We have just been informed that Distribution Services no longer have the staffing capacity to provide a hamper service to the Library. There will be a series of meetings next week both with Library staff and with Distribution Services to look at how we manage this change, what type of service we can sensibly offer and how to communicate this to our users. If you would like to attend or have ideas, please contact your manager or me.

The cessation of the hamper service will have an impact on staff and students. Areas of impact will include:
– Inter-library requesting and returns
– Distance Services
– Interloans
– Support at Dovedale until CoEHHD moves to Ilam
– Store retrieval
– Delivery of new books and serials
– Delivery of small miscellaneous items e.g. marketing materials and stationery.

One option is to use Allied Pickford who have been contracted to do the furniture moves at UC, but this will be a cost to the Library. Distribution Services have been asked to cost this option prior to discussions next week.

The postal service will continue but with one delivery/collection per day in the afternoon. This will link up with the usual daily mail and courier pickup very early the next morning.

These are part of the changes across Learning Resources to achieve budgetary savings. The VC, SMT and Council all made the decision that permanent savings must be achieved in 2018 to allow the university to become financially viable.

No reduction in service will be seen as positive from a customer experience perspective, and it will be breaking promises that we made to academic staff when we put material into storage. We must now focus on managing the impact of this on our users and on ourselves, and continue to provide a service we can be proud of.

Thanks for your understanding. We are asking for information on any other service changes in LR to be passed on so these can be planned for. In the meantime if you are asked, or find you need to, pick up new tasks due to changes happening outside the Library can you please discuss it first with your manager so we can see the full impact for all of us.
Ngā mihi nui, Anne