The Unisa Library continues to attract researchers with state-of-the-art services aimed at increasing their productivity and improving the university’s research outputs and standing.
Recent developments are based on the international standards for distance education libraries and focus on ensuring equal access to library resources and services to all clients regardless of their location.
Of special importance to researchers is the recent expansion of the Unisa Institutional Repository (UnisaIR), which now totals 442 items. UnisaIR is a digital repository of the research and intellectual output of the Unisa community, and includes articles, working papers, speeches, conference papers, books, newspaper articles and even video files. As the central archive of all Unisa’s research, UnisaIR increases the visibility, usage and impact of Unisa’s research, facilitates sharing of new knowledge and contributes to the visibility of African scholarship.
New collections have been added, among others for open distance learning (ODL) and the Unisa inaugural lectures. The items are now also searchable using various major search engines such as Google and harvested by large international databases such as OCLC. The use of and access to the repository has also increased to an average of more than 50 000 item views per month. The repository supports Unisa’s research strategy and contributed to the implementation of the Unisa 2015 agenda for transformation by disseminating Unisa’s published research outputs in full text. The repository preserves, manages and disseminates locally produced intellectual output and research in electronic format and provides a coherent view of Unisa research outputs. The views and searches registered on the repository reflect the exposure for researchers.
To enhance access to the valuable archival collections of Unisa online, the SPCC has approved the motivation for funding to digitise these. Following a comprehensive tender process, SABINET has been elected and appointed and a comprehensive digitisation project has commenced in 2011. The value of the digitised archive will be the improved access to archive collections. When the exercise is complete, researchers will no longer need to make the trip to the archives but will be able to access the archive collections online.
The extension of opening hours has increased access to the library for many researchers who can only use the library after hours. The library service, including the dedicated research space, is available to users till 8 pm.
For more information on the Unisa Library, visit the Library website.
