You will have seen the email from the Vice Chancellor today (Wednesday) which delivered some information about the Central Library project and the CONZUL National Store project.
There are approximately 70,000 items on Level 3 that need to be removed either by relegation to on-site storage, relegation to the CONZUL National Store (if they are print serials) or to be withdrawn. The EPS stock that was borrowed thoughout 2011 and which were returned and shelved in the Central Library have already been returned to the EPS Library. Thanks to all staff who were involved in that work.

The project plan for the Central Library project is being finalised. Part of the communication strategy was for the Vice Chancellor to send out an email to all staff to inform them that this process is underway (this has been done). Now that this project has officially started, the Liaison Librarians are able to start liaising with the academics about items that may become candidates for the CONZUL National Store, low use onsite storage or withdrawal. During January the Liaison’s have been extremely busy undertaking lots of preliminary work on the collections in readiness for this project and I thank them for their input.

As well, the Central Library has the window replacement project work continuing on plus the architectural remediation and betterment work is proceeding. Joan is doing a wonderful job keeping everyone informed of the floors that are available for public use. Each and every floor in the Central Library will have the bookstook decanted off, and then replaced after work is completed, during this coming year. The team based in the Central Library have coped really well with all of the interruptions so far this year. Well done team.

All areas of the Library are being stretched to capacity with the Central Libray and CONZUL Store projects and as the Project Leader for the Central Library project I would like to thank you all for your input to date and your input over the next few months.

The changes to the EPS Library have been placed on hold until 2013, which gives the Library sometime to ensure that planning is able to take place for this move in the 2nd semster.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

Tçnâ koutou

A number of staff in the Library Research & Information Services group worked though the options avaiable for voluntary severance.
Three staff have decided to accept the voluntary severance terms and conditions and will be leaving the University.

The three staff are –

Jenny Abrahamson: from the Central Library and Learning Hub, who will be leaving on the 2 March 2012
Margaret Greville: from the Academic Liaison Team. who will be leaving on the 4 May 2012
Christine McKee: from the Academic Liaison Team. who will be leaving on the 29 February 2012

I am sure that there will be many opportunites over the coming weeks to bid them farewell, list their achievements and recall halcyon days during their time with the UC Library. However, I will take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge their decision to accept voluntary severance, wish them well in the future and to thank them so very much for their many and varied contributions to the UC Library. We will miss you.

Ngâ mihi nui

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

Huge thanks to the staff who kept the Central and Education libraries open during the Christmas Party yesterday – Alison McIntyre, Helen Kissell, Margaret Greville, Tim O’Sullivan, Joan Simpson, Isabel Milward, Kathryn Andrews and Caroline Sydall. I hope you all enjoyed the lunch and the entertainment, unfortunately I had to leave at 3.00 pm to attend a Learning & Teaching Committee meeting, however I have heard that there was much hilarity over the table sculptures.

The working group set up to organise the party had staff from all areas of Learning Resources including Sue Thompson from LSS and myself. It was a good bunch of people to work with. If there are any comments about the food, drinks, entertainment, facilities that you would like me to take back to our debriefing meeting please let me know and I will make sure that your feedback gets to the right place.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

The Campus Master Plan Reference Group meet today. It was reported that the Council has ratified the Universtiy budget (my apologies this was the Finance Committee, the budget goes to Council next week), no actual budget figures were realeased at this meeting.
We were also informed that the Council (my apologies this was the Finance Committee, not Council which will meet and dicsuss this next week) has agreed to the following – approval of Stage 2 of the Undercroft project, the installation of the emergency communication towers (Stage 1 and Stage 2) and the James Hight betterment project. I later asked for more detail about this project and was told that the following was approved – replacement of radiators, ceilings, lighting, general power, upgrade to the passive fire protection system (i.e. holes and large cracks in the walls), upgrade for fire protection including sprinklers, toilet refurbishment on all floors, fire doors, carpet replacement to podium stairs (north end), remainder of carpet on levels 6 & 7 and other places where carpeting has not been replaced plus refurbishment of Levels 2 & 3 for Learning Skills and Student Services. The refreshing and refurbishment of Level 5 as the staff area for Learning Resources will also go ahead. $1.5 million was voted for this work to be undertaken.

