Kia ora Koutou!

 

Ngā Mihinui to all those who helped out with Rā Tōmene this year! We tried something new, and we are so thankful for all those who pitched in and helped us out with the events on the day! You have all contributed to the outreach of the University of Canterbury, and as a direct result of your mahi, students will make an informed choice about what tertiary provider they will attend. We had 3204 registered attendees overall at Rā Tōmene, so it was a busy day!

 

Puna Stall

We engaged with a record 451 people at the stall this year! Our busiest times were 9am-12pm. We had a variety of library brochures, subject librarian leaflets, postcards, and fruit bursts for people to take. For our social media giveaway, people had the choice of a brain stress ball or a lip-balm if they followed us on our Instagram on the day. This was a huge success, and we completely ran out of both options by the end of the day (even with our next-door neighbours also giving away stress balls…granted they weren’t quite as cool as our brains…!). Overall, we went with a more pared-back stall than in previous years (fewer and less complex giveaways), which seemed to be very effective.

 

Time	Number of people who visited the stall
9-10am	125
10-11am	103
11am-12pm	100
12-1pm	45
1-2pm	57
2-3pm	13
3-4pm	8

 

 

224 Library 101 Information Sessions

The information sessions were a novel plan for 2023. These sessions were bookable through the Central Events portal on the Rā Tōmene website.

This meant we knew how many people were planning on attending our events through the day. We had a 30 minute session each hour between 9 and 3. The second half hour of each session was a guided tour.

The session was deliberately designed to be a relational and interactive session which introduced our guests to our MB, ELS, and LTR colleagues, as well as a brief overview of the resources and services we provide at UC Library. The interactions at the sessions were really engaging, and each of the teams held activities at their tables which led to fruitful conversations with prospective students and their families.

The Events team notified us that our events were completely booked out in July – this shows that people were interested in understanding the services we provide.

On the day we had 155 people come through our information sessions on the day, which is about 2/3 of the number who booked (245). As anticipated, there was attrition during the day and by the afternoon, numbers dwindled – a phenomenon reported from most events across campus. During the session we also gave away the tourism style t-shirts designed by Ryan Dooley, as part of a quick quiz which promoted our services and resources.

The information sessions ended with the guests receiving an exclusive UC Library tote bag filled with the following handouts:

• Library brochure
• Subject librarian brochure
• Te Rua brochure
• 2x Postcards
• Bookmark
• Pen
• 2x Fruit bursts
• Badge
• Range guides (PJH and EPS)

 

Guided Tours

After the information session, we ushered our guests out to meet more ELS staff members, who then took them on a guided tour of Puaka-James Hight. This was based on our self-guided tour, but was guided instead. Ishbel, Juliet, and Hui decorated the various floors with positive quotes from the 2022 Engagement Survey, which gave our attendees great information about what our students enjoyed abut our spaces.

The guided tours were a great opportunity for prospective students and their families to meet more staff members, ask questions, and see the space. The tour ended in the Makerspace, and many of the attendees stayed in there and engaged in some crafting as a break from the busyness of Rā Tōmene. It was great to see some former students bring their children back, and comment on the big changes in PJH, and how much they liked its newer furniture and study spaces!

Rā Tōmene 2023 was a great success, and it was pleasing to hear the in depth conversations happening around the information sessions, as people heard about the great services we provide to our students.

Brian, Isabella, Kerry, Dale, and Lani