LIBRARY STAFF NEWSLETTER
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Library Staff Newsletter
February 2015 HELPING YOU DISCOVER…
IN THIS ISSUE
Talis Aspire Resource Lists – engagement with academic staff Members of Library Services team have set up a Reading List Strategy Group with academic representatives from all departments explore best practice in by [Articleto Author] provision of resources lists and developments of the online reading list system (Talis Aspire Resource Lists) in order to improve the experience for students. Anne Pietsch and Nancy Graham from the Library Academic Liaison (LAL) team and Nicola Prime from eLearning are working with Professor Laura Peters, the Chair of the group, and there has been an inaugural meeting. Discussions focused on the purpose of resource lists and expectations of academics in how students use them. In November LAL team members also ran a student focus group in collaboration with the Student Union. The findings from this meeting indicate that students, academics and the Library should work more closely in creating reading lists and making them available online.
Library staff are now working on promoting developments in Talis Aspire to support academics in their use of the system. Developments such as a plug-in for Moodle, which allow academics to pull through resource list items into their weekly sections in Moodle, should help academics to make use the Talis Aspire system in a more integrated way.
Making things easier for our Library Catalogue Users Read about how the Library were able to ‘clean up’ the Library Catalogue.
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CONTACT: For further information please contact Anne Pietsch from the Library Academic Liaison Team.
Student Library Ambassador Scheme Find out how students are being involved in Library decisions as part of the new scheme.
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Making things Easier for our Library Catalogue Users In order to improve the user experience for our customers – Library Services last year undertook a series of projects aimed at “clearing up” the underlying data on our Library Management System and simplifying results on our Library Catalogue for our users. Taking the opportunities given to us by the upgrade to our new system and Library Catalogue, Library Services ran numerous stock-checks on certain areas of the collection in the early part of the year, to ensure that our “holdings” are up-to-date and to ensure that our customers are being given the most reliable information on item availability; we also introduced new automated processes to remove “long overdue” books and items from the Library Catalogue. This resulted in over 10,000 items that were unlikely to be available for
borrowing in the near future being removed from Library Catalogue search results. In an effort to make things more intuitive to all of our users, we also spent a significant amount of time cleaning up old catalogue sequences and – as a result - re-located over 20,000 items from now redundant collections into new collections with clearer references to an item’s physical location. Additionally, we merged and simplified many collections and sequences to better convey meaningful, and more intuitive, location information to users.
existing collections to include a reference to their specific shelving locations (e.g. the “Oversize” collection th was renamed “Oversize - 4 Floor”). We hope that our customers will now benefit from our new improved processes and from the back office improvements in place to ensure that availability and location information on our Library Catalogue is as up to date and intuitive as possible.
Towards the end of the year – on the suggestion of some of our academic users - we also re-named many
Improving the discoverability of library resources – the new Library Catalogue July 2014 saw the launch of a new discovery tool for library resources. This by allowed Library Services to offer significant improvements in search functionality, keeping pace with the search solutions offered by other university libraries. For the first time it is possible to search our range of online subscription databases at article-level and those resources can now also be searched alongside print materials and e-books, all from a single search box. An innovative partnership between two of our suppliers, Capita and EBSCO, allowed us to offer this new functionality while retaining the
Library Catalogue interface that users were familiar with. The Library Catalogue offers a number of other new features designed to save time and make services more easily accessible. The introduction of single sign on means that customers can now use their Roehampton login to access both online library resources and their library account. A new inter-library loan request form has been incorporated into the Library Catalogue and fines can be paid via the My Account area meaning that it is no longer necessary to go to a separate website to access these services.
We believe that the new Library Catalogue represents a big step forward in the service we are able to offer and we will continue to build on that success over the coming months. A Library Catalogue User Group has been set up to gather feedback and inform decisions about future developments and we will be working closely with our suppliers to adapt the way the Library Catalogue works and to introduce new features to ensure it meets the needs of our customers.
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CONTACTS
Library staff engaging with students in the Library
Subject Librarians Contact your Subject Librarian – details through our web pages.
