John Arnold is taking on a new portfolio within the Academic Liaison team. Henceforth John will be liaising with the Departments of Chemistry, Maths & Stats and Physics & Astronomy. John will also continue to liaise withe the Department of Classics. He will be based in the EPS LIbrary when it re-opens. Deborah Fitchett will cover Civil Engineering as Christine McKee will be leaving us at the end of the month.

Peter Lund

You will be aware that under a CONZUL agreement, the University of Canterbury pre-pays for customised requests for NZ Statistical data. This allows researchers to access a range of statistical data sources and request customised data sets where necessary. Since I took over from Heather Jenks as the Contact Officer we have received 5 requests for customised data sets and are well on the way to using up our allocated hours for the year. If you receive any requests for NZ statistical data do outline the service.

Yesterday I participated in a video conference call with NZ Stats and other NZ Universities using the Access Grid. The main items to report are:

Digitized versions of various materials including Official Yearbooks 1893-2008 and some information on early Maori tribes will be launched in March. These will allow importation into Excel.
NZ Stats will be delivering presentations on CURFs (Confidentialised Unit Record Files). These presentations will be of interest to many researchers in Geography, Economics, Health Sciences and other areas which use this sort of statistical data. The Canterbury presentation will take place at the University of Lincoln. I’ll promote this event when the date is finalised. These on site seminars are expensive to deliver and may be reviewed when the CONZUL contract for 2012-2015 is negotiated.

The webinar training session on using Web of Science to support the PBRF which took place on Monday has been recorded. Those unable to attend on Monday or anyone who enjoyed it so much but want to revisit any aspects are welcome to view it.

However due to a need to replace a server this recording will only be available until 19th December.

Peter Lund

Please note that the Contacts webpages have been streamlined. We’ve reduced text and made navigation easier. Managers and some specific roles will be found more easily. Liaison Librarians can now be found by person or by subject.

Tomorrow morning at 9:00 am Friday 30 September Nekerangi Paul and Ariana Tikao will give a talk about their attendance of IILF (International Indigenous Librarians Forum) in Norway earlier this year. Do come and hear Nekerangi and Ariana if you can – and of course this is a last chance to see and hear from Ariana before she leaves us for the Turnbull Library in Wellington.

Venue: L207 – Seminar Room – Level 2, Education Library, Dovedale Campus

Following the event there will be a morning tea for Ariana in the Education Library.

Under a flexible working arrangement, Dave Lane will be reducing his working hours to accommodate being a dad. From 31 October Dave will be working Monday to Wednesday each week.
Dave will continue to work his evening shift on Tuesdays.

There is now an office with a workstation available in the Central Library on Level 3. Use the booking system to book this room for consultations etc. It’s adjacent to the office space being used by Dave Clemens, Kerry Gilmour and Patricia Jordan.

I am pleased to announce that Ariana Tikao has accepted the post of Research Librarian, Maori (Arrangement & Description) at the Alexander Turnbull Library, part of the National Library of New Zealand in Wellington. In this role, Ariana will be working closely with the library’s extensive Maori language collections, describing them and assisting with researcher enquiries. I am of course also sorry to be announcing this as Ariana will be much missed here at the University of Canterbury.

Ariana has worked at the Education library, firstly as a library assistant and then more recently as Liaison Librarian (Mâori Services) over the last 5 years altogether. Ariana (Kai Tahu) has nearly twenty years experience working in a variety of positions spanning library, cultural heritage, and education sectors. She will also be known to many for her work as a musician and performer.

Ariana’s last day with us will be 30 September.

As part of the re-opening of Central Library celebrations, members of the Liaison team have been preparing two workshops for academic staff. We thought we’d run these as separate events next week for Library staff:

e-book essentials Dave Clemens, Deborah Fitchett and Peter Lund will highlight the range of content available through the library and will evaluate the e-book as a scholarly resource. E-readers will also be mentioned.
Monday 1 August 11.00 – 12.00
Venue: L207 seminar room, Education Library

e-learning enrichment Sara Roberts, Ariana Tikeo, Ceiying Mu and Alison McIntyre will highlight how Library e-resources can be used to integrate specific and targeted scholarly content in Learn to support blended and online learning.
Wednesday 3rd August 11.00 – 12.00
Venue: The Dojo – Law Library

All Library Staff welcome. Please check with your manager.

Today we welcome back Elizabeth Cooke who has returned to the fold after a period of parental leave. Elizabeth will working as a Liaison Librarian, liaising with the College of Science . In particular she will be looking after Antarctic Studies. Elizabeth will be found most mornings in the Wairarapa block for the time being.