Kia ora koutou
A nice short week, though I am feeling as though five days’ mahi crammed itself somehow into four calendar days! And I sense it’s a “buckle your seatbelts” moment for what’s ahead over the coming few weeks, with Eke Panuku and a number of Orientation celebrations and activities taking place. I’ll be out and about as much as poss for this and know you all will be too. It’s such a key opportunity in the university calendar for us to be visible, make connections and share proudly the range of valuable services and support we offer!
On Tuesday this week, I presented to SLT (senior leadership team) about myself, my first impressions of UC life (as shared here in my first “kōrero with Kat” column) and the focus areas that are already in train, or emerging, for 2023. These focus areas are shared below and will take shape as our Library Operations Plan for the year ahead.
It was also signalled at this SLT meeting that an external peer review of the Library will take place during the year ahead. There are four main outcomes sought from this peer review. Findings will enable us to:
- Define our value proposition and service offer, and share this so that we (library staff) can see where we contribute and can on-share this message with our community
- Ensure our services, people, content, spaces, technology align directly with the University’s strategic priorities
- Flexibly reconfigure our physical spaces in all UC Library locations, to best meet student learning needs at different stages of their university experience
- Ensure we are as effective and as efficient as we can be
I see this as a great opportunity, as findings from this peer review will ‘future-shape’ and clearly define our strategic focus. It is early days – the terms of reference and scope are yet to be drafted – but I’d welcome any kōrero and pātai you may have about this. This could be together with colleagues, your manager, or one-on-one.
And here are the emergent, or in-train, focus areas for 2023 (in no presumed order of priority):
- Continuing UX of our physical and digital environments, to inform design, wayfinding, visual identity and layouts of buildings and systems, to provide manaakitanga for all
- Focus on bicultural library service development & delivery, and developing our teamwide cultural competence and confidence (Library managers had a planning hui on this earlier today)
- Library Management System (Horizon replacement) project
- Activate our UC Library Engagement Strategy to increase connection with our university community
- Undertake workforce planning & development – with a focus on change and change leadership, and bicultural competence – to support our staff hauora wellbeing and success
- Review our internal library communications/governance – are our comms channels and meeting set-ups working well or do they need a revamp?
- Increase awareness of Open Access publishing and its positive social and research impacts, and support our UC research community to submit more outputs more regularly into the UC Research Repository
- Increase awareness and use/creation of Open Educational Resources to support our curricula
This afternoon I attended my first Academic Board meeting, so regrettably missed the Digital Library UX (user experience) workshop some of you participated in today. I did however get a preview session with Rhiannon from Purple Shirt UX yesterday, so have had the chance to share some of my views already. Looking forward to seeing what emerges this afternoon too!
Have a great weekend all. Enjoy the slightly cooler, but still lovely, weather.