Kia ora koutou
I really am not sure how it is Friday already (though concede I’ve taken two half-days’ leave, which has thrown my whole sense of space/time continuum into the void!).
A couple of highlights to note this week include our Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which has just been revised for 2023. This is our “go-to” document to enable us to respond to any number of possible – and potentially sudden – developments in the wider environment. It’s updated regularly with useful phone numbers and plans for how we deal with everything from floods to computer system failures. Please contact Helen if you notice we’re missing anything or something is incorrect.
Library Committee met this morning, and received our tabled Library Ops Plan 2023 and Ngā Awa e Rua with support and commendation. Resourcing limitations were noted, and an interest in following progress and tracking achievements over the year to come. We (Helen, Aurelia and I) emphasised the fact that a raft of core work in library teaching, enquiries, circulation, research, spaces, digital resources, online environments, print collections, art, rare books, archives and cultural heritage underscores all of what “surfaces” to an Ops Plan, and while this scope of activity may not be explicit in words in the actual document, this deserves special notice.
On this note (i.e. the incredible breadth of our services), Library Managers have been working on shaping up our Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Library External Peer Review later this year. As we’ve pulled this together, it’s become obvious that the scope of everything we do borders on the “gargantuan”! We will therefore need to ensure the panel can be focussed on priority areas as part of their site visit, interviews and analysis.
We are also firming up aforementioned panel members, and have had some very positive responses so far. I’ll look forward to sharing more details on this in due course, as we reach confirmation.
I’ll be spending Tuesday-Friday next week in Sydney at the IFLA Library Buildings Section conference, based at the University of Sydney. I look forward to sharing back the latest thinking and innovations in architectural and spatial developments from Australasia and worldwide, upon my return.
Helen is also on leave next week, so Aurelia will be Acting in our stead, along with support from the wider Library Management Team. Ngā mihi, colleagues!
Take care and see you again on 27 March!
Kat