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Musings of an Academic Librarian

Reflections on my work as an academic librarian (2015-2020)

AUT Library farewell photos, December 2015

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- January 24, 2019

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Social media and academic libraries: Is it overrated?

- August 12, 2015

It seems to me that every library feels like they need to jump on the social media bandwagon. I wonder though how effective social media is at connecting libraries with patrons and of course marketing the library and all the other wonderful things it is supposed to do for an organization? My library has a twitter account but it has a mere 212 followers and a lot of them are not students. The library Facebook page only has a few hundred "likes" and "visits." We have an Instagram account and this currently has 386 followers. Then there's our YouTube channel. What are we really trying to achieve here? Compare the popularity of our social media channels with that of our online subject guides. For example our subject guide for APA referencing has had 196,720 views so far this year and the law guide 19,749 views. I know that having a social media presence can be really useful at times. One example is when there is an IT outage and stud...

Pros and cons of having an integrated service desk at an academic library

- April 14, 2015

Recently my library integrated the reference help desk and lending desk into one service point where library assistants deal with both lending and simple research queries. Here are the pros and cons of this change. Pros It allows library assistants to develop their research skills It frees up liaison librarians (LLs) so that they have more time in the day to do other more specialized tasks At times the desk is very quiet, especially in the evenings and early mornings and so it is a waste of staff resources manning a separate reference desk Cons LLs are unable to "keep their finger on the pulse" by being on the help desk and seeing what sort of inquiries are coming in from students and faculty Students may not get the same quality of service with their research inquiries that they would with an LL (although they can be referred to an LL if the query is complex) Answering reference queries adds to the workload of library assistants who may already have a full wor...

My understanding and application of the BOK's (Bodies of Knowledge) for librarians

- March 11, 2020

I wrote this as part of my application for my professional registration in 2018. Understanding and applying BOK's (Bodies of Knowledge) for my professional registration application from 2018 BOK 1 With the growth of the Internet, an increasing number of resources such as journal articles have become available online. This raises issues for libraries and their users around copyright. In response to queries from lecturers at New Zealand Tertiary College (NZTC) about using copyright material, I consulted copyright experts in the library field. In some instances, I asked publishers whether the college could use their journal articles in course readings. Read Tony Millett’s guide and read the conditions of the college’s CLNZ license and discussed it with the General Manager. Drew up copyright guidelines for NZTC staff and circulated them. Made a copyright Q and A with questions staff have asked and uploaded it t...