Librarians - the people behind the success of a university

I AM a qualified veterinarian from the Onderstepoort Veterinary Faculty of the university of Pretoria (uP).

I recently (March 2020) entered academia as a new lecturer at the same faculty I qualified from 10 years ago. Part of my role involves furthering research (I am currently completing my MSc). As a new academic, I was quickly humbled. the environment is daunting and challenging, with much to learn in a very short space of time - and one cannot navigate the waters without support.

I had to make the adjustment to this new career path during the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and lock-down protocols, which meant no access to the campus, which increased my anxiety levels. I would not have coped through the new transition without the amazing library staff at Jotello F Soga library at the onderstepoort campus.

During the lock-down, I was required to start my protocol for my MSc research project. As such, I had to search for articles on the uP library online platform, and the library staff were so helpful in showing me how to do so via online support. Maria Mtsweni, specifically, went the extra mile to track down and request articles that were not readily available and which required inter-lending requests to be submitted to get.

the Veterinary Science Library’s turn- around time was within a day, and the service I experienced was always very pleasant and helpful.

I am so glad that I now am able to meet her face-to-face and see that she is just as kind and pleasant in person. She and her team brighten my day when I visit them, and always make my seemingly big research problems small with their skill and knowledge of the system. they are really the people behind the scenes helping our researchers to make ours a top research faculty (and university). I am eternally grateful to them for all that they do for us.

- Dr Chiraag Simao