The visit included a meeting with the following:

• Tom Brumfit (Information Librarian: Delivery)
• Claire Tylee (Bibliographic Services Librarian)
• Steve Alston (Serials & E-Resources Librarian)

Reasons for visit

To find out more about the library’s integration with the Learning Management System(LMS/VLE), and in particular to discover more about the following key areas:

• The procedure and issues involved in scanning documents to add to the LMS

The University of Bath has a CLA HE copyright licence and in order to comply with the copyright regulations, and the possibility of an audit being conducted robust measures need to be in place to show the following: (after it has been confirmed that the item is able to be scanned under the terms of the CLA licence)

• What document has been scanned and placed on the LMS
• For what course
• The course duration (i.e. one semester etc)
• The number of students/delegates on the course

Under the terms of this CLA licence their needs to be one person designated as responsible for scanning copyright protected material. The (CLA) licence grants limited permission to designated persons (i.e. library staff) to scan copyright protected publications for use in teaching. Subsequently, only the designated person/s can scan items to be made available for the LMS.

Other College staff within the institution should not in any circumstances scan and place material on the LMS as this would be a breach of the CLA licence.

The designated staff in the Library at the University of Bath perform the following function:

• Check copyright compliance,
• Add mandatory copyright notices, and
• Keep the records required by the licence.

Day to day issues involved in the offering a scanning service

Although the University of Bath have an online form for their scanning service they still can get requests in all manner of ways which includes the following:

• Email
• Handing in photocopied pages (this is uncommon but happens)

The procedure for verifying if the material is able to be placed on the VLE/LMS is one of the lengthiest in the Library and often staff have to contact the CLA for confirmation on what to do. Due to this the University advertises a  4 week turnaround – from request for a scan – to the time the request will be fulfilled and added to the VLE/LMS.

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The University’s main campus in Chichester is a relatively small campus with all the building located fairly close together but it due to its size it feels like a really friendly atmosphere, which is not always the feeling you get from large sprawling campuses at university’s that cover large acres of land.

The University specialises in a range of subjects, which includes sport and exercise science, psychology and counselling and performing arts and the campus in Chichester boasts a fantastic selection of facilities and equipment to aid learning. For example, the library has a large selection of Apple Mac computers and also a varied selection of study spaces and access to a range of specialist software. Together with access to a modern printing facility. The library in Chichester also had a revamp some time ago and it still look modern and fresh today.

Many of the academic staff at the university are involved in research and at the time of my visit the university was in the early stages of setting up an institutional repository.

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The University is also slightly more unusual as it offers degree programmes that can be completed in just two years instead of the more commonly found three years. To fit the entire programme of study in just two years there are no major holiday periods, so academic year is a condensed programme. This condensed programme also means that the University has to complete any changes to the facilities during the actual academic year as there is no free holiday times in which to complete changes to the interiors and other types of maintenance tasks. Inevitably this must make it more difficult for the university and its staff to manage any major changes that need to be completed without disturbing them.

The University offers courses on a range of subjects that includes the following:

• Accounting, Business and Economics
• Computer Science
• Education
• History and Art History
• Law

The library offers access to a range of electronic resources which are individually managed and maintained by subject librarians and the staff offer students a friendly and welcoming service. Although the University offers a full range of services there were no outstanding uses of technology in the library and there were also no innovations in the use of library spaces at the time of my visit.

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The Wiener library is located in Russell square in the centre of London. This is the library’s new premises and it has been in this location since the summer of 2011. Before that time the library had spent 50 years in a building on Devonshire Street W1.

Funding

Funding for the library comes from an endowment and from corporate, charitable and private donations. It also received Heritage lottery funding for to fund part of the refurbishment that was carried out on its new building.

The building

The new building has climate controlled rooms and also has a lift. Making it easy to move objects from one floor to the next in this multi storied building. The library also has a modern reading room which has windows that overlook the Square. In addition, the building also has a public space for events and exhibitions. The whole building has been carefully transformed into an excellent space and environment for a library. This is at great credit to both the staff at the library and the architects that worked on this project, especially given that they had to work within the restrictions that listed building status entails. One nice feature is a sliding interior wall on the ground floor that enables the front and rear ground floor to be transformed into one large open space events, which is complete with a pull down blind/projector screen on the buildings ground floor rear window.

Collection

The library holds and collects material on the holocaust and on genocide. The library’s current collections consists of a wide variety types of information in a varied range of formats, which includes books, pamphlets, photographs, microfilms, periodicals, and a selection of artefacts. The library also has an archive and is currently finishing off microfilming selections of newspaper clippings, which is performed by an outside source. This archive was recently closed to new material. (Microfilming chosen as the desired form of preservation to negate the possibility of copyright infringement that digitisation may

Storage

The library space at its new premises is almost full but the library has also signed up to a joint scheme for off-site storage.

Technologies/services used

The library uses an Adlib library management system and contains the following types of information:

• Books
• Unpublished memoirs
• Pamphlets
• Periodicals

The library’s website (CMS unknown) is currently created and maintained by a Brighton based company: Surface Impression.

