The Project
From Physical Collections to Learning Spaces project will reduce the physical collection by a third over 5 years. The majority of disposals will come from the Library Store, with some material from Puaka James Hight and EPS. That will allow the space gained in PJH to be used for creative adaptive learning.
Our project aligns with global trends in academic research libraries as the trend towards digital access to research materials accelerates. Our usage data tells us 95% of usage of information resources is digital.
Impact of Covid 19
During covid 19 alert levels 4 & 3, progress slowed down on this project. Now that we are at alert level 2, the project has speeded up again. We’re on track to begin the Print Collection Reduction work in June.
Covid 19 meant we had to change some things. These include:
- Strong attention to health and safety issues
- Allowing for variation in the staff hours allocated to the project
- Withdrawing material in 2020 which is low contention so we don’t need to consult with academics
NZ and Pasifika materials, as well as the Macmillan Brown and special collections are out of scope for this project.
Project team
The Project Manager is Jenny Owens, with Helen Thomas as Project Sponsor. Oversight of the project is provided by Anne and Helen. There are three sub-projects, the biggest one is the Print Collection Reduction sub-project. We’re delighted that Sue Thompson has been seconded to this role. Her knowledge of accessing materials from other libraries and publishers is already proving a strong asset. Te Paea leads the space sub-project and Moira leads the Criteria and Communications sub-project.
Finding out more
If you would like to know more about this project, there’s a couple of documents which are useful. Key messages is a short summary for academics. The project charter is a also useful, outlining how the project will work. If you want to know more about this project or have questions, we plan to schedule a Q&A meeting for anyone interested.