Today is my last day at work prior to Christmas so I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and say thank you for the card full of good wishes and the Ballantynes voucher that I was given when I was leaving at the end of November. I have put these aside until I leave on 25th February (which will probably come around pretty quickly!) Cynthia.

You will have noticed in her email to staff today that Sue McKnight said “interim arrangements will be put in place to ensure the transition runs smoothly”. One such arrangement is that I have agreed to stay on until 25th February to assist with the day-to-day issues of managing vendors, budget end of year and roll-over, valuation and other issues. I still have my sights set on the retirement goalposts, though! Cynthia.

Just wondering if anyone knows the whereabouts of my heater – an electric oil column one. Last seen in the Library Warehouse.
Cynthia.

At the LLT meeting on 18 October, Gail reported that the Group of 8 libraries in Australia are discarding all their physical copies of the journals accessible through JSTOR as JSTOR have undertaken an obligation to keep 2 print copies of each journal. It was felt that UC Library could also discard print runs of “safe” journals available electronically through JSTOR. Ithaka S+R have developed a spreadsheet as part of their Ithaka Print Collections Decision-Support Tool that identifies what titles a library holds based on their subscription to various collections and what titles meet the requirements for a) not being image-intensive and b) having the obligatory two copies held at Harvard University and University of California.
If you look at the titles list on the spreadsheet you will see that there are three categories of titles highlighted. Turquoise highlighting indicates that the journals are not image-intensive and meet the US holdings criteia so UC could dispose of these titles. Mauve highlighting indicates that the journals are not image-intensive but they currently don’t have the copies at the two US print repositories. We could use our discretion with these, looking at other NZ print holdings, and either discard or store. Apricot highlighting indicates that the journals are image-intensive so we may want to consider keeping these in storage, depending on their relevance here at UC.
P.S. If you look at the spreadsheet, the UC tab is University of California NOT University of Canterbury. Cynthia.

Deirdre has added the bibliographic records to the catalogue for our streamed videos in the Counselling and therapy in Video and Ethnographic videos online collections. This represents about 750 videos in total. I notice that the GMD for these is “Electronic resource” which may be a bit of a trap for people who are looking for video footage. Typically the records have the word “video” in the description and in the series so a keyword search in the catalogue should pick them up. Also using the limit “Format: Videos/DVDs” seems to work. Cynthia.

Recent weeks have seen the official start of the Student Services and International portfolio. Please see our new website, which reflects the new structure and contact details,
but please note that it is very much a work in progress. As we are yet to confirm appointments to some of the management roles, I would like to take this opportunity to confirm the interim reporting lines, should you or your colleagues need to make contact:

• Admissions and Enrolment = Linda Roberts
• Records, Examinations, Graduation and Scholarships = Rachel Brittan
• Learning Preparation and Support (Bridging Programmes) = Lorraine Petelo
• Learning Preparation and Support (Learning Skills) = Angel Nicholson
• International Relationships = Nello Angerilli

I can confirm that Dennis Parker, formerly of Continuing and Bridging Education, has been appointed to the role of Administrative Services Manager and Stephen Harte, formerly of International Student Support, is the Student Support Team Leader.

With the exception of Student Support Services, now temporarily located in the UCSA, all of the other people and the areas that they lead, are located in their traditional premises. We will all move into the new Student Services Centre (formerly the Physical Sciences Library) between 15 and 17 October.

There is an organisational chart on the intranet that details our structure.
Nello Angerilli

Question: I am someone whose position has been disestablished. I have been advised that I remain in my existing role until 30 November 2010. Can I leave sooner than that?

See the list here For the full list of vanacies go to the vacancies website

I ran a report this morning that revealed that we have purchased1000 EBL e-books in 2010. This brings our total number of EBL titles to 1190. Cynthia.

I have asked Tim Stedman to take responsibility for the trial of shelf-ready materials outlined in the Library’s 2010 strategic plan. He is setting up a trial with our main monograph supplier, YBP, limiting it to the subjects of Social Work and ESOL. The former department was chosen because they are struggling to spend their book money and we thought that we could trial selecting by using a profile to see if this identifies appropriate material to purchase. Developing the profile for Social Work is a joint effort between Tim, Kerry Gilmour and the department. Tim has worked with Janette on setting up the ESOL profile as this is a general library fund. The ESOL profile has been forwarded to YBP who have done the initial setup. There is still some further work necessary to finalise both selection profiles and get the physical processing specifications set up. Hopefully this work can be done during August so that there is data for three months that can be assessed prior to Christmas. Cynthia.