It’s hard to believe that since I visited UWA two weeks ago, in beautiful weather, they have suffered the effects of a devastating hailstorm. Thankfully it seems no one was injured but a lot of damage has occurred in the Education, Fine Arts and Architecture Library. You can see a newspaper report of the devastation here
I’m sending lots of good wishes to all the new friends I made over there – it must be just a horrible situation to deal with.
From a Perth paper
I had a very enjoyable visit to UWA on friday and have come away with lots of useful information and ideas, which I’ll be blogging about over the next few weeks. We spent some time talking about different ways to develop and sustain IL activities and the roles of library and academic staff. One suggestion which chimed with me was around giving feedback to students by talking about the IL demonstrated in a specific assignment at the start of a subject lecture. This was very well received by the students as it was pertinent to their work and was fairly easy for the library staff to do as they could give general feedback which was appropriate and perceived by the students to be very specific. I actually went to a staff student committee here in newcastle recently at which the students actually gave a similar example of good feedback which was along these lines, so this is definitely something I want to think about some more.
Banksias coming into flower near the Pinnacles, WA.
Both the libraries I have visited so far (Murdoch and Curtin) are splitting up their study spaces into different kinds of space, as we are at Newcastle. At Curtin, they have separated a silent space from the rest of the floor by glass partitions – what I liked about it was all the quotes relating to silence etched into the glass.
I also liked their Lounge@YourLibrary concept – the photo isn’t very good, but it gives a general idea.
We all struggle with the problem of how to dispose of our withdrawn stock – well, I think I found the answer when visiting the Cottesloe sculptures last week, you turn them into a sculpture!
Most of the sculptures are outside and it’s fun to walk along the beach to view them (more pics will follow), but I thought this was a specifically library related piece.
Julia Gross from ECU Library , who I met at Curtin last week, emailed me today with details of her own blog on which she has put a post about my visit. Julia’s blog is about emerging technologies so is well worth following.
I also enjoyed her non-library bird blog which has some absolutely stunning photos on it.
Julia raised an interesting point about digital literacies and whether they are supplanting or complementing information literacy. I think digital literacy is part of IL, but I’m interested to know what others think too.Julia also recommended a look at the Ascilite conference, held in NZ last December.
This is a picture of the Pinnacles, a few hours drive north of Perth – well worth a trip!
While I was looking round the library at Curtin (more photos will follow when I can manage to download them from my camera!) I was interested to see a special study room reserved for students who have received the VCs award. This is given to the top few % of students each year and gives them special privileges, such as this reserved study space in the library.
Here’s another of Darryl’s osprey pictures
I was very interested to hear about the new range of interactive tutorials which have been developed at Curtin University Library. You can see them here They are using a piece of software called Captivate 4, which the staff tell me is easy to use and is also used at Sydney, Adelaide and Tasmania Universities. I guess it’s probably used in the UK too.
Here’s an egret with a fish (Darryl’s photography again!)
Lyn from ECU told me about a project led by QUT, but with input from ECU (Edith Cowan) relating to student engagement in space planning and repurposing of study space. I’m hoping to find out more, but one idea she mentioned related to students submitting photos of good and bad study spaces – I thought this was an excellent way to engage students in these activities.
View of Perth from Kings Park
During my trip I’m keen to find out about new initiatives and projects going on at the different libraries I visit. Diana at Curtin told me about her video streaming work – she has struggled to engage suppliers to amend licences and give permissions to allow them to stream videos but is hopeful that things will improve now that a company (Canopy?) is proposing to provide a platform to enable the streaming, as well as manage the licence aspects. It sounds fascinating and I’m looking forward to reading the paper Diana has written about the project.
Jackie Hanlon, Curtin – also showing the portable reception desk, which I thought was very neat!
It’s been a while since I posted anything on my blog, not because I haven’t got lots of things to say, but because I just haven’t been able to find the time recently. However, it’s the start of a new month and I’m currently in Australia, in what seems to be the hottest period they have had for a while (it was 47 degrees yesterday!). This is mainly a holiday, but I am going to take the time to visit the 3 libraries in WA which I was able to visit on my last trip here in 2006. That visit was the reason for me starting the blog initially, so it seems an appropriate time to start it again.
I learned a lot last time I was here and some of that information fed into the SCONUL report on International students which was published in 2008. I’m keen to find out how the libraries have developed since my last visit and to see what new ideas I can take back home this time.
Osprey landing on nest near Mandurah (courtesy of Darryl, though I’m hoping to see this myself tomorrow!)