Information Services is made up of Subject Librarians. A subject librarian is a library

staff member who has been formally assigned to be the primary contact person

between the library and a particular Faculty. Their aim is to support, facilitate,

and enhance research, study and teaching activities of students,

academic staff and researchers in the Faculty.

SERVICES RENDERED BY SUBJECT LIBRARIANS

Depending on the needs of the faculty and the students, Subject Librarians provide the following services:

Research consultations

• Subject Librarians accept responsibility to make themselves known and readily available to Faculties and students.
• Subject Librarians are available all day to assist with your research needs. Appointments may be made to avoid any disappointments.

Literature searches

Subject Librarians undertake literature searches on a variety of databases, devising search strategies that are most appropriate for your research/assignment topic. You may send your requests via e-mail or by phone to your Subject Librarian.

Course-related presentations and orientation

Subject Librarians provide training in subject-related Information Retrieval Skills for B-Tech and all the postgraduate students (appointments may be made with the relevant Subject Librarian).

• First year orientation program for first year students is offered in conjunction with the User Education Librarian.
• Orientation program for all new and existing lecturers on library resources and facilities.
• Training is provided on the following electronic databases:

EBSCOHOST: Full text database covering Social Sciences, Business, Medicine and Basic Engineering.

EMERALD: Full text database covering all fields with special emphasis on business information.

SABINET: A bibliographic database covering all subject fields.

SWETS WISE: This is a full text database covering all subject fields.

SCIENCE DIRECT: Electronic collection of Science, Technology and Medical full text and bibliographic information.

ENGINEERING VILLAGE 2 ( COMPENDEX):  Interdisciplinary engineering database.

LEXISNEXIS: Provides authoritative legal, public records and Business information including tax and regulatory publications.

SPRINGERLINK: Full-text articles covering Biomedicine, Life Sciences, Clinical Medicine, Physics, Engineering, Mathematics, Computer Science, Humanities and Economics.

NEXUS: Current and completed Research Projects in South Africa.

Current Awareness Service

• You may request the library to send you contents pages of journals of your interest via email or post.
• Swetsnet table of contents service: Through this service you may request to receive table of contents (TOC) from overseas journals that we subscribe to. Contact your Subject Librarian for more details.

Collection management

Subject Librarians liaise with the Faculty members to ensure that the library’s stock and services support the teaching, study and research at the University.

• You may recommend the purchase of library materials through your Subject Librarian
• Books and journals not available in the University library may be requested for staff members, B-Tech and Postgraduate students from national and international libraries through Inter library loans service.

Communication channels

Communication between the Subject Librarian and the Faculty occurs regularly in a variety of ways:

• through the library Faculty representatives
• through printed and electronic channels
• by periodic participation in Faculty meetings
• through formal and informal on-site contacts