The Commerce Building is under peer review, the Insurers have asked that this process is undertaken. The University is happy to comply.

The Registry and von Haast buildings are awaiting the completion of the framework documantation, this work has been held up with the addition work requested on the Commerce Building. It is not expected taht there will be any problems in getting the Registry building functioning again.

At this meeting of the CMP Reference Group , the UCSA outgoing President talked about the relationship of the UCSA with the University, particularly in relation to buildings. The UCSA building is in limbo at present. The UCSA is very pleased to be involved in the building of the campus heart and to sponsor approriate events. Where does the UCSA fit in? It is an independent arm of the University that works in partnership with the University. The UCSA would like to continue in an ownership position with any buildings that they are involved with, contributing funds to the buildings (currently own 65% of the UCSA building, but do not own the land), they enjoy having an element of control as this is important to the role played by UCSA. They want to support the use of space dedicated for student use, they have a strong connection to the “other side of the river”, while still endorsing the campus heart/urban environment that is currently being created. However the UCSA realises that some events e.g. the Tea Party are not suitable in a space underneath the Library.

There are 4 types of functions that the UCSA is involved in – clubs/societies which need meeting spaces; food which is being taken care off with the Undercroft Stage 2; retail, which will be taken care of in the Stage 3 part of the Undercroft development and will make the centre of the campus viable plus large events. Discussion ranged around making the old UCSA area perhaps for conferences and large University wide events including live performances.

SMT is conducting a CMP workshop next week, particularly looking at the gaps in the existing plan. It has been noted that more work needs to be done on the Maori and Pasifika precint, the Collecge of Education (in reference to it moving to the Ilam Campus), the Academic precinct, this needs a set of principles to guide its development, understanding of the Learning, teaching and reseach facilties and their inter-relationships as well as the Creative, Fine Arts and Performing Arts precinct with auditoriums, display/exhibition spaces and rehersal areas.
All of these ideas will be discussed at the workshop. Yvonne Shanahan reminded the meeting that the budget for this work is considerably smaller now than when this work initially began.

Paul Fleming, PVC Science spoke breifly about the feildstations and the work that is required to upgrade them, and it was interesting to learn that as well as Cass, the University has high country land holdings. These will not form part of the CMP as they are held as Trust Funds.

This was the last meeing of the CMP that Sue McKnight will chair and she thanked the group for their work to date and wished the project well in the future. Chris Whelan (as Acting Director of Learning Resources) will take over the Chair, asked “Where does the CMP Reference Group need to be engaged ?”, members will be asked to take part in smaller working groups after the SMT workshop to test out various theories and ideas, and “What can the University afford to do and when can it do it?”

Happy to answer any questions or to raise issues at the meetings. Please contact me on ext 8720 or via email.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

Angus Hikairo Macfarlane, College of Education is the co-editor of “Responsive pedagogy: engaging restoratively with challenging behaviour” will be hosting a book launch on Friday 21st October in the Central Library from 4.00 p.m.

Set up for the book launch will begin at 3.00 p.m. Please be aware that there will be other University staff, Macmillan Brown Library staff, Central Library staff, caterers and other outside people working to set up the space on the northside of Level 2 for this event.

Thank you to all of the Library staff that will be involved in making this event a success.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

The latest meeting was held on 4th October following a Campus Master Plan Workshop which was held in the previous week.
The main focus of this workshop was to look at what UC needs to put in place to attract and retain students – where will the student focus be on the campus and where will the social spaces be located? As a group we were also told that the UC Council had approved the Phase 2 development of the Undercroft which will see the development of a food hall. Stage 3, if approved, will be the development of retail spaces. There was some discussion as to whether this development confirms that the Undercroft area will become the “heart of the campus”. A new cafe will be constructed in November, and the food hall should be ready for opening in Feb 2012.
Peter Molony (Recovery Manager) spoke briefly about the heart/hub concept :

• success will come from concentrating student activities there
• needs to be active 24 hours a day
• mix of retail, social space, student services, recreation, arts and entertainment
• need to better understand what will attract and retain students – what do they want to see in the hub?
• Not the place for the big student events? (Campus Master Plan principles)

In support of the hub concept Nello Angelleri, PVC International Student Services, described the investment that Central Washington University made in its student centre. CWU is a small town university and was struggling to compete with the university with attractive campuses in Seattle. CWU decided to invest in a student centre which had facilities for food, drink, recreation, movies, theatres, teaching spaces etc. The range of facilities, the location on campus and the building design were all done well and resulted in an increase in student numbers and a re-vitalised university. The overall result was good for the students, good for the staff and good for the community.
A photo gallery is here:

Issues concerning public transport e.g. the light rail network were also discussed.

