The document provides information about accessing and using library services at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) Library for students studying with the School of Public Health (SOPH). It outlines that a student card is required to enter the UWC Library in Cape Town and students will have access to borrowing books, accessing online resources, and using other facilities. It also describes how students can request materials not available at UWC through the inter-library loan service and access libraries at other institutions in South Africa. Contact details for library staff are provided.

1. SOPH Library Services

2. 6.7 LIBRARY ACCESS
A student card is required to enter the UWC Library in Cape Town. When in Cape Town, students will have
access to the facilities of the UWC library, i.e. borrowing books, Access the library resources, conducting Internet
searches, photocopying, etc. Journals cannot be taken out of the library but can be copied inside the library.
Please note: Books may not be borrowed outside of South Africa. Students can requests photocopies of chapters
within a book, or journal articles via Inter Library Loans at their own cost.
Your Faculty Librarian is Ms Karen Cook (Erasmus). Contact details are below. The Faculty Librarians offer many
kinds of assistance to UWC Faculty of Community Health and Sciences students.
As a postgraduate student of UWC, and a South African resident, you also have access to the libraries of other
academic institutions in South Africa, for which an administration fee may be charged. To join a local library:
• Request a CHELSA letter from the Faculty Librarian. If she is away, please ask the SOPH Student
Administrators (Corinne or Janine). You could obtain your letter during Summer or Winter School.
• Present this letter with your student card at your local academic library. If you have any difficulties, contact the
Faculty Librarian.
Students from other parts of Africa may request a letter of introduction from the SOPH Student Administrators,
to an academic library: we hope that this will assist you, but cannot give any assurances.
For more information about the Library and its facilities, see section 7.5 below.

3. 7.5 USING THE LIBRARY
The UWC Library is housed in a spacious and modern building within walking distance of the School of Public
Health. The Public Health collection is on Level 11.
Please note that a student card is required to enter the UWC Library in Cape Town.
When in Cape Town, students will have access to all the facilities of the UWC library building and be able, for
example, to take out books and access online public health journals that the library subscribes to.
Whilst on campus you can also arrange a consultation with the Faculty librarian, Ms. Karen Cook who is based in
Bellville CHS Library. We like to encourage students to do this as it allows one to experience just how easy it is
to search the e-databases and the associated journals and thereby gain access to the many academic resources that
are available to one as a UWC student. Finding additional and new literature is a requirement of some of the
assignments in the MPH programme – and is obviously required for the mini-thesis.

4. Contact Details
You can make an appointment with Ms Karen Cook, the Faculty Librarian, by email /calling her via the contact details below:
Contact Details for the Library Staff
OUR FACULTY LIBRARIAN:
Ms Karen Cook: Tel. +27 21 959 2684; e-mail: kerasmus@uwc.ac.za
Located at CHS Bellville Campus Library
INTER-LIBRARY LOANS:
Mr. Jacques Manuals: Tel. +27 21 959 2900 or e-mail: interlending@uwc.ac.za
ELECTRONIC RESOURCES LIBRARIAN:
Ms. Anne Moon: Tel. +27 21 959 3016; amoon@uwc.ac.za.
Ms. Moon is your first port of call if experiencing problems accessing UWC electronic databases.
MANAGER: LIBRARY ICT & INNOVATIONS
Mr Ricardo Davids: Tel. + 021 959 9497; rddavids@uwc.ac.za
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION SERVICE:
Service Desk: Tel. +27 21 959 2000; servicedesk@uwc.ac.za
Service Desk will assist you to activate or reset your username and password.

5. Introduction to the Library Website: Orientation
Step 1
The library website
To use the library resources, go to the UWC website (http://www.uwc.ac.za), and select Library [at the top of the
screen] or enter the UWC Library URL (http://lib.uwc.ac.za/) in the web browser.
This site works best on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
Step 2
Once you are on the Library Webpage, you will see various dropdown menus along the top of the screen such as
“Databases”, “iKamva”, “Research Portal ”, “University Portal”, “About Us and Help”.
Spend some time familiarizing yourself with these dropdown menus and what they have to offer.

