Way to Hell

It is said that the way to Hell is paved with good intentions,   and my good intentions to blog regularly has also ended up on the way to Hell.    It is hard to believe that I am almost at the end of the stay here at the Dana Porter Library at the University of Waterloo,  and I have only posted once!   #epicfail!   The intention was to flesh out observations and thoughts on the trends that have stood out … 

So what have I been doing in the 7 weeks that I have been here?    I ’m based in the Information Resources Services Section of the Dana Porter Library and have been included in the Library Review Advancing Scholarship and Research Working Group.       I’ve sat in on research training sessions;  attended a pre-ARLIS Conference Workshop on Film Studies;  visited the libraries at the University of Guelph and Wilfred Laurier University;  had discussions and conversations with individual librarians;  tootled off to San Francisco for a mid-programme meeting;  and had some thinking space to try to make sense of,  and crystalise what I have observed, sharing these observations and ideas with colleagues back home.

So  here are some trends that have  stood out for me :-    

·         The repurposing of library space for scholarly and research purposes by moving material to storage (with some really hi-tech automated retrieval system.   Together with this, making sure that there is  flexibility of library space and furniture.   Making the space central to the students’ lives and academic studies by focusing on making the students feel welcome …   that the library is their space, and not  belonging to the librarians!

·         The development of Research Services and Scholarly Communications whether this was stewardship of scholarly digital services  (institutional repositories, electronic theses and open access hosting) or providing  specialized reference services and support including Data Management Services and Curation.       Support for all things data, is new on the academic library horizon here in North America.   It is the *hot* topic under discussion everywhere.    And it is a conversation that the research libraries in South Africa have to start having sooner rather than later.    There are evolving roles for librarians here.       The libraries often take the lead on their campuses,  working closely with the equivalent of a research office.        My intention is to blog more fully about this, so watch this space.

·         Digitization of collections whether this is outsourced or sponsored or run in-house  -      Digital Humanities is the area that is getting much attention

·         The importance of Assessment kept coming up, particularly during the first three weeks of the Illinois visit.     

·         Consortia.  I am  impressed by the way consortia works here in Canada -  the power and support that is provided for research services.     We need to look at leveraging the power and support that our current library consortia provide (or don’t provide).     But that is a whole another posting.

Overwhelmed ...

This is the 4th week of the visit to North American Research Libraries, and the end of the first week at the University of Waterloo Library in Canada.   And the first opportunity that I have had to reflect on the rather hectic and jam-packed first three weeks.       I will put up some retrospective blog postings in due course, but thought it might be useful to post the report (with some additional commentary)  that I sent through last week.  (I know that another report is due this week,  and that will be my task a little later on today.)

Below covers the first couple of weeks of the programme with the Mortenson Center for International Library Programs:- 

I’m not going to go into any great detail about the specifics of what was covered in the sessions, but  rather to give my general impressions and takeaways.    Certainly I have come away with a good understanding of how librarians interact with researchers and what it takes to provide real research support -   in some cases, we, in South Africa, are doing what these librarians are doing, and some of the issues and challenges are the same.       But at the same time, I’ve been left with some -aha moments as well as questions about  South African academic libraries.

What stands out for me are issues around:-

•  the repurposing of space for research/scholarship support whether this is bringing together of smaller branch libraries (as in the newly formed International Area Studies Library at the University of Illinois in U-C)  to promote interdisciplinary research or removal of lesser used material to storage freeing up floor space for people.  

•  Support for scholarly work including the space (physical and virtual) and programmes including digital  scholarship, providing advanced research services and the marketing of these services

• Data  -  especially the curation and management of data and assisting with setting up of data management plans  (especially with the National Science Foundation funding requiring a data management plan in the grant proposal).      (I'm going to blog a bit more about this in a separate posting.)

I was very excited about the library we visited at Upshot Marketing Agency’s special library service,  The Source.    This is not your typical  or traditional library, nor , I think, the usual corporate library.   The library’s mission is to empower Upshot with consumer and marketplace intelligence designed to spark new ideas for strategic and creative development.    The line of business they are in, is very volatile and it was a case of becoming indispensible in the face of this volatility -   something that I think can be applied to research support that academic libraries support.    Key words here are market intelligence,  research for concept support,  competitive intelligence,  innovation.   The library is also involved in fostering a learning organization, to share what needs to be done to stay ahead of the game  - to give their teams the edge over other marketing agencies.   

We saw several examples of remote storage models -  Oak Street (at University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign) and University of Chicago with the automated remote storage retrieval.     This allowed for repurposing of space.    But not only this,  the speed of fulfilling these requests was amazing....   5 - 15 minutes at the University of Chicago. 

