The LibraryNovember/December 2012

Goldsmiths Library Christmas tree Photo: Sian Downes

November/December 2012 The Library – N

Kevin Wilson BUFVC’s ‘Get creative: raising awareness of moving image and sound content in your institution’ 7th December 2012

Helen Stephen Visit to Canada Water Library 20th July 2012

Eve Jamieson UKSG Introduction to Journals and E-Resources Today: London 9th October 2012

Jenny Lelkes Hello

BUFVC’s ‘Get creative: raising awareness of moving image and sound content in your institution’ 7th December 2012On 7th December, I went to Burlington House for the BUFVC’s ‘Get creative: raising awareness of moving image and sound content in your institution’ course. Luis Carrasqueiro, the Chief Executive of the BUFVC, gave an initial talk about the work of the organization and the importance of raising awareness of AV resources, as well as the complex issues surrounding them. This was followed by a series of presentations from people at various institutions, including both library and academic staff, showing all perspectives of using audiovisual content.

First were two presentations, one from Sheffield Hallam, the other from Manchester, which focused on promoting their library’s significant audiovisual resources to students and staff. They’re promoted to students through inductions or 1:1s, whereas they’re often promoted to staff through faculty blogs, subject specific presentations/workshops or all staff communication. Manchester in particular encourages innovation in teaching, promoting vidcasts or embedding BoB into lectures. Both see engaging staff as the best means of making these resources a success and gaining academic credibility.

This was followed by a presentation by Croydon College, which showed how restructuring the library and moving to a small site means staff are

more deployed to frontline services and ‘backroom’ work is outsourced, e.g. off air recording is replaced by BoB, no standalone AV facilities and streaming has replaced ownership of multimedia materials. The “gold” standard for courses is achieved by embedding media into them, which is where the library has a role with academics and the e-learning team.

The academic perspective came from Roehampton, where a Spanish lecturer described how online resources are very prominent in teaching innovatively and academic liaison is seen very much as a two-way process between the library and academic staff. Roehampton uses BoB, BFI Inview, Academic Video Online, Europeana, etc, using these for subtitling and audiodescription, etc.

Westminster too took a proactive approach in using multimedia in teaching. They’ve participated in developing (with the BUFVC and others) Chronicle, a resource that provides access to BBC Northern Ireland news material between 1963-1975 (the start and the height of The Troubles). There are issues with this resource: whether material should be censored for sensitivity reasons, footage is often mute and without scripts, etc. During lectures/seminars or on VLE course pages, academics will refer to clips of news footage and ask students to evaluate them.

Kevin Wilson

Visit to Canada Water Library 20th July 2012

Canada Water Library opened in November 2011 next to and above Canada Water station. It is a Southwark library and replaced the 1970s Rotherhithe Library. We were shown around by Richard Bareham, the Library Manager.

It is in a mixed community of working class people, often former dockworker families, and new arrivals taking advantage of the new developments and excellent transport links to the City, Canary Wharf, etc. It is intended to be a Community Hub bringing together both communities.

It was designed by Piers Gough. The site and requirements of the building presented challenges. Southwark Council wanted a large plaza area for events so the building is wider at the top than the bottom. Also, it is over the Jubilee line and on the edge of a Victorian dock. It cost £14.3 million and incorporates environmental features such as solar panels and a subterranean heat pump. We went out on the sedum roof and on one of the balconies hanging over Canada Water.

The library has a performance space (theatre with seating for 150 and professional lighting etc) and various meeting rooms with IT for presentations and some with PCs for teaching. All are managed (lettings and technical support) by the Albany Theatre Company. Profits go back into Southwark Library Service. The library uses these facilities free for events (Claire Tomalin, Andrew Motion, children’s events) and meetings by liaising with the Albany. The large double doors in the performance space open on to the plaza for indoor/outdoor events.

The public areas are on 3 levels with Wifi throughout. The ground floor has a café (subcontracted), reception desk and a few shelves of popular fiction with self issue machines (3M). This area opens at 8am for commuters on weekdays.

The rest of the building opens at 9am. The first level houses fiction, including a huge section of graphic novels, DVDs, ‘popular’ non-fiction, and the childrens’ library. The second level (reference and non-fiction) is a gallery with individual study spaces with electrical sockets for laptops but, as the building is open plan, it is not always quiet. In this area there are photographs and maps of the old docks reflecting the local heritage.

