By Belinda Bantham and Ms Dina Mashiyane

In a sincere effort to engage with the community and champion the preservation of libraries, dedicated staff from the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus library recently visited the Mahikeng Radio station.

This visit was perfectly timed with the celebration of South African Library Week. The theme for this year was "Libraries fostering social cohesion", which aimed to highlight the essential role libraries play in bringing communities together and promoting harmony.

In celebration of Africa Day on 24 May 2024, the North-West University (NWU) hosted a webinar focusing on enhancing education across the continent. Themed "Educate an African fit for the 21st Century", the event brought together experts to engage in a comprehensive dialogue aimed at building resilient education systems that promote increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality and relevant learning.

A new generation of fact-fascinated consumers and fast-paced technological developments, especially in the artificial intelligence (AI) realm, has made it paramount for libraries to collaborate in order to ensure survival.

Collaboration between libraries locally and internationally, and also between various disciplines such as information technology (IT) and engineering, will equip libraries to tackle the challenges of a new world.

Prof Toyin Omoyeni Falola, a renowned Nigerian historian and professor of African studies and current holder of the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin, has generously donated 27 books to the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Mahikeng Campus library on 1 August 2023.

Twelve of these books have been either personally authored, co-authored or edited by Prof Falola himself. These works cover various subjects, including history, politics, philosophy and decolonisation.

Retired professor Jan Buscop donated 4 paintings to NWU and these artworks will be hosted in the library.

More about retired professor Jan Buscop

Prof Buscop was born in the Netherlands and emigrated in 1978 to South Africa. He completed his PhD at UNIBO and was appointed as senior lecturer in 1993 and retired in 2019. Currently he specialised in estate, tax and retirement planning and assisting many university colleagues with their retirement planning.

Local libraries often do not have the means to acquire much-needed computers and books on a regular basis. Staff of the North-West University (NWU) Library and Information Service (LIS) in Potchefstroom saw this need and reached out with a generous donation to the JB Marks community libraries.

Louise Vos, LIS senior manager, says the donation on 15 August consisted of 10 computers and nearly 800 books.

Willie du Plessis

Taken prisoner, isolated from loved ones and incarcerated with thousands of others in lice-infested camps.

This was the reality for many German men living in South Africa and South West Africa during the Second World War, when the government of former Prime Minister Jan Smuts held them in internment camps.

A new donation to the North-West University’s (NWU’s) Library Services focuses on what life was like for these men during their incarceration.

The extension and renovation of the Education Library (C6c) on the Potchefstroom campus will start in January 2022. Site handover will take place on 11 January and the estimated time of completion is July 2022.

The spaces of the current Education library will be renovated and a double storey extension will be added to the front of the library. The ground floor will host a copy shop and the new EduLab, with connected working space for 104 students.

 Daniel Monyamane describes himself as an assistant librarian by day and an artist all the time in between.  

The 36-year-old father of three hails from Koppies, a small town in the Free State, and is a self-taught trash artist who sees beauty and value where most of us see garbage.

To keep abreast of the trends of the twenty-first-century, the North-West University’s (NWU’s) academic libraries has embarked on major space renovations since 2014.