The other topic that came up in the various sessions in the different libraries was some form of  patron driven acquisitions where some of the book budget has been set aside for this.  

 We also visited Center for Research  Libraries which started out as consortial off-campus storage for 10 large mid-west academic libraries and now has 265 member institutions.  Perhaps at some stage, we need to reconvene the old  conversation about a consortial off-campus storage.   (This is probably going to be raised a group concern or recommendation.)     Something that perhaps can be considered or raised with SANLic is the possibility of South African academic libraries subscribing to the digital collections of CRL -   as with other libraries in Australia and Hong Kong.

Library Day in the Life Project Round 8

I've been lurking on the edges of the Library Day in the Life Project for a couple of Rounds now ...   and haven't seen any South African librarians on the list (yet),  so here goes...     I'm a subject librarian at the University of Cape Town. 


This week, so far, has been very busy as we are heading into the start of the new academic year.   The library is filling up as Orientation Leaders bring groups of  wide-eyed first years through the library on a campus orientation.   If this is towards the end of the day,  these first years look glazed over, suffering from information-overload.        

But I am also preparing for the overseas leg of the Carnegie Research Librarians Academy.   There is a presentation to prepare for that, as well as doing as much of the pre-start of the academic year preparations as I can,  given that I am not going to be around for a goodly chunk of the first semester.    And trying to finish off a library guide on assisting our academic staff to track their own research. 

So this week has not really been a typical week.   And in fact,  there is no typical day (even once the academic year starts),  although somewhere in the day,  there will usually be a stint at the information desk.

I'm here at work at about 7.30 am -  depending on traffic, after doing the school run -  and find parking very easily.  (We have a huge parking problem on campus -  early birds get the parking, late birds end up circling and parking almost halfway up Table Mountain.)

Monday saw an early morning stint at the information desk followed by working on the library guide, then dealing with email, either responding to requests for setting up sessions for new students in my subject areas or quickly dealing with other queries or talking to colleagues and students who drop in.     I keep fiddling with the library guide  -  whipping stuff in and out.    And getting those colleagues who drop in, to give an opinion.  I've got to keep remembering that this is to assist staff in tracking their own research.   

I am going to be hosted by the University of Waterloo Library in Canada for about 7 weeks,  as part of the Research Librarians Academy,  so Monday afternoon saw the first Skype session with my host!    (And in the middle of the session, a student knocked on the door to ask for assistance!)  Nibbled on my lunch at my desk, while checking my Google Reader.      Where did those 1000 unread feeds come from? 

Tuesday was a looooong day.  There was a general staff meeting for the entire library first thing in the morning ...  our libraries were actually closed and only re-opened at 10 am.     Again, continued fiddling with the library guide ...   but then ran into technical problems (not sure if it was me or our network ....    screenshots wouldn't display! ).     Was going to assist a colleague with a library tour for our Social Development Honours students,  but only a small number of students arrived,  so my help wasn't needed.  (My colleague had recently  taken over the Social Development subject responsibilities from me ...).  

As part of the University's Welcome to new students,  there are two Open Days for Parents where our Vice Chancellor (or one of the Deputy Vice Chancellors) addresses the parents, and they then go off to attend talks by the relevant Deans, and hear about life at the university and what their children can expect.   There are information stands in one area of the campus, and tours to the facilities including the Chancellor Oppenheimer Library.    Tuesday evening was the second of the Open Days.   The first of the groups of parents arrived at about 3.30 pm  -  I was one of the "tour leaders" showing parents around the library.  (Love doing this ...  we have an awesome library!) and was here until 6.30 pm.    

Wednesday saw a short desk stint -  had to get a colleague to stand in for part of the shift, as there had been an invite to attend a departmental staff meeting for one of my subject responsibilities ...     I need to tell them that I will be gone for a while and what the interim arrangements are.    This was followed closely by an appointment with one of my academic colleagues who wanted to get her My Citations (Google Scholar) set up ...  which was great because this is what the library guide is all about!!

Together with my colleagues,  we then headed over to information talks to incoming groups of first year Humanities students.      The library always gets a slot.   My colleague, Alex, does the speaking while the other librarians provide a supporting presence and be introduced.    Previously,  we wouldn't accompany him, but would catch the students in the library as they were on the campus tours,  dish out library waterbottles and say a few words.    But this is not feasible now, so we accompanied him, taking over some print examples of reference books,  and journals.        We recently put together a series of slides about the Humanities Librarians (for the information slide show the library has running near the entrance and at the information desk) and this was shown ...          we certainly did not expect the thundering applause and laughter we had    (-:  

Then it was back to cover the information desk until closing time at 5 pm.