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Stellenbosch University Library officially launched its 13th annual Library Research Week on Monday, 12 May 2025, with a hybrid opening session that brought together staff, students, and researchers both in-person and online. The event set the tone for a thought-provoking and inspiring week of engagement, learning, and collaboration under the theme: “Let's Partner for Research Impact." Opening the session, Ms Ellen R. Tise, Senior Director of Library and Information Service, welcomed all attendees to this flagship event in the University's academic calendar. Reflecting on the theme, she emphasized that impactful research is inherently collaborative—requiring partnerships across disciplines, institutions, sectors, and borders. Thereafter, Professor Moyo officially opened the Library Research Week 2025, acknowledging the efforts of the Library team for their consistent efficiency and innovation. Highlighting the importance of investing in the future of education, Prof Moyo stated, “Library Research Week plays a vital role in recognising the library's critical role in the University's research ecosystem." A Powerful Opening Keynote The 2024 Templeton Prize awardee, Professor Gobodo-Madikizela opened her keynote by noting her close collaboration with the Library during Orientation Week and expressing appreciation for being part of Library Research Week. Her work, she shared, is grounded in encounters—a central theme across her publications on trauma, empathy, intersubjectivity, forgiveness, and historical memory. Drawing from personal stories, including a moment in 2020 when she was the target of a racist slur, followed by affirming encounters with others, she explored how identity is often shaped by the perceptions of others. “So often, we behave as others call us," she reflected. “But the refusal is always available to us—to claim who we truly are, not what others decide for us."
She is currently developing a scholarly paper that uses these everyday encounters as a framework for knowledge production, challenging traditional academic boundaries. In closing, she offered a powerful statement pointing out that “The failure to recognise humanity at all—is evil. As embodied beings, we are exposed to others. And while this allows for connection and desire, it also raises the potential for cruelty. It is within this space that our work, our research, and our humanity must reside." During the Week, other sessions focussed on conducting research with a decoloniality lense, evidence-based synthesis, AI tools for research and writing, reference management, research data management, open science and many more. The programme closed on Friday with a focus on “Researchers as Human Beings", exploring themes of well-being, social impact, and collective care in academia. The story of Dr Jason Samuels, CEO of GreenX Engineering, was particularly inspiring. He shared about how his PhD research led to an entrepreneurial start-up under the aegis of Innovus, the company that supports SU staff and students to identify, protect, manage and commercialise their inventions and intellectual property for the benefit of society. Dr Samuels' venture seeks to transform schools into energy hubs for community upliftment, a practical demonstration of research translated into impact.
For
more details on the launch, click on:
Library Research Week opening challenges traditional academic paradigms
Sakhile Mngomezulu and Theresa Schoeman
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A vacancy exists in the Library and Information Service:
Administrative Officer B1: Makerspace (Post Level 11.1) (Stellenbosch Campus)
To apply, please see: BIB/114/0525
Closing date: 6 June 2025
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Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service invites you to the third Open Access webinar in its #BeOpenAccessSmart series.
“Read and Publish Agreements", commonly referred to as Transformational Agreements (TAs) in South Africa, continue to play a significant role in shifting traditional subscription-based publishing models toward open access. These agreements often cover Article Processing Charges (APCs), enabling open availability of scholarly content that would otherwise be locked behind paywalls. Join us as we explore what lies ahead in the evolving open access landscape—beyond the boundaries of Transformational Agreements—to discuss emerging models, persistent challenges, and new opportunities for equitable scholarly communication. In this webinar, Professor Astrid Söderbergh Widding will share insights from the work of the Beyond Transformative Agreements Group, a task group within the Swedish Bibsam Consortium, which sought to guide Sweden away from unsustainable TA models. She will highlight the group's key findings, the challenges faced, and the opportunities that lie ahead on the journey toward open science. Professor Astrid Söderbergh Widding is the immediate past Rector of Stockholm University (2013–2025), Chair of the Board of the Nobel Foundation, and Chair of the Beyond Transformative Agreements Working Group in Sweden. More about her can be found on her Wikipedia page. Date: 19 June 2025 Time: 12:00-13:00
SAST | CAT | CEST | 6:00-7:00 EDT/EST Speaker: Professor Astrid Söderbergh Widding
Register here for the webinar
Registered participants will receive a Teams meeting link and reminder emails.
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| Exciting news! We are pleased to announce that EndNote 25 is now available to all staff and students. This latest version offers enhanced reference management features to streamline your research process.
Join us on Wednesday, 14 May at 14:00 for an introductory session on EndNote 25's new features. Keep an eye out for an updated Library Guide. In the meantime, you can read more about the new features here.
