Kia ora koutou

I am delighted to announce that Jane Agnew has been appointed to the  Project Coordinator (0.8FTE) role from Monday 13 June 2022.  This role will assist with 2 large projects – the Physical Collections Project and the Henry Field store relocation project.

Jane will work Monday to Thursday in LAC team on level 5 and will continue her Friday hours in ELS team.

Congratulations to Jane, and I really look forward to working with her.

Jenny Owens

Kia ora koutou

I am seeking Expressions of Interest (EoI) for a part-time Project Coordinator role to work on the current Library Collection and Store projects.  This is a part-time (0.8 FTE) band 3 role, fixed term from 13 June 2022 to 16 December 2022. The role will report to me.

The role requires someone with excellent communication, administration and organisational skills, who is able to do physical work at times and supervise casual staff. Further details about the tasks involved in the role can be found in K:\Operations\HR\Project-Coordinator-2020.

The role will be advertised internally within the Library, and the successful applicant would likely be seconded to the role.

Expressions of Interest should be submitted to Jenny.owens@canterbury.ac.nz by 5pm on Friday 3 June with Project Coordinator EoI in the subject line.

Your EoI should include:

• Why you are interested in the position
• What skills and experience you bring to the position
• What technical or professional knowledge you bring to the position

The recruitment process will comprise of the EoI and an interview.

Ngā mihi,
Jenny

Library Digital Services team will now be known as Library Systems team.
Unfortunately it has become too confusing since ITS department changed their name to Digital Services so we have reluctantly decided to change our name.  I know some of the longer serving library staff will find this name rather familiar.

You can continue to email the team at eservices@libr.canterbury.ac.nz

Ngā mihi
Jenny (on behalf of Library Systems team)

Kia ora koutou

All the collection items in Store H (Henry Field) will be unavailable from Friday 27 May.  The last day for requests will be Thursday 26 May.

The collection will be packed and stored ready for relocation later in the year.  At the moment we don’t have a date when it will be available again, but it will be at least a couple of months, if not longer.

Please refer any requests for material to our Interloans team, and any questions about the relocation to me

Jenny

Kia ora koutou, below are some of the things that have been occupying my time over the last few months and some updates related to my areas of work.

Henry Field Relocation – I have been working with Kaitlyn Moulder (Campus Space Advisor) and Caitlin Mather (Project Manager) from FM on this project, along with Helen  and Fiona T. It has involved a lot of planning, collating information, advising and consultation with others. Work has started on packing some collections into boxes, in preparation for moving.  Glenna is currently supervising a team of casual staff in Henry Field to pack journals into boxes to move to Law Basement. The bulk of the monographs and the Education collections will be packed and moved by external providers into the Otakaro Annex. We have not been informed of dates for this yet but it will probably be around July. Work is still ongoing to find a new location for the Art Collection.

Physical Collections Project – This is still ongoing.  Sue Thompson, Megan Dale and Sandra Gover have been beavering away. The journal withdrawals in Law Basement have been completed, and now items are being shuffled to make room for journals from Henry Field.  After this work is done all journals in storage will be located in Law Basement.  There has also been monograph withdrawals from level 8 to 11 of PJH and this will continue as we plan to make changes to spaces on levels 8 and 11 at the end of the year.

Open Athens – A huge thanks to Romy for leading the implementation of Open Athens over the last few months.  This has been a very complex and challenging project involving collaboration with our Digital Service colleagues, Ebsco and OpenAthens team. My involvement has been very small – attend a few meetings and to assist with some decision making but the team have done all the hard work.  There are still a few outstanding tasks to complete but we will end our Ezyproxy subscription in June.

Digital Services Update – UC Digital Services (formerly ITS) have appointed Jamie Hart as the Research and Library Product Manager. She has worked at LexisNexis as a product manager and has also worked as a lawyer. She will be starting on 9 May.  Margaret Adam will sit within her team. Not sure how much we will have to do with that team yet.

In case you missed this post on Tū ki te tahi, Digital Services have a new intranet site and is a good place to check if a system is not operational.

Service Now – this is the name of the system which will replace Assyst for logging IT issues etc. Go live date for Service Now is 29 June and there will be training provided prior to the implementation so watch this space.

Ngā mihi,
Jenny

Kia ora koutou

From this week, the journals located in Store H (Henry Field) are unavailable to request or borrow.  They are being packed into boxes ready to be moved into the Law Basement at a later date.  The status on Horizon has been changed to temporarily unavailable.  They will not become available again for at least a couple of months.

Please re-direct any requests for this material to interloans.

Ngā mihi,
Jenny

Kia ora koutou

We will be making some small changes to the library Covid web page as a result of the changes announced by Government on Wednesday to the Traffic light system. The changes will go live on Saturday to reflect that scanning QR codes is no longer required.  Posters about scanning QR codes will also be removed.

Once UC has released any other official changes, then we will update the page again and make further changes as required. Until then,  things will remain the same.

PJH now has 2 face mask dispensers available for students to use.  One is located at the entrance near the returns slot and one near Te Pātaka reception desk.   The Omicron response focus is now on mask wearing and we are likely to put some more posters up about this.

Ngā mihi nui, and take care of yourselves

Jenny

1. Firstly to share that both Fiona Tyson and Jenny Owens are two of the library staff that have tested positive for Omicron.  We have both had reasonably mild symptoms and are on our way to recovery. We have both taken a little bit of sick leave this week but mostly felt well enough to work from home.  We welcome any questions you may have about what it’s like to have Omicron.
2. Tū ki te tahi has a UC staff COVID FAQs page.  This page is updated regularly and you can add comments or ask questions. We would like to highlight a couple of items from this page below.Is there paid special leave for staff who are required to self-isolate? Where a staff member is required to self-isolate (or must care for a dependant who is required to self-isolate) they should work from home.
   Paid special/discretionary leave may be available for staff who are required to self-isolate in line with Ministry of Health advice, where it is not practicable for the staff member to work from home.
   If you become unwell during your self-isolation, then we ask that you apply for sick leave. We do not expect staff to work when they are on sick leave.

   What if I am sick and I do not have any sick leave available?
   If a staff member is sick (or they are caring for a sick dependant) and they do not have any paid sick leave entitlements, they will receive paid discretionary leave. Staff should discuss this with their manager

    

3. Taking Breaks – It is very important to take regular breaks when working from home or in the office. It is easy when working alone at home to neglect to take your breaks but it is important for well-being to prioritise breaks. The ergonomics of your home workstation (or secondary office location) may require more breaks than at work, and this is quite OK. Go for a quick walk outside, do a few stretches then settle back in to work. Don’t forget the social side of breaks as well – try have a virtual cuppa and a chat to connect with one or two people you often chat with in the tea room or office using Teams.

Take care of yourselves, go easy on yourselves and enjoy the weekend.

Jenny and Fiona

Kia ora koutou

The Library will continue to offer postal and scanning services to UC staff and students during Red Traffic Light while we have the capacity.  This service is available to those who are self isolating or not able to come onto campus. The following conditions and criteria apply.

1. Service will promoted internally to Library staff,  Student Services and Student Care
2. Service will not be promoted on the library website
3. Service is not available for External borrowers
4. Service will be provided by the distance team within Library Access and Collections (LAC).

Please direct all enquiries or requests about this service to the following email distance@libr.canterbury.ac.nz

Ngā mihi,
Jenny

The NDF conference is virtual this year (no surprise) and is on 22-23 February.  If you are interested in attending, please contact me by Wed 16 Feb and we will purchase some registrations.

All presentations will also be available to view via NDFs YouTube channel from 25 March.

Ngā mihi,
Jenny