6. Step 3
Just so you know you are in the right place: the UWC library homepage will look a bit like this (with the uKwazi -
library search engine at the top of the page, access to the library’s resources and services and the ‘events’ section in
the middle.

7. Step 4
SOPH Library Guide
Click on Read More underneath Students, then underneath Subject Guides, click Read more again. Select Faculty
of Community and health Sciences and you will see that our Faculty Librarian, Ms Karen Cook, has created a
“School of Public Health – Distance Students Library Guide”.
Click on that link and you will be taken to this online guide – which is a good place to start your orientation to the
library website and guidance on how and whereto search for literature.

9. Step 5
Searching for Literature
The Library subscribes to various databases that assist one to find relevant and current information from a
range of journals, print and e-books. The databases are ‘academic’ type search engines (like google) that
have journal articles – from a range of local and international journals - that are related (some more directly
than others) to your search.
You can search uKwazi (library catalogue) to find information in different types sources, for example,
journal articles, books (print and e-version), newspaper articles, theses and dissertations. You can search
the Databases A-Z to find journal articles. Please consult a list of relevant databases for Public Health on
the School of Public Health Library Guide.
If you want to search for literature on a topic, you can search by either clicking on:
• Databases A-Z at the top of the Library web page to access a number of subscribed databases, OR
• School of Public Health Library Guide to access a list of databases arranged by subject.

10. Access the Library website and click on
the A-Z Databases
Select the letter E to access EbscoHost,
Click on EbscoHost Web and again on your
righthand side.

11. Authenticating yourself as a registered UWC library user
Please note – that when you start using the actual databases you will be asked to log in to the UWC library site with a Username and
Password. Your Username will be your student number and your Password (your date of birth – yyyymmdd) or ID number when
required.
This prevents the general public from using the databases for which the UWC (and you) pay subscriptions.

12. There are many different types of databases (for example, some are subject-based and others are multi-
disciplinary in their coverage). They also range in size (for example, some might only contain journal
articles whilst others cover those for Public Health topics. You could start off by using these
multidisciplinary databases, for example:
Within EbscoHost there are a variety of databases that you can search, or you can select one of the
databases, for example by clicking on Academic Search Complete. You can also select more than one
database to search simultaneously, depending on the coverage of the research topic.
Click on EBSCOhost Web hyperlink and you will then see the following page:

13. Next, click on the EBSCOhost Web link to take you to the sub databases page
Full Text Finder is a publication search service that includes your knowledgebase and a suite of holdings management
tools. Searching in Full Text Finder, you will be able to browse journal titles by discipline. If you click on Public
Health, you will see all the public health online journal title that the library subscribe to as well as open access
publications. Underneath the journal title appears a database which hosts the journal. By clicking on the database you
will be able to search for articles in the journal title.

14. Sub Databases in EbscoHost

15. Selecting the sub databases in EbscoHost
As mentioned previously, EBSCOhost is a multidisciplinary database and consist of sub-databases – which are
listed on this page.
Select the sub-databases which sound promising and relevant to your topic by ticking their boxes. We suggest you
choose these ones to start off with:
• Academic Search Complete
• CINAHL Plus with Full Text
• Health Source – Nursing/ Academic Edition
• MEDLINE
• SocINDEX with Full Text.
This means you are searching all these selected databases simultaneously.
Click on “Continue” at the bottom left.

16. Conduct a Search strategy in EbscoHost by selecting the Academic Search Complete sub-database
Start off by putting in your search words. For example, if you are looking for literature on the topic of “low
birth weight” and the link to malaria in Africa. Type “low birth weight” in the first search box, malaria in the
second and Africa in the third.
You may also get the information you want by using the synonyms of words, or combinations of different
words that relate to your topic of interest, e.g. preterm birth OR premature birth AND malaria. If you leave
Africa out of the search you will get references for Asia and elsewhere too.
If you tick the box Limit to Full Text (left hand column) you should get just those in the original listing that
are full text articles .
You can also limit you results list by publication date, for example: 2010-2020.
See example of the above keyword search strategy and results on the next page

17. Advanced Search in EbscoHost

18. Results list on the keyword search strategy for
low birth weight AND malaria AND Africa

19. What to look out for when you have your search results in front of you
You would be able to view the Abstract if you click the magnifying glass.
On the left hand side you can further limit your results by scholarly journals, source types, and by subject terms.
Once you have an article and its not available in PDF Full Text version, click on SFX icon that will link you to the full
text document or search the Full Text Finder (see notes).