Library & IT Enquiries Library staff are available to help you with queries and are available at the Library & IT Enquiries Desk for face to face assistance.
FOR MORE INFORMATION Library Enquiries: 020 8392 3770 Automated Renewals: 020 8392 3250 IT Helpdesk: 020 8392 3737
Student Library Ambassador Scheme Library Services is piloting a Student Library Ambassador scheme, which will run until the end of the academic year. The pilot involves undergraduate and postgraduate students from across the University (we have recruited ambassadors from nine out of ten departments so far) taking part in Library related activities. The ambassadors have been briefed and are working with their relevant Subject Librarian in developing this new role. They attend regular meetings with Subject Librarians and use a variety of online tools to network with each other. Activities will mainly include ordering books not currently in stock in the Library, based on requests from fellow students. Their key role is communicating with other students in their department about developments such as the new Library and the new Library Catalogue by acting as a feedback channel between Library Services and their department. The scheme will be evaluated over the summer but has already resulted in books being ordered and ideas for future development of the role. CONTACT: For further information please contact Julie Harrison from the Library Academic Liaison team.
Inter Library Loans The Inter Library Loan Service gives you the option of requesting books, journals or extracts for items that we don’t have in our Library collection. The items are borrowed from the British Library and other institutions. Make your request using the online request form available through the Library Catalogue.
CONTACT:
If you have any questions about the service or would like to arrange a meeting to find out more please contact the team at interlib@roehampton.ac.uk
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Digitisation Service Virtual Librarian for Staff Live – instant chat with the Library The CLA Digitisation Service for staff provides access to selected teaching and learning materials. Working within the Higher Education Copyright Licensing Agency Agreement the service will scan the material and provide links to be used through Moodle sites and resource lists for students to access. We aim to provide access to materials within 2 weeks of receiving the request. In order to comply with Copyright Law there are some limits on what can and can’t be digitised. For more information on what the service has to offer please check the Digitisation web pages. If you would prefer we would be happy to attend Departmental meetings or small group sessions with Academic Departments to explain the benefits of the service further. If you have any questions about the service or would like to arrange a meeting to find out more please contact Tania Durt, Digitisation and Document Delivery Co-ordinator at T.Durt@roehampton.ac.uk.
In September the Library launched a new instant chat service called Virtual Librarian Live. Found on the Library homepage, Virtual Librarian Live allows students, staff and members of the public to be put in contact with Library staff members instantly. The simple to use chat interface works well on desktop PCs and Macs as well as mobiles and tablets. The service has proved really popular with users as they are normally able to get an instant resolution to the problem. Some of the feedback we’ve receive from users includes
Library increases student loan allowance Following feedback from our users the Library has increased the loan allowance for all Undergraduate and Postgraduate students. Undergraduates loan allocation has gone from 12 to 15 main stock loans, whilst Postgraduates have gone from 15 to 18 loans. The Library also increased staff loan allowances last year. We have to look carefully at how the circulation of stock might be impacted by an increase to loan limits. However, with continued investment in physical and electronic books we are able to make the change, which we hope will make a difference to our users.
“This is a great service, and much appreciated”.
Library Loan Allowances in summary:
“Thanks you so much, this is a great service”
Undergraduate students: 15 main stock items
“ahhh, thank you! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO”
Postgraduate students: 18 main stock items
Since launching we’ve clocked up 138 chats, providing an immediate response to dozens of people.
Staff: 20 main stock items
As well as the instant chat service, the package includes a great frequently asked questions system. The easy to search FAQs are also available from the Library homepage and can now include pictures and videos along with text information. We also receive feedback on what people are looking for, allowing us to provide more information for ‘hot topics’. A voting system also shows how popular particular FAQs are, which will allow us to improve the quality of the information that we provide. So if you need a quick answer to a question, Virtual Librarian Live is definitely the way to go.
Separate loan allowances are available for Audio Visual material, School Experience items and Media and IT Loans.
CONTACT:
Please check our web pages for more information. www/roehampton.ac.uk/Library/ Check our Library Services News page to keep up to date and to see how we’re performing against our Service Level Agreements. Follow us on Twitter @UR_Library