Aspects of note

• A unique classification system
• Unique history and an important library in the subject area of the holocaust and genocide.
• A well executed and subtle architecture project that is a good example of how to transform a listed residential type building into a modern library environment.

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Regents college is in the heart of London and consists of the following schools:

• European Business School London
• Regent’s Business School London
• Regent’s American College
• Webster Graduate School
• London School of Film Media and Performance
• School of Psychotherapy and Counselling Psychology
• Internexus English Language School

Technologies and services used

Blackboard (Originally Regent’s College used Moodle)
Bloomberg and Datastream financial services
Citrix (The Citrix portal is used to gain access to electronic resources from an external location)
Dawsonera
Heritage LMS

The library at Regent’s College is named the Tate Library and although the library is relatively small it offers students some nice work spaces. Student’s also benefit from a serious of rooms scattered around the building the houses the library, which also includes a ICT section. In addition, laptops the college has many photocopiers and also a laptop loan service using Windows based machines.

The Heritage system in use enables students to log into their account search for items and also renew loaned items. Having used the same system for many years I know that it a very robust LMS and certainly a solid choice for the Tate library.

Other aspects to note

• Regent’s College has many partnership agreements with a vast range of institutions around the world.
• The college can and is used as a conference centre and is in a great central location for events.
• The college has a significant social media presence and uses Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.
• The college was recently given taught degree awarding powers and is set to increase its student numbers

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I visited the LDU at Bucks New University to discover the following:

• Best practice in delivering learning development information to students and staff
• How a professional LDU is run and managed
• How the service is marketed internally and externally
• The range of information and advice the service provides
• How staff provide help and advice to students

Buckinghamshire New University has two campuses, one located in High Wycombe and another located in Uxbridge. Both campuses have LDU’s but the largest campus is at High Wycombe and the largest LDU is also based at the High Wycombe campus. The LDU consists of eight staff members with one member of staff full-time and the rest part-time, making a total full-time equivalent equal to 4.5.

The LDU is exists to provide information and advice to all levels of students with all levels of ability. As Dr Simon Lee-Price (LDU manager) is quick to point out, the service exists to provide high achieving students with advice just as it exists to provide advice to students that may be struggling with their assignments or coursework.

The LDU provides an extensive level of service and offers students the option of face-to-face or remote advice and information. The remote advice and information can be either via video calling, or they can send in their work via email to LDU staff, who will read through it and provide comments and advice on aspects such as the use of language through to information on the structure of the work.

The university specialises in teaching subjects that include the following:

• Business and Management
• Children and Young People
• Education
• Health and Nursing
• Sport and Fitness
• Social Science
• Social Work

Technologies and services used by the University and the LDU

The university and LDU staff use the following services to provide support and information to students and staff:

• WebEX – Web conferencing and collaboration
• Skype –video calling
• Ning –Social networking
• Blackboard – virtual learning environment
• Marketing and awareness of the service

Awareness and marketing of the service is carried out in via the following ways:

• Word of mouth by students that are currently using the service
• Information placed on LCD screens located around the university campus
• Lecturers who recommend the service to students
• University publications
• Regular emails sent direct to students
• Involvement in university events, such as open days
• leaflets and flyers around the campus

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• To gain an understanding of the type and range of eResources being purchased by the university and gain an understanding of how they are managed
• To gain further information on University of Bath’s research repository
• Visit in more detail

Managing electronic resources

The University of Bath subscribes to many electronic journals and has purchased many ebooks from a variety of providers. This is an overview of some of the salient points related to their electronic resources.

The management of the University of Bath’s electronic journal subscriptions and eBooks performed by separate staff and this appears to be a practice used by other universities that subscribe to or purchase significant numbers of electronic resources.

How information is conveyed to staff regarding electronic journal subscriptions

Information regarding eResources is placed on wiki that staff can access. This lists up-to-date information about individual eResources and information on their use, such as statistical information and information updates on individual eResources. Although staff can use the wiki in practice staff often call the specific electronic resources staff directly for information.

Access

Off-site access to resources at the University of Bath is gained by the use of a proxy server (EZ proxy). Other common ways to access resources are via Athens and more recently via the UK Federated Access Management system using Shibboleth technology.

Statistics

The main statistics are gathered half yearly – for example for Jan – July. Journal usage statistics are downloaded using the Journal Usage statistics Portal (JUSP). JUSP was developed in partnership with JISC Collections, Mimas, Evidence Base (at Birmingham City University) and Cranfield University. Using JUSP makes it easier to view usage statistics as you can view usage statistics from one location instead of going to every publisher to get individual statistics.

Contracts

Renewal of contract for subscription resources is normally for the calendar year in around August or September. This makes the process a lot easier as subscriptions are easier to manage as they general will expire at around the same time) Although this may be commonly known by staff used to managing subscription journal resources it will be useful for staff that have never had any involvement in managing eresources.

