The Watching Wall at CPIT Library

I’ve started to write up my notes from my study visit now, so will start to post items relating to the trip which I didn’t mention at the time.
A nice idea from Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology Library is the Watching Wall – a bank of TVs which are tuned to international channels. Surrounded by beanbags and couches they provide a place where students can watch TV programmes from around the world – great for international students to feel they are keeping in touch with home. Students use their own headphones or can borrow them. They can also watch dvds here.

Sorry no plane photos Jane, but I thought I’d keep the tradition going and add a post from Changi airport here in Singapore – it’s such a nice airport, free internet with no queues! Only a 13 hr flight now to Heathrow and I should be back in Newcastle on Sunday morning (I expect it’s raining!)

Today was my last day in Australia – I’ll be heading home tomorrow, trying to devise a plan to come back again! Please keep reading the blog – I have lots more pictures and once I return I shall start my research project properly, so hopefully will still have some interesting posts now and then.

For now here are some pelicans I met at Point Peron, plus a skink which crossed the road just near them.

It’s fascinating to see how different libraries organise and label their learning spaces. many badge computer clusters as E-zones or E – libraries and at both Curtin and UQ libraries I saw small booths (the kind of thing you’d find in a pub in the UK), room for 4 students round a table, boxed in, with a PC at the end for group use. They looked like an attractive idea.

A few people said they enjoyed the crane ship so here’s another view of it

One the reasons I was keen to visit Curtin was to find out more about their innovative podcasting project. As well as an introductory tour, they produce a regular 3-4 min weekly podcast on a topic of interest. The title above links to the podcasts. Although they don’t yet know how students are using or benefiting from the service, they have recorded over 5000 downloads since September.
It was interesting to discover that any library staff who are interested have been able to be involved and that recordings are made by the staff who write the scripts, so that lots of different voices are involved. There will be some interesting logistics involved in continuing the podcasts into a second year as they need to produce new ones for students who have started using them this year, but also repeat the original set for new students.
Jaya and Constance were also interested in our plans to produce some foreign language versions of our podcast tour.

Sunset over Port Kennedy

http://library.curtin.edu.au/podcast/index.html

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.