L&LR staff blog

Colleagues, I’m pleased to share with you the agenda for the L&LR Away Day 2009. The Away Day, planned by the Library Staff Development Group, will be take place on 10th June 2009, at the Conference Centre, Riseholme Park. We look forward to welcoming all colleagues and offer our thanks to those who have kindly [...]

Attending Journalist Roger de Bank’s blogging masterclass for library staff made me realise what a genuinely clever skill good blog writing actually is. Retaining someone’s interest has a 3-second window of opportunity before the prospective reader casts their eye elsewhere. Still reading? I’ll carry on… Blog writing is all about attracting readers to your blog and retaining their interest by [...]

Because we all want wordclouds. Click the image for bigger. This one was created, using wordle.net, from the Library & Learning Resources student survey, May 2009 (a similar cloud was used on the front cover of the document).

This week marks the launch of the Competency Framework Pilot in Library & Learning Resources. Seventeen colleagues from across the department signed up to participate in the pilot which aims to ‘test drive’ the new Competency Framework before it’s formally launched by the University, later this year. The competencies are based on views expressed by [...]

…because everyone loves a wordcloud.

The help guide Accessing and using ebooks has been updated to include information on accessing and using ebrary Academic Complete. The help guide is accessible via the Library Help Guides page on the Portal.

Last year’s away day actions recommended that we “develop a jargon list of terms to help international students to understand commonly used library terminology”. Di, Graham and I have begun to create a list of terms L&LR use which probably confuse many students, international or not. Below is a list of (possibly) confusing synonyms and [...]

As I reported in March, a comparison of Horizon issue stats and e-book ‘sessions’ shows that use of our e-books is going up. I now have the e-book usage data (ebrary + MyiLibrary) and print circulation stats (all 4 sites, desk and self-issue) for April 2009, and the usage of e-books shows no sign of [...]

Just to let you all know that I’ve now started as ASL for Psychology, Biological Sciences and Sports Science, covering for Alexis whilst she’s on maternity leave and job-sharing with Oonagh. Whilst I’m jointly responsible for all three subjects, my main responsibility will be Biological Sciences. My hours are very complicated as I’m also continuing my [...]

In the spirit of the BBC’s Poetry Season to ‘let poetry into your life’  I’m re-tweeting a link to a poem commissioned by Essex County Council  to mark the inauguration of their new ELAN library computer system, posted by a librarian on Twitter.  The link will open the poem in Word. http://bit.ly/hW6Ok