Kia ora koutou,

Since I last wrote, nearly 5 months have passed and we are almost reaching the end of the year.  I find that we are tipped helter-skelter into the holiday season very quickly at this time of year.  Here is a fairly low-key collection of “things I have been working on”.

Recruitment

I initiated the recruitment process for the new Kaitakawaenga role in October, although the person who takes this role will report to the Kaiwhakahaere Taonga Tūku Iho, Fiona wasn’t yet in post and we wanted to get the process started.  The applications closed on 4 November but we didn’t get any candidates at this time. This was a very disappointing outcome, but we will readvertise this role next year, when we will have appointed a new Pou Tuarua | Associate University Librarian and have a clearer management and support structure in place.

We are also currently recruiting for a replacement Kaitiaki Kaupapa | Subject Librarian, who will support Te Kaupeka Pūhanga | Faculty of Engineering and support the promotion and adoption of open educational resources.  Applications for this role close on 5 December.

Covid Restrictions Planning

The emergence of local cases of Covid has put us back on the roller coaster of uncertainty but I am pleased to have got to the end of the academic year without having to change alert levels.  There was a lot of frantic work done just before exams to put a plan in place for Library services to be offered even if we were to go back into Alert Level 3.   We did end up with a plan that would ensure the safety of staff and students while still offering access to the Libraries, but much to the relief of everyone involved, it wasn’t needed.

I also recently attended a practical exercise with the Incident Management Team, where we all worked through the theoretical scenario of a Covid case on campus and how we would coordinate the response of the University.  I sat back and mostly listened, but came away with confidence that the IMT have good processes in place!

And now planning around the new traffic light system begins.

LIANZA Conference

I hope you enjoyed any sessions that you viewed during the LIANZA Conference. Fiona, Lisa and I enjoyed the opportunity to present some of the findings from our research project exploring the attitudes of academics towards textbooks.  As we were meant to attend the Conference in Wellington, we spent the three days based in the Camerata Room at the Arts Centre. This enabled us to recreate the focus of the conference environment and provided us with some great choices for lunch each day.  It felt strange to pre-record our session then watch it on the day, regretting the stumbles and mumbles, but unable to correct anything. We had some interesting questions from the audience, and we will make the survey data openly available on Figshare.

Library Regulations Rewrite

The “Library Access and Borrowing Policy” was due for review in November, but we decided that the policy was no longer needed as it duplicated the information in the Library Regulations and on the Library website.  As a result of getting rid of this policy, the Library Regulations needed some tweaking to make sure they were comprehensive.  This became a tangled mess as I grappled with the terms ‘user’, ‘borrower’, ‘member’, ‘reader’ and the consistent use of one throughout. However, with the help of Helen, we have now submitted a coherent set of Library Regulations for Academic Board approval.

If you have any questions, or just want to have a chat about the above, please let me know.

Ngā mihi,

Sara