Working at a university library: Various changes I've noticed in the last 5 years

-
  • Completely new, improved, more user-centric library website
  • Increasing trend towards purchasing eBooks over print and using PDA (Patron Driven Acquisition)
  • Bibliographic services team has been whittled down, with staff who have left not being replaced
  • New liaison librarian positions created 
  • Research Publications Officer role created (to guide students with submitting their theses online)
  • Lending staff taking on bib services jobs, e.g. mending and spine label replacement 
  • More and more services have become self-service, e.g. requesting interloans, checking out holds and there has been a big push to get patrons using the self check-out machines
  • More study spaces created
  • Integration of the research help desk and lending desk into one service desk covered by lending staff
  • Introduction of "roving" library assistants during busy hours
  • No more fines for overdue main collection items (only for recalled books and overdue course reserve items)
  • 2 hour course reserve items can be taken out of the library
  • CD ROM's inside textbooks no longer catalogued
  • Relaxing of rules regarding bringing food and drink into the library
  • Large scale weeding of print serials, with more to go
  • All reference collection items relocated to the main collection
  • Demise of Borrow Direct, a reciprocal borrowing service between NZ university libraries
  • Book donations discouraged with donors required to submit a list of items they wish to donate first
  • Undergraduates can now request interloans 
  • Earlier closing hours over the summer holidays
  • Launch of library social media campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram 
  • Introduction of Summon, a web-scale discovery service
  • Change from Voyager to Sierra (later this year)
  • Te Puna interloan network now hosted on OCLC's VDX resource sharing system
  • WebChat service launched
  • FollowYou printing introduced
  • Upgrade to EndNote X7 (still being tested) 
  • Support provided for Zotero, an alternative to EndNote

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

College news story about the academic database I acquired for the college

-
Image
NZTC students’ learning enhanced by new online database Posted Fri 10 Aug 18 9:59 am New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC) students now have access to highly-regarded academic database specialising in education in Australasia, Informit A+ Education. Informit A+ Education specialises in education in Australasia, with over 200,000 records including contributions from leading researchers in teacher training and in-depth coverage of the learning, teaching and management issues that can be faced by those in teaching professions. “NZTC is constantly looking for new and innovative ways to ensure that our students have access to relevant academic research, ensuring our students reflect the NZTC value  Competence , the addition of Informit A+ Education speaks to that commitment,” Chief Executive Selena Fox said. Accessible via the online journal section on NZTC Online, Informit’s content is sourced from publishers, associations and professional bodies with a focus on regional pe...
Read more

An unpleasant job interview experience

-
A job interview I had a few months ago that went terribly badly was for a very junior internal position that I really only applied for because some of my colleagues had encouraged me to go for it.  It got off to a bad start with the first question: why do you think you're the best person for this role?  That threw me - how could I honestly say I was the best person?  What I wanted to be asked was: why are you interested in this role?   Then I was asked to describe when I had used a technology at work.  This threw me as well - it was such a basic question.  Where would I even begin?  Here I am writing about technology in a blog!  Further very simple questions followed which I stumbled over as I was not expecting them.  I had expected a more relaxed, conversational style interview about the job and why I wanted it.  But it became clear that the interviewers were pretending that they did not know me, that I had not worked in the libr...
Read more

Some thoughts on what good managers do

-
A good manager: Understands staff work  with  them, not  for  them. They are a team with mutual respect for each other. Is kind, positive and listens to their staff. Being tough and uncompromising is counter productive - it just leads to low morale. When they need to talk to a staff member about a problem with their performance they always begin/end by saying something encouraging about the staff-member's work.   Does not just make demands but supports and encourages staff. Builds rapport with staff through everyday chitchat, etc. Has a genuine sense of humour.
Read more