Requests

On occasion departments or individual departmental staff will request prices on specific types of electronic resources and depending on how much information is provided it can take lots of time to gather prices and information on these resources.

eBooks

The University of Bath have purchased eBooks from a range of providers from many providers such as MyiLibrary and also direct from many publishers such as Springer and Elsevier. Some issues related to managing eBooks to be noted are the differences in the types of ways providers and publishers allow you to access works. For example, some providers may allow you to purchase a type of licence that allows two or more simultaneous users to access an eBook at the same time whereas with others you may have to purchase multiple copies of an eBook to allow this to be possible. Furthermore, access options may differ with providers as some may allow you to view the book online and others may also allow you to download the item to your computer or device for a set period of time.

Further information

Staff at the University of Bath involved in managing eBooks have written the following article that provides useful information on their eBooks collections: Turning E in the 21st Century E-book Management at the University of Bath

OPUS repository

The University of Bath has an Institutional repository, which is named OPUS. OPUS is run on Eprints software and is maintained by Eprints Services at the University of Southampton. The OPUS repository is specifically a research repository and the University of Bath also has a mandate for their researchers to deposit full-text copies of their peer reviewed journal articles and conference papers into the repository.

Details of the University of Bath’s mandate can be found at the link below:

http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/services/eprints/deposit-mandate.pdf

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The new University of Surrey’s Library and Learning Centre was completed recently and is one of the most impressive HE library projects to be undertaken in the UK in recent years.

Viewing the photographs, leaflets and guides on the library together with standing outside the building you cannot fully appreciate the LLC project and how well executed it is.

This can only be fully realised when you literally have to walk into the building and enter into its various zones and its diverse types of study spaces. Only then can you fully understand this building’s appeal. Even more importantly, you can easily imagine yourself reading and spending time in these spaces. You can also appreciate how each of these spaces has the ability to aid the learning experience of each of the library’s client groups.

To understand how the new extension manages to be so impressive you have to consider each of its elements. From aspects of its construction – to details such as the inclusion of desktop power points on every desk – through to the different types of lighting in each zone and each room. It is the combination of all of its elements that makes it work so well.

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General overview

The Saïd business school offers a range of programmes in management, leadership and entrepreneurship for undergraduates and postgraduates and is well known around the world for its MBA programmes. The business school was established and built in 1996 and is located in the centre of Oxford near the Oxford rail station The business school is also having an extension built which has been designed by the Dixon Jones architect practice and is classed as the Saïd business school phase II project.

Sainsbury Library

The Sainsbury library is located on the first floor of the building is an open plan space with many desks and open access computers. There are a selection of journals and study guides located in this area but the books are located off to the sides of the main reading area where students can either locate their own items or ask for assistance in locating them. The library service is geared towards self-service and a self issue machine is located near the Help Desk where students can check out their own items or alternatively go to the help desk for assistance.

Subject area and resources

As the business school specialises in the areas of business, management and finance the library provides information and access to resources on these specific topics, which includes access to resources from the following services:

• Books 24×7
• EBSCO’s Business Source Complete
• EMIS (Emerging Markets Information Service)
• Factiva
• FAME (Financial Analysis Made Easy)
• Investext
• JSTOR
• Mintel
• Nexis UK
• Passport GMID from Euromonitor
• Web of Science
• Zephyr

SBS’s Eureka Institutional Repository

The Saïd business school has its own Institutional Repository called Eureka. Eureka runs on Eprints software and was originally set-up by a staff member at the school. The repository was created to showcase and provide access to academic articles and teaching materials created by academic staff at the SBS. Although the repository is configured to accept material via self-archiving a large proportion of the content has been added to the repository by library staff. As is commonly the case with IRs populating the repository with content has not been the easiest task and at the time of writing this post a temporary staff member is currently employed to locate and add previously written academic articles to the repository.

Web/digital issues

The library employs a Web and Digital Librarian and this is not a commonly found role in libraries. Their role is to add content to the library web pages and maintain and manage the SBS’s library web presence, which includes utilizing and maintaining the library’s social media. As the Bodleian libraries have a consistent type of template for all the individual libraries that form the Bodleian libraries, the Web and Digital Librarian also has involvement with other university staff that are responsible for the overall library web presence of the Bodleian libraries.

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The Royal Society is a fellowship of eminent scientist from around the world and its main offices are located in the heart of the capital on Charlton House Terrace.

The library’s collections are specifically related to science and the collection includes printed works an image library and an archive. The printed works collection consists of over 70,000 titles and the image gallery consists of over 6,000 photographs, engravings and paintings[1]

The visit consisted of a fairly detailed and informative tour around the building. The main offices of the Royal Society and the Society’s long history provided the Royal Society’s librarian with plenty to talk about and the sheer amount of history involved with the both the society and the building made the tour extremely interesting.

Many highlights of the visit included seeing a selection of items from the collection, such as the Royal Society’s oldest item (a small sized manuscript) and also Newton’s Death mask. It was also good to be able to go behind the scenes as it were by going into the stacks and seeing how the collection was being stored. The Royal Society’s stacks were typical of stacks and store rooms found in non purpose built buildings, as they consisted of many small unusual sized rooms with mostly low ceilings. Although their dimensions are not very practical for their function and day-to-day use, as a visitor they added character to the experience and made you even more aware of the age of the building.

[1] “Lists and explains the collections of the Centre for History of Science | Royal Society”, n.d., http://royalsociety.org/Collections/.

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