There are 7 library managers. Two are full time with others shared between sites and 13 FTE library assistants. The target for visits is 500,000 (March 2012 - Mar 2013) with 400,000 issues over the same period. Currently, visitor numbers are a little short of this. Issues are on target - but then it did open with all new stock! The staff areas are light

and airy with good views but staff are required to hot desk and themanager does not have a separate office

They have similar issues to us. They have a fairly liberal approach to food as it would be difficult not to with a café on site. Users can take cold food, coffee with lids and drinks in bottles upstairs. Initially, carpet cleaning was 6 monthly but now it is 3 monthly with left over carpet tiles being used as emergency replacements.

There are insufficient plug sockets for laptops so users are opening the floor boxes and leaving trailing leads. They are now investigating installing lockable floor boxes.

They were unexpectedly affected by the closure of academic libraries between Christmas and New Year when the library was ‘absolutely packed’. They had to bring in extra chairs with attached ‘desks’ so that everyone at least could sit down! They are hoping to be better prepared this year.

We rounded off the visit by trying out the café!

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/437/libraries_and_locations/2421/canada_water_library

Helen Stephen

UKSG Introduction to Journals and E-Resources Today: London9th Oct 2012

The course was aimed primarily at those quite new to working with journals and e-resources (in respect to their purchase and management rather than enquiry work). Although advertised as journals and e-resources, the focus was primarily on print serials and e-journals, with only a small amount of time devoted to e-books and other e-resources. The day was structured to give a broad overview of serials from the perspectives of Librarians, Publishers, System Librarians, and intermediaries such as Subscription Agents. This allowed for the key processes involved in serials to be explained, from the conception of a new journal with a publisher to the arrival of a print issue in the library or the activation of online access.

Here is a very brief summary of the roles discussed:

Publisher: Employing editor for the journal Quality control and peer-review

(between author, editor, and peers/experts)

Typesetting and formatting for print and online

Developing platforms for e-journals and e-resources

Launching new journals

Subscription agents: Acting as intermediary between

the library and the multiple publishers of the serials they subscribe to.

Disseminating publishing schedules and information to libraries.

Managing claims for issues not received and troubleshooting problems.

Other intermediaries: Online content hosts for

publishers requiring a third party for technical solutions and web hosting of their content.

E-content aggregators that repackage content from multiple publishers. These offer affordable access through use of embargos.

Authentication services, such as Athens, which limit users and assist institutions, comply with licensing agreements.

Time was also allocated for groups to discuss keys issues, combining knowledge from employees from libraries, publishers and subscriptions agents. Themes discussed included e-only journals, link resolvers, authentication services, open access, publisher pricing, and challenges for end users.

More information about the event can be found at:http://www.uksg.org/event/INJERT091012 This page includes valuable lengthy introductions to the work of the Serials Librarian, the Publisher, and

the Subscription Agent, as well as copies of all the presentations given at the event. The ‘Getting Technical’ presentation was particularly valuable in clarifying the differences between stable DOIs and context based OpenURLs and explaining how they are utilized by libraries.

Overall the day was very rewarding, and pitched at a good level which developed a basic knowledge of how serials work into a more advanced understanding of their management.

Eve Jamieson

Hello

For those of you who I have already met this may be a bit repetitive, but to all those who I haven’t had a chance to meet yet: I’m Jenny and I started working at Goldsmiths in early September. I can usually be found in the lending office, just look out for the whirl of brightly coloured attire. So a very little bit about me:

- I’m currently a librarian in training, studying for an MA at UCL. Whilst libraries are a big part of my life, like most people, my interests are far reaching and include: art history (particularly anything from the 19th century), geology (I collect rocks and fossils), costume dramas and listening to all things weird and wonderful.

- I’ve been working in libraries for around four and a half years, mainly with the wonderful public in Brighton and more recently in the basements of the British Library. But I’ve also worked in one of Queen Mary’s medical libraries, for the National

Archives and the National Trust…to name but a few!

I’ve really enjoyed my time so far at Goldsmiths and am looking forward to meeting everyone soon. If I don’t see everyone beforehand: have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Jenny Lelkes

The Library November/December 2012Edited by Nicola Stephenson n.stephenson@gold.ac.uk

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