Advocacy

The role of the Marketing and Communications section, in collaboration with every library staff member, is to promote the message of the library’s value to the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Advocacy is all about getting support from the entire UWC community for the library. This can be achieved by forming partnerships between library and other university staff, and placing UWC library in the spotlight at every opportunity.

One of UWC Library’s strategic advocacy outcomes is to provide a student-centred First Year Experience (FYE) programme. This fosters an inclusive student transition that facilitates a shared sense of belonging, retention and success for all new users of library services.

The FYE programme, that is made available through the library’s FYE webpage, is a mix of:

• a self-paced, online schedule of effective orientation to library services and tools;

• daily in-person library tours that runs during lunch times in the first term of the academic year;

• orientation competitions with exciting prizes; and

• library guides; interactive online tutorials; self-help "how to" videos; and a “do you speak academic” glossary.