Kia ora koutou. Welcome to Inside Out 3. I’m on leave next week so this issue is slightly earlier than usual.
Microsoft Teams and Onedrive
By now you should all be aware that UC is moving staff to Microsoft Teams between August and December this year, as part of the M365 project. The schedule is not yet available for the date this will happen for the Library. Our Library Digital Services team will get moved onto Teams as early adopters, so they have some knowledge of using it before other library staff get access to it. Other staff who have volunteered to be early adopters will also have access to Teams and OneDrive from 23 August. Training and training material will be available to all staff before they are given the software.
I haven’t used Teams but my understanding is that it is an all-in-one application where you can message and call others, share files, schedule and attend online meetings. It won’t replace our regular personal email entirely but some of you may find most of your communication with others is done within Teams rather than email or skype. You will have a “team” for each main group you are in. For example for me that means a team for Physical Collection Project, Library Managers, Distance, Library Digital Services, Metadata Librarians etc. You can also have subgroups or “channels” within each team. At the same time we will get access to OneDrive to store our files to replace the P drive. See FAQs to find out more.
OpenAthens
The Library is purchasing OpenAthens which is an authentication system to replace our current Ezyproxy system. OpenAthens is a single sign-on system so users of our online databases only need to sign in once during each browser session, regardless of the number of different resources they access. It can also provide us with statistics on how often content is accessed.
Helen has been negotiating the purchase and Romy is taking the lead for this within Library Digital Services. We hope to have it up and running to use with SciVal in October and other online resources will start to be added in a staggered approach. Find out more about OpenAthens here.
Physical Collections Project Update
This large project has made good progress this year thanks to the hard work of many staff. Subject Librarians have created criteria for withdrawal/relegation which involved consultation with academics. Using the criteria, we have focussed on journals in the Law Basement this year. We have withdrawn 48,000 items or about 50% of the journals in basement so far, with about 5% of the withdrawals lists still to process. We have also withdrawn duplicate copies in PJH which have not been checked out in several years.
Level 4 of PJH will be where you will see visible changes by the end of this year. We have recently had budget approved to replace most of the furniture on Level 4. Te Paea is working with suppliers for furniture proposals. Sue Thompson is coordinating working through withdrawal lists then relegation lists for monographs on Levels 4 and 6, excluding Te Puna Ako material. Once the stock has been moved and shuffled, we will be removing a small proportion (20%) of shelving on the West side of Level 4 to create more light and study spaces.
GreenGlass
The Library is purchasing GreenGlass, a product from OCLC. It is a collection analytics tool which will enable us to run reports and get data about our collection and compare our holdings to comparator libraries which will help with deselection decisions. I’m very excited about this tool and the impact it will have on the Physical Collections Project work.
Academic Structure
I attended one of the workshops for staff on the proposed new Academic Structure. We were given an introduction by the VC and then in our table groups of 5-6 people, we were asked to discuss and comment on the proposal and later feedback to the whole group. My table consisted mainly of support staff and it was good to hear viewpoints from other areas. There were lots of good ideas put forward and it will be interesting to see the outcome of the proposal.
Ngā mihi,
Jenny Owens