EndNote 25 can be downloaded from the SU Software HUB.
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A vacancy exists in the Library and Information Service:
Senior Systems Administrator: Linux (Post Level 8 - Stellenbosch Campus)
To apply, please see: BIB/079/0425
Closing date: 12 May 2025 |
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A vacancy exists in the Library and Information Service:
Manager: Research Data Services (Post Level 8 - Stellenbosch Campus)
To apply, please see: BIB/051/0325
Closing date: 7 April 2025 |
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These workshops are aimed at postgraduate students, emerging researchers and academic staff and the focus will be on the research process. The sessions vary in length depending on the subject matter but cover a wide range of subjects related to the postgraduate research journey. | Introduction to Microsoft Power BI
The workshop will be a hands-on introduction to Power BI, available for free through SU's subscription to Microsoft 365. Participants will learn the following: - How to install the desktop application and connect to Microsoft Excel
- Start visualising data easily with an extensive library of data visualisations.
- How to build reports and dashboards
Date: 8 April Time: 11:00 – 13:00
Staff register here Students register here | How to conduct a literature review
In this webinar, participants will learn what a literature review is and the different types of literature reviews. They will learn best practices for conducting a literature review by working with their topic, structuring the literature review and how to critically analyse literature. Date: 8 April Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here | EndNote for reference management
EndNote 21 offers various services, including reference management, organising and annotation of PDF documents and collaboration. In this session, we will show you how to download and install EndNote and how to set up your account.
Date: 9 April Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Staff register here Students register here | EndNote for reference management at Medicine & Health Sciences
EndNote 21 offers various services, including reference management, organising and annotation of PDF documents and collaboration. In this session, we will show you how to download and install EndNote and how to set up your account. Date: 9 April Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Staff register here Students register here | Overview of software for effective data analysis and data visualisation
An overview of tools and free software for data analysis and data visualisation will be presented. These tools are useful for statistical analysis, visualisation, mapping, data cleaning and the digital humanities. Date: 10 April Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Introduction to Tableau Desktop and Flourish for data visualisation
This workshop will be an introductory course to visualise your data with Tableau Desktop and Flourish. Both tools are free for students and academics and are fairly user friendly. Date: 15 April Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Increasing the visibility of your research output through self-archiving
Stellenbosch University's institutional policy on the self-archiving of research output is curated by the Library and Information Service. Complying with this policy, which asks researchers to deposit copies of their research output in SUNScholar, our institutional repository, can greatly increase the visibility and impact of research output. This workshop will teach participants more about the policy and how to comply with the policy in order to improve access to and visibility of their research outputs. Date: 16 April Time: 11:00 – 12:30 Staff register here Students register here | Enhancing your research impact through open access publishing
This workshop will introduce attendees to the principles of Open Access and how it can benefit the impact of their research. Open access publishing is a model of scholarly communication that provides unrestricted and free access to scholarly research outputs, such as articles, papers, and data. In open access publishing, the content is made available online to the public without financial, legal, or technical barriers. Date: 23 April Time: 11:00 – 12:30 Staff register here Students register here | Maximise your research impact
This workshop will show how to improve your impact as a researcher. The following two sessions will be presented: Session 1: Increase the visibility of your research Participants will learn to: - Find and navigate social research networks (ResearchGate, Academia.edu, Mendeley, etc.)
- Develop research profiles
- Understand how to increase your visibility as researcher
- Understand the role of science communication and social media
Session 2: Monitor your author impact Participants will learn about: - The different citation metrics and altmetrics and where to find them
- Awareness on methods to increase citations
- Responsible use of metrics
Date: 24 April Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Staff register here Students register here | 
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We are delighted to invite you to join us for the 2025 Library Research Week, which will take place from 12–16 May, under the theme 'Let’s Partner for Research Impact.' The week will feature a variety of activities designed to enrich the research process and boost research impact through collaboration and partnerships. The event will kick off on 12 May 2025 from 15:30–16:30, with our distinguished guest speaker, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, the Research Chair in Studies in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University. Don't miss out, save the date!
