Weekly walks are now back on campus.

Time: 12pm
Day: Thursday
Duration: 30mins
Speed: Gentle
Start location: Level 1 Puaka-James Hight by the book returns box

Photos from today’s walk

Daffodils in Ilam Gardens

Content tīma

Mariko, Sue and Wendy have been buying like there’s no tomorrow (or rather, like there is a very similar lockdown to the one in 2020).

They’ve bought ebook packages, single urgent etextbooks, and managed ebook/video turnaways, buying additional access where needed. This has involved a lot of communication with librarians, vendors and UC Procurement.

They’ve also been working on the journal renewals for 2022. Plus supporting interloans and the “From Physical Collections to Learning Spaces” project, by planning the withdrawals and relegations on Puaka-James Hight Level 4.

Metadata & Discovery tīma

Alison, Linda and Nicole have been working on our discovery systems.

They’ve tidied up and enriched fonds on Minisis. This means improved access to collections like FD8738 John and Connie Summers; FD8150 Lyttelton Community Oral History; FD690 John Edward Weir papers; FD1620 ENSOC; FD1565 Midland Coach Company; FD1133 Leo Bensemann; FD 856 Royal Society of NZ; FD909 Karl Popper; FD625 Charles Sedgwick; FD11331 Jean Garner; FD679 Thelma Strongman. This content will be particularly valuable as we move towards UC’s 150^th anniversary.

UC Research Repository (UCRR) submissions have had metadata added and files replaced, theses catalogued and their embargo statuses checked. This means we have the correct information available to the thousands of people who access our repository each week.

On Horizon, the new purchases have had records created, and broken links have been fixed to make sure our users can access content easily while studying and working at home.

The team have also been working on our new shiny system, Omeka. And also looking into the International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) standard so we can improve our display of digital images. More on these later this year!

Digi services tīma

Romy, Leah, Peter and Donna have been working on supporting the COVID-19 Alert Level changes.

Not surprisingly one big area has been communication and Horizon issues relating to the lockdown. Web pages have been updated and other web-presences annotated as necessary (e.g. Kā Kohika and HIP). The team have dealt with a steady string of problems reported by library staff using UC Laptops for off-campus access.

On Horizon, items on loan were adjusted to remove overdue blocks and to extend due dates. Where this was not possible (e.g. recalled items) other measures were taken to protect borrowers such as turning off recalled item fines. More recently, the team set up a new request/postal delivery service for Alert Level 3. On Kā Kohika, requests were disabled and new content and puzzles added.

There has been a small amount of preparatory work done for Open Athens. Which will be replacing EZProxy at the end of 2021. More info to follow!

Outside this, the team have also dealt with queries about access to resources, off-campus access issues, and login problems. These are pretty typical BAU, but there have been more than usual. Other projects have continued on e.g. Omeka and Greenglass and there have been one-off jobs such as new Gobi loads. There has been work done on provisioning new staff, and a handful of student-related requests such as EndNote which have not proven easy to resolve at a distance.

Infomation Resource Assistants

Fiona, Glenna, Joanna, Maria, Simon, Wendy have been busy purchasing, managing interloans requests, renewing journal subscriptions, and LEARN|Ako copyright checking. This involves lots of communication and managing 3 inboxes.

One example of this work is we now have access to more standards via our BSOL package (which is an online standards subscription), which will help students unable to access our print standards during lockdown.

And to end… an example of the feedback received by the team… “Thank you for your work during this lockdown. It really makes a huge difference to be able to get hold of resources, despite being at home. Much appreciated!”

The 10,000 Steps Challenge started on Monday. Thanks to librarian enthusiasm, Sara’s team called “Library” now has 12 members.

Last year we had 20+ librarians walking so we registered a 2nd team. This team currently has one member. A very lonely me (Helen).

So, if you’re feeling like a good librarian, you could email me and join the “Library 2.0” team. You could help move the team from being 10th out of 10 teams at UC while also improving your fitness.

Or you can be a bad librarian, and email Sara to join her team (currently riding high in 6th place) and crush my ambition to finish higher than last, while also improving your fitness.

Reactivate your account from last time, or register on the website here: Getting Started | 10,000 Steps (10000steps.org.au)

You can now access campus. This is so you can collect essential IT equipment, e.g. mouse, headset, monitor. Details are in the last UC-wide email and are posted below.

A couple of the team went in this morning (Tue 24th). They reported the process was straightforward and the Security team helpful.

“Accessing campus for equipment

From tomorrow, August 24, all staff (teaching and professional) will be able to come to campus and collect computer items and files only (no furniture is to be taken from campus at this stage) to allow you to continue working from home. If you would like to collect items you will need to report to the Security Office, 114 Ilam Road to sign in. You will also need to:

• wear a mask
• observe physical distancing
• have your Canterbury Card
• have a mobile phone on your person and provide your number to the Security team
• be prepared to wait for access (it could take time as numbers are strictly limited onsite)

Once you’ve signed in, you will be escorted to your office to collect your required materials. You will need to report back to the Security Office to sign out, then leave campus immediately.

You will be able to access campus every day (including Saturday and Sunday) from 8am. The last departure from the Security Office is at 5.30pm each day.”

We remain at Alert Level 4.

This morning, managers met and agreed our priorities for this unusual time

1. Staff wellbeing / Manaakitanga
2. Supporting learning and teaching
3. Supporting students
4. Supporting research
5. Supporting our other users/services

We updated the Incident Management Team about our services at Levels 3 and 4. The IMT coordinates UC’s response and send official comms to staff and students.

The Library website has been updated to show our services at each alert level: https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/library/support/covid-19/

Teams are generally doing well, supporting each other and students.  Some issues raised around access to network drives, equipment and ergonomics. Communication is different for each team with some having daily group check-ins and others not.

The AskLive roster is operating smoothly and this covers weekdays and weekends.

The Library will continue to provide our Alert Level 4 services, including AskLive,  over the weekend. This is irrespective of any announcement tomorrow of change of alert levels.  This provides certainty for students and people working this weekend, and time to put any changes in place.

Alert Level 3 services will be scanning and posting, but we are thinking how we might provide study space for priority groups.

Business continuity roles have been assigned:

• Library response (Anne with Rā)
• Communications (Tim with Stuart)
• Welfare (Jenny with Helen)
• Logistics (Sara with Te Paea)

Today’s walk will be at the slightly later time of 1pm.

All welcome for a gentle stroll. Meeting by the book returns on Level 1 Puaka-James Hight.

Our friends in ITS have several projects in development stages at the moment. One is the redevelopment of the Intranet (sometimes referred to as the “retronet” due to its dated design).

This idea is still at an early stage.  But the bringing together of our corporate info is a good one. This is the A3 briefing, used to ask for money from SLT. This has all the gory details 🙂

Are you working as sustainably as you could? The Library’s combined last few months of usage are below.

Printers consume paper, toner chemicals, and power. Reduce printing and you directly reduce the impact of all three on your environmental footprint.