Download Library Users` Group - University of St Andrews

Library Users’ Group
1A Maths building at 13.15
Wednesday 18 November 2009
MINUTES
PRESENT: Dr Michael Brown (History), Dr Alice Crawford (Academic Liaison Librarian),
Dr Kate Arnold (Psychology), Dr Linda Goddard (Art History), Dr Gabriella Slomp
(International Relations), Dr Alex Long (Classics), Dr Julia Prest (Modern Languages),
Professor Neil Rhodes (English), Dr Fiona Gray (Chemistry), Jeremy Upton (Library), Dr
Elspeth Graham (Geography & Geosciences), Dr Antje Kohnle, (Physics & Astronomy),
Professor Alan Miller (Computer Science), Dr Manouche Tavakoli (Management), Dr Ian
Goudie (Mathematics & Sciences), Luke Woollen (Education Officer), Dr Norman Reid
(Special Collections), Alex Bennett (Student Rep), Georgina Rannard (Director of
Representation ), Vicki Cormie (Academic Liaison Librarian) , Ewan McCubbin (Library),
Professor Sarah Broadie (Philosophical & Anthological Studies), and Louise Pidcock
(Minutes)
APOLOGIES: Dr Martin Milner (Biology), Dr David Richens, Dr Gavin Hopps (Divinity),
Lorraine Brown (ITS), Dr Kevin Donachie (ITS), Dr Felix Fitzroy (Economics) and Dr
Amanda Fleet (Medicine).
1.
MINUTES AND MATTERS ARISING OF LAST MEETING
The minutes of the last meeting on Wednesday 6 May were approved. Matters arising
from the last meeting were as follows;
 Three deals are currently being managed by the SHEDL Consortium, a deal with
the Edinburgh University Press is expected to be agreed for 2010 with further
packages to follow.
 The Friends of the Library organisation is still developing well and continues to
grow. The next meeting will include a talk by Andrew Murphy on Shakespeare
taking place on 23 November 2009. The Friends have generously given funds to
the Library, recently donating £1,000 for a Special Collections purchase.
 The King James Library Series Lectures most recent lecture was a success. The
next lecture will take place on 24 March 2010 and will be given by Dr Steven
Ennis. The topic will be “The Library and the modern writer”. All are welcome.
2. REVIEW OF 2008/09
JU gave us a brief review of 2008/09. He had been asked to identify 7 key areas
including the Library redevelopment.
1
 The Library has reached stage D in the redevelopment process. The UKRR
project phase 2 is set to go ahead which means we will have an opportunity to
continue our review of our print journal collections. EG asked if she would be
able to get a chance to see the list of G periodicals before some were moved for
the UKRR project. JU informed us all relevant schools are consulted before any
item is removed. Liaison Staff identify which schools the items are relevant to
and discuss whether the item is still needed in print format. No item would be
removed from the Library if it was felt to be still needed. Items put to the UKRR
will still be able to be viewed either in person at the British Library or via
electronic document delivery.
 Sunday morning opening will be introduced from semester 2. Sunday is one of
our busiest days of the week. More self service facilities have been introduced.
 The Library has been heavily involved with Lean processes.
 Last year we saw a 7% increase in the materials budget. We had extra money
for ebooks and science material. E-resources have been expanded and extra
staffing resource has been made available for digital repository.
 The Library is investing in its own staff involving them in regular training and
courses.
 Special Collections is to produce a treasures book, 51 items have been chosen to
appear in the book and each will be accompanied by a 500 word essay. It was
hoped this would be a good promotion gift bought for the alumni market or a
graduation gift. The photographs will be done in house. JU informed us money
is regularly set aside to allow us to try and purchase Special Collection materials
to enhance our collections.
 We have continued to add to our staff at the Library, recently appointing Ewan
McCubbin as Assistant Director of Public Services. The Liaison Team has been
enhanced by the introduction of Natalie Thompson and the Special Collections
team by a new photographic archive manager Marc Boulay.
 The Library continues to be well used and gate count figures are significantly up
against the same period last year. The busiest 2 days saw over 5,000 footfalls
through the door. We are averaging 3,600 per day and had one Sunday that
saw 4,200 visits. From the start of this semester we are already up 16,000 on
last year’s figures.
 We have seen strong commitment from the Principals team regarding the go
ahead of the redevelopment. The Principal has shown her support by appearing
on a DVD promoting the redevelopment of the Library. A fly through of the
Library is waiting for approval with the Principal. A leaflet promoting fund raising
will also be ready by the end of the month. The Library has put forward a bid to
the Heritage Lottery Fund.
 The Library was officially handed ownership of the University store last week.