20. Step 7
Join EBSCOhost and save your searches and the articles you want to keep
You can set up a personal account that you can use to save searches, retrieve and reuse them, and print
them as needed. In order to save the searches will save you time and not then have to repeat the search
strategies every time. You can also organize and manage your search strategies in folders.
It is a good idea to log into EBSCOhost, create a personal profile and save your search results so that you
can come back to them where you have to focus on something else.

21. Save searches and alerts
Click on the Help icon on EBSCOhost in top right
corner to guide to step by step how to perform the
following functions:
1. Saving Searches
2. Saving a Search as an Alert
3. Setting Up a Journal Alert
4. Creating a Search Alert from the Search Screen
5. What is RSS?
6. One-Step RSS Search and Journal Alerts

22. Step 8
Finding a particular reference or search a specific journal on Full Text Finder
Access Full Text Finder underneath
uKwazi on the Library Website.
Searching in Full Text Finder,
you will be able to browse
journal titles by discipline.
You can also Enter the name of
the Journal Title to browse the
content or finding the full text or
an article
If you click on Public Health,
you will see all the public
health online journal titles that
the library subscribe to as well
as open access publications.

23. You can also search for the full-text journal article via Full Text Finder
Now paste the journal title in the Find box and click Search or select the name of the journal from the alphabetical list. If the journal
title is available, click on one of the databases that appears in blue to find the full text of the article.
Strengthening Intersectoral Collaboration for Primary Health Care in Developing Countries: Can the Health Sector Play Broader
Roles? Omokhoa Adedayo Adeleye and Antoinette Ngozi Ofili
Journal of Environmental and Public Health
Volume 2010, Article ID 272896, 6 pages
doi:10.1155/2010/272896

24. You will have to select the year, volume and issue number of the journal article. The system will display all the articles
that has been published by that specific volume and issue number. Check for the full text of the article you are looking
for and download.
By clicking on the database you can also search for articles in the journal title or browse the articles by year of
publication.

25. Step 9
Using Inter-library Loans (ILL)
As distance users in other provinces of South Africa, the holdings of UWC and other linked academic libraries are available to
you through UWC’s ILL Department. You may send requests for journal articles which are unavailable or not full text on the
UWC databases, and it will be emailed you.
Through the ILL service you can, as a distance or local user, request books from UWC through the following channels:
• A local (non-UWC) academic library of which you are a member: find out how the Inter-library Loans procedure works in
your local academic library.
• Your local municipal library – if the library is registered with the (South African) State Library. Check with your library –
you may need to be a registered member of that library.
If you are on campus, you can request a book or a copy of a journal article or a thesis which is not in the UWC Library, by
filling out a request form at the ILL counter. You can also do this online by clicking on Advanced Search underneath
uKwazi on the Library website and then ILL Request (Inter Library Loans).
Please see steps on next slide.

26. Books from other libraries in the Western Cape are usually obtained within a few days via the CALICO project, unless they are
out on loan. Books at libraries further afield will take longer.
UWC library books are unfortunately not allowed to be taken or sent outside South Africa. However, students from other parts of
Africa may request a letter of introduction to visit an academic library near their vicinity, from the SOPH Student Administrators.
We hope that this will assist you, but cannot give any assurances.
Step 1
Students should access the library
catalogue and click on Advanced
Search.
Step 2
Once you are on the Advanced
Search page, click on ILL
Request to access the request
form.
Step 3
Complete the form and submit.
Inter Library Loans staff will
respond to your request soon.