Monthly Archives: November 2006

Curtin University Library

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Curtin has a very extensive IL programme, involving a lot of collaboration with academic staff. I have an excellent example of an embedded programme in Health Sciences as well as some useful documentation demostrating how the activities are documented.
I was interested in the staff development, which involves a session every fortnight on topics of interest, either run within the library or with invited speakers.
LATN is a collaborative network of 5 australian technical libraries and as a group they have been involved with supporting “offshore” students, especially in SE Asia. There seem to be a lot of collaborative initiatives in Australia – it would be good if we could do more of this locally.


I wasn’t able to take any photos inside Curtin Library, but here are Kerry and Diana with some of the spectacular flowers and the library behind them.

Research support in Australian libraries

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One of the interesting aspects of many of the australian university libraries I have visited is that they have a designated separate provision for researchers and academics. In UWA it’s called the Scholars Centre and at QUT it was the Research Centre. These areas are often linked to services like ILL and archives and provide bookable desks, lockers etc and at QUT, for example, direct access to liaison staff. Some useful ideas, I think.

Here is a picture of an “Ibis tree” – well a tree which had a lot of Ibis roosting in it anyway!

Threshold concepts

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When filling in their wandering minds sheets, several of the staff at UWA picked up on the idea of threshold concepts, which I touched upon in the talk I gave to them. The notion of “Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge” originated with Jan Meyer and Ray Land and I think gives an interesting way of thinking about IL – can we change the way in which staff and students perceive IL in a permanent way?
Follow the link above to find refs to Meyer and Land’s original work.

This pic is nothing to do with libraries; it is a huge crane transporter leaving Fremantle yesterday.

http://www.dur.ac.uk/education/staff/?id=1960

IRIS and STIL

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UWA Library has a range of IL resources and approaches. They are working towards embedding IL into the curriculum and have some great examples in Medicine and Law. However, Like Murdoch, they are also providing some core first year on line units : IRIS, as well as a more generic InfoPathways, which you can see at the link above. IRIS is compulsory but not directly assessed; if students don’t complete it they will have a fail recorded on their academic record.
STIL gives access to skills for librarians who are teaching IL, similar to the LibLearn programme we ran at Newcastle and Durham a few years ago.

The new journals area at UWA

http://www.library.uwa.ed…ormation_skills

University of Western Australia Library

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UWA Library must have one of the best locations an acadmic library can have! It is situated in the middle of a beautiful campus with the Swan river just over the road. These 2 pics were taken from the same spot, looking in opposite directions. The library is the red roof just visible in the middle of the picture.

I had a great time meeting staff here as they were so friendly and interested in my project and they have given me some fascinating feedback on my Wandering Minds sheets. This was also one of the best lunches (though they’ve all been good because of the company!). This is me and my dessert!

http://www.library.uwa.edu.au/

Sad librarians

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For the Newcastle noticeboard – here are some more pics of me outside libraries. Sadly, I keep forgetting to have someone take my photo when I visit all the university libraries, but I’m finding some interesting public ones, so I hope these count!

Murdoch University Library

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I had a great time this afternoon at Murdoch University Library, where I met several staff, including the University Librarian Margaret Jones and the IL coordinator Merrilee Albatis. The photo shows Merilee by one of the art exhibits.

Murdoch is a small university, with about 9000 FTE students, but they are doing some very interesting work in IL. I particularly liked their LITE programme, which is a WebCT based programme followed by about 90% of their foundation students as a compulsory assessed unit. This is an excellent way of ensuring that students have basic library skills right from the start.
Jenny, the Science Liaison Librarian also explained to me how all liaison staff have a space in their respective schools and spend time there on a weekly basis, maintaining a high level of contact with staff. I’d like to explore how we could do more of this at Newcastle.
Last but not least, Murdoch has a lovely cafe, situated in a courtyard in the middle of the library (this is for Jill!)

The cafe

http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/infoskills/

Endnote again

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We already have lots of links to the brilliant UQL Endnote pages, so I couldn’t visit here without paying homage to their creators! Sadly, I didn’t meet John East, but Noela and I had a great chat (commiserating together) and have agreed that we will keep in touch and help each other as much as possible (this might be more of a one way transaction…..)I’m sure this will be a great help to us in Newcastle.

A possum in Brisbane city centre

http://www.library.uq.edu.au/faqs/endnote/

UQL Cyberschool

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The UQL Cyberschool is a very exciting initiative and an excellent example of university and school collaboration. As well as providing a focus for IL for schools and access to lots of free resources, the cyberschool staff facilitate database trials and help organise appropriate subscriptions for schools, dealing with both the schools and the vendors. They also run training for teachers and librarians and suggest lesson plans to encourage teachers to incorporate the use of electronic resources into the classroom activities. I think this is the kind of thing we should all be doing!


Rainbow lorikeet in the garden (did I mention there were koalas in the garden the other day!!)

Proof!

http://www.library.uq.edu.au/schools/