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| These workshops are aimed at postgraduate students, emerging researchers and academic staff and the focus will be on the research process. The sessions vary in length depending on the subject matter but cover a wide range of subjects related to the postgraduate research journey. | Systematic Reviews Thinking about doing a systematic review? Having its origins in health sciences, a systematic review can be a daunting challenge. Let us help you demystify it and get started with a high-level introduction to the systematic review process. Date: 4 March Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Systematic Reviews for Medicine and Health Sciences Thinking about doing a systematic review? Having its origins in health sciences, a systematic review can be a daunting challenge. Let us help you demystify it and get started with a high-level introduction to the systematic review process. Date: 4 March Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Library induction for postgraduate students and academic staff In this introductory session, participants will be provided with an overview of the core services on offer by Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service. Topics include navigating the Library Website, how to find their way around the Stellenbosch University Library, how to find information through the Library's numerous databases, what advanced research support services are available and many others. Date: 5 March Time: 10:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Tools and applications for research This workshop will offer a look at some of the top tools and applications for students, academic staff, and researchers. It will cover a variety of mobile apps for research, productivity, reading, writing, presenting, note-taking, file sharing and other essential tools for studying and publishing on the go. Date: 6 March Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Finding Government Statistics This workshop focuses on the database Statistics SA which is available by means of the Library website. The session includes a demonstration on how to access publications on the database, do cross-tabulation and access time series data with variables over time. Date: 11 March Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Managing your unique author identity with ORCID ORCID is an open, non-profit, community-driven effort to create and maintain a registry of unique researcher identifiers and a transparent method of linking research activities and outputs to these identifiers. This workshop will explain what ORCID is, how to register and populate your profiles. Date: 11 March Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Register Here | SunDMP (SU data management tool) for data management plan creation The workshop will help participants learn how to effectively use SunDMP, Stellenbosch University's data management planning tool. The workshop will guide participants through creating comprehensive data management plans that align with institutional policies, funding requirements, and best practices. Date: 12 March Time: 14:00 – 15:00 Register Here | Copyright issues in theses and dissertation writing This presentation provides an overview of the copyright issues which students typically encounter while working on their theses or dissertations. Date: 13 March Time: 12:00 – 13:00 Register Here | EndNote for reference management EndNote 21 offers various services, including reference management, organising and annotation of PDF documents and collaboration. In this session, we will show you how to download and install EndNote and how to set up your account. Kindly note that a separate workshop is available for users who need assistance in migrating from Mendeley/Zotero to EndNote. Date: 18 March Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here | Making important decisions about publishing your research This hands-on session covers important factors to help you decide where to publish your research. Making the right choices can increase readership and citations, diminish publication lag and ensure that your publication is eligible for government subsidy. Date: 19 March Time: 10:00 – 13:00 Register Here | Tips on how to format your thesis (MS Word) This workshop will help you work around some of the common formatting glitches most postgraduate students experience, whilst getting their document ready for submission. Date: 19 March Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here | Principles of Data Visualisation This workshop will cover the key principles to keep in mind when you are planning your visualisations, from choosing the best visualisation type for your data to the effective use of colour, narrative, etc. Date: 25 March Time: 11:00 – 12:30 Register Here | An overview of SUNScholarData – the SU institutional data repository Many funders mandate that data collected in the process of conducting research funded by them is deposited in reputable repositories, this workshop will provide an overview of research data repositories and demonstrate the manner in which the SU's Institutional Research Data Repository functions. Date: 25 March Time: 14:00 – 16:00 Register Here | Introduction to Research Data Management (RDM) and Data Management Plans (DMP) This workshop introduces researchers to the fundamental ideas of research data management (RDM). The session will cover the SU RDM regulation, ethical considerations, external funding requirements, and the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) that govern good data management. Date: 26 March Time: 11:00 – 13:00 Register Here |
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Stellenbosch University Library and Information Service, one of the leading advocates for Open Access (OA), invites you to the second webinar in its #BeOpenAccessSmart series. The early 2000s saw a peak in OA advocacy with various international bodies issuing declarations to promote unrestricted access to scholarly knowledge. Since then, the benefits of OA for research and society have become increasingly evident—enhancing scholarly impact through greater visibility and citation advantages, upholding the right to access information, and contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). More recently, there has been growing recognition of OA's potential to enable transdisciplinarity (TD) by bridging gaps between academia, industry, NGOs, and society at large. This webinar will explore the role of Open Access in facilitating TD research and fostering societal impact. Dr Heide Hackmann (Chair in Science Futures, Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science, and Technology) will lead the discussion in a session titled:
“Open to Society: Pursuing Research Impact in a Contemporary Global Context." Join us as we examine how Open Access and knowledge accessibility can drive transformative research and contribute to a sustainable future. Date: 27 March 2025, 12:00-13:00 (SAST) Speaker: Dr Heide Hackmann (Chair in Science Futures, Centre for Research on Evaluation Science and Technology), Stellenbosch University.
Registration:
Click the following link to register for the webinar: https://sun.ac.za.libcal.com/event/14209561
Registered participants will receive a Teams meeting link and reminder emails. For further information: contact Sakhile Mngomezulu | tel: 021 808 9907 |
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| No, this isn't actually my picture. I just haven't gotten around to updating this section. It's good to know that someone is reading every last word though. Thanks! |
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