Content tīma
Mariko, Sue and Wendy have been buying like there’s no tomorrow (or rather, like there is a very similar lockdown to the one in 2020).
They’ve bought ebook packages, single urgent etextbooks, and managed ebook/video turnaways, buying additional access where needed. This has involved a lot of communication with librarians, vendors and UC Procurement.
They’ve also been working on the journal renewals for 2022. Plus supporting interloans and the “From Physical Collections to Learning Spaces” project, by planning the withdrawals and relegations on Puaka-James Hight Level 4.
Metadata & Discovery tīma
Alison, Linda and Nicole have been working on our discovery systems.
They’ve tidied up and enriched fonds on Minisis. This means improved access to collections like FD8738 John and Connie Summers; FD8150 Lyttelton Community Oral History; FD690 John Edward Weir papers; FD1620 ENSOC; FD1565 Midland Coach Company; FD1133 Leo Bensemann; FD 856 Royal Society of NZ; FD909 Karl Popper; FD625 Charles Sedgwick; FD11331 Jean Garner; FD679 Thelma Strongman. This content will be particularly valuable as we move towards UC’s 150th anniversary.
UC Research Repository (UCRR) submissions have had metadata added and files replaced, theses catalogued and their embargo statuses checked. This means we have the correct information available to the thousands of people who access our repository each week.
On Horizon, the new purchases have had records created, and broken links have been fixed to make sure our users can access content easily while studying and working at home.
The team have also been working on our new shiny system, Omeka. And also looking into the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standard so we can improve our display of digital images. More on these later this year!
Digi services tīma
Romy, Leah, Peter and Donna have been working on supporting the COVID-19 Alert Level changes.
Not surprisingly one big area has been communication and Horizon issues relating to the lockdown. Web pages have been updated and other web-presences annotated as necessary (e.g. Kā Kohika and HIP). The team have dealt with a steady string of problems reported by library staff using UC Laptops for off-campus access.
On Horizon, items on loan were adjusted to remove overdue blocks and to extend due dates. Where this was not possible (e.g. recalled items) other measures were taken to protect borrowers such as turning off recalled item fines. More recently, the team set up a new request/postal delivery service for Alert Level 3. On Kā Kohika, requests were disabled and new content and puzzles added.
There has been a small amount of preparatory work done for Open Athens. Which will be replacing EZProxy at the end of 2021. More info to follow!
Outside this, the team have also dealt with queries about access to resources, off-campus access issues, and login problems. These are pretty typical BAU, but there have been more than usual. Other projects have continued on e.g. Omeka and Greenglass and there have been one-off jobs such as new Gobi loads. There has been work done on provisioning new staff, and a handful of student-related requests such as EndNote which have not proven easy to resolve at a distance.
Infomation Resource Assistants
Fiona, Glenna, Joanna, Maria, Simon, Wendy have been busy purchasing, managing interloans requests, renewing journal subscriptions, and LEARN|Ako copyright checking. This involves lots of communication and managing 3 inboxes.
One example of this work is we now have access to more standards via our BSOL package (which is an online standards subscription), which will help students unable to access our print standards during lockdown.
And to end… an example of the feedback received by the team… “Thank you for your work during this lockdown. It really makes a huge difference to be able to get hold of resources, despite being at home. Much appreciated!”