phenomenon of...

Edited version of a paper presented at the conference: 'Information for the nation: appropriate technologies for information transfer' of the South African Institute for Library and Information Science in September 1992. For many South African librarians, appropriate technology means affordable technology. Part of the library community in the count...

Many indicators of academic library effectiveness have been accepted and implemented, but it is clear from the literature that measuring objectively the impact of academic library services has remained an intractable problem.While it is recognized that the value of library services is a multidimensional construct that will not easily be captured by...

In recent years, librarians, regardless of the type of library in which they work, have become increasingly focused on evaluation and assessment. There are a number of motivations for this shift: a need to improve the quality of services offered, a respond to calls for accountability, a push to position the library as more of an institution player,...