Although the building is a shell at the minute it was hoped shelves would be
added by March next year. It was also hoped the store could be used for storage
of Special Collections material prior to decant.
 It was hoped in the future a larger shared facility could be created at the North
Haugh to enable us to work closely with the Science schools.
2
3. BUDGET 2009/10
The Library has been allocated over 4.4 million for the coming year and we are expected
to earn £245,000 in income. We expect to achieve this amount from selling photocopy
cards, fines and Special Collection purchases. This year there will be no cancellations
of subscriptions. The Schools allocation of book costs has risen by 8%. There will be a
minimum allocation of £1,000 to the science schools. The Library will be working with
schools on identifying gaps in the research collections.
EG asked how the allocation to schools worked. JU explained the amount was split
between the number of undergraduates and the research exercise results from schools.
EG felt between 80-90% was spent in her school on sustainable development books for
interdisciplinary degrees which caused problems.
AM and MT felt the funds allocated to their schools had been taken away and centralised
without their consent. NR felt he would not know how much control he would have
over his allocation.
JU informed the group that the Library had reached a position last year where
centralising the allocation of money for subscriptions was the only sensible way to
proceed. Data is available on usage and cost of subscriptions and in order to make this
new approach work, the Library was committed to providing usage data to Schools to
allow the management of subscriptions based on actual need and value for money.
The hope is smarter purchasing via routes such as SHEDL will make more content
available to schools
JU told the Library representatives if they felt they currently did have access to certain
journals then there was an opportunity to engage with the separate research gap filling
exercise. As the University is committed to the research gap filling exercise, this should
provide a route to fund the acquisition of key research content
JU explained in paper A how the future allocation of the non-subscription budget could
work. The information on materials provided in the new reading list system should
indicate what content the academics need to use to deliver teaching. JU asked Library
Reps to let him have further comments on managing the non-subscription budget.
4. MAIN LIBRARY-LEVEL 2
Ewan McCubbin introduced himself to the group as the new Assistant Director of Library
Services. He explained he is now responsible for the public services, the Library front
of house and marketing. He informed the representatives the reference section on
level 2 had been removed over the summer which has created a space to be
transformed into an informal seating area for students. The Library is committed to
providing an improved space for the interim period before the refurbishment goes ahead.
He felt we should offer students a choice where they wish to study. The area will
provide tables and chairs for group study as well as a soft seating area. This will
hopefully be a different learning space for study that will allow conversation. He hoped
to improve on signage in the Library giving clear indications what will be allowed. He
wants to look at the use of mobile phones maybe creating tolerance zones within the
3
Library. He hoped this would be an opportunity to provide a review on how best to
manage space St Andrews students still want the Library to provide individual silent
spaces to study but the same students also have need of other spaces where they can
discuss work with colleagues, work on presentations or simply work in a noisier
environment.
5. LIBQUAL QUESTIONNAIRE
JU informed the group the Library had taken part in the LibQual survey earlier this year.
The results of this survey are helping inform us about the quality of services provided by
the Library, the content and building. The survey was open to all University students
and staff.
Key findings from the initial review of the results show:
 The service we provide to our users was shown to be good.
 Although the quality of the service we provide is good the building lets us down.
 The survey indicate users want easier, more effective access to content
 The undergraduates place great emphasis on improvements to the building
whereas the academics told us this was not as important to them. Their priority
was better content.
 The survey can allow us to benchmark our service against other institutions.
Overall SCONUL and the UK Libraries do well in terms of quality of service but
not so well in terms of providing access to content.
 Our users have high expectations of what they want and expect the Library to
deliver so we must keep working hard to achieve these.
 JU informed us he was looking at easier access to off campus electronic
resources.
 Further work remains to be done to review the free text responses and extra
questions asked.
6. READING LIST PROJECT
Vicki Cormie introduced us to the new reading list software Talis Aspire. It was hoped
this would help academics manage reading lists more effectively themselves.
Vicki highlighted some of the key functionality of the new system:
 Academics will be able to drag and drop items making changes where necessary.
 It is possible to make links from references to availability information in the
catalogue. Electronic journal articles will appear instantly.
 Academics will be able to bookmark items that are of particular importance to
them. They will be able to alter content as they wish and will be able to ask via
email for copies of books to be put on short loan.
 Students will be able to log on and see a tailored list of all modules available to
them.
 All information from the previous reading list software Refworks will be
transferred to Talis Aspire and will go on trial until the start of Semester 2.
 During semester 2 Library staff will go out to the schools to inform them on its
4
use. It was hoped to be up and running by the start of the next academic year.
 The student portal will provide a link to the reading list software.
7. ANY OTHER BUSINESS
There was no other business.
Jeremy Upton
Convenor
4 February 2010
5