Dave Lang (Estate and Assets)addressed the group and discussed the srtuctural assessment of buildings on campus, talking through the low, medium and high system for rating buildings. The James Hight has been assessed and has rated very well.

Jeff Feild (Registrar) discussed issues concerning insurance and the diffuculties encountered when negotiating the best outcome for the University. Understanding where to draw the line between spending too much on remediation and refurbishment and perhaps ending up with a building still not fit for purpose. It was noted that the new building code, introduced post earthquakes, has meant that upgrades to many of the UC buildings are required.

It is very hard to capture all the conversations, if anyone has specifc questions about this Reference Group that they would like to discuss with me, please contact me as I would be very happy to share any information that I have or to raise specific or general concerns on your behalf with this group.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian.

I note with horror that it was in June that I commented that I would provide a further commentary on the 2010 CAUL/CONZUL statistical return!
Across the 8 NZ University Libraries the following trends were apparent –

Total loans are declining (from 4,195,374 loans in 2009 to 2,250,177 loans in 2010)

Participants in group presentations for information literacy (average across the Universities) increased from 0.58 in 2008, 0.65 in 2009 to 0.80 in 2010. [UC Library return was 0.70 for 2010.]

Library staff per 100 FTE user population increased from 0.58 in 2009 to 0.61 in 2010.

Total Library expenditure/FTE increased from $853 in 2009 to $913 in 2010.UC ranked 4th in the raw figures with $858.84 per FTE, behind Lincoln, Otago, and Auckland.

From the UC Library return –

Interloans supplied in 2010 decreased from 5,876 in 2009 to 4,161 in 2010.
However interloans received increased from 5,442 in 2009 to 6,379 in 2010. Figures to watch with interest in the 2011 statistical returns.

The Archives increased its linear meters from 3,889 in 2009 to 3,916.25 in 2010.

Thank you again to all of the staff who enter in the statistics regularly and to those who supply to annual accumulations for these statistical returns.
The full CONZUL statistics are available from the CONZUL website and if any one is interested I would be happy to provide them with access to the full CAUL statistics.

Heather Jenks
Asscoaite University Librarian

Last Monday I attend a Privacy Network meeting. This was the first meeting called for this group.Those attending represented the majority of areas throughout the University.
The meeting was chaired by Jeff Feild, Registrar his idea being to establish a netwrok of staff across the University that could help with certain aspects of his role. These aspect pertain to four Acts of Parliament –
the Official Information Act (OIA)
the Privacy Act
the Public Records Act and
the Copyright Act.

It was agreed that meetings would be called on a regular basis and at each meeting of the network training would be given to help members of the Network understand how the above acts impact on the University. Each year aspects of the 5 acts would be discussed in detail in order for Network members to deal with issues as they arise in there workspaces. Jeff Feild and Tom Norcliffe were able to provide background knowledge as to how the University responds to requests for information under the Official Information Act, from Ombudsmen etc., from both current or past staff and students of the University.

Don McBeath from MDS spoke to the Network on Privacy issues. From the notes that he distributed at the meeting – under both the Privacy and the Official Information Acts, the guiding principles are that information must be made avaialable unless a good reason exists under the Acts for withholding it. We were told that these Acts create a balance betwee increasing the availability of official information and enhancing respect and transparency, while at the same time protecting sensitive information where necessary for the public interest and/or to preserve personal privacy.

Information that can be asked for includes –
*access to any official information
*reasons for decisions made about you
*internal policies, principles, rules or guidelines
*meeting agendas and minutes of public bodies, including those not open to the public except where they are confidential “closed” meetings

People can ask for personal information about themselves.
The Privacy Act controls how people and organisations collect, use, dispose, store and give access to personal information.
Private information might be requested by a third party under the Official Information Act (e.g. the private information is not about the requestor themselves).

We were all reminded that we should take care with our emails, they are part of our work and we are creating records through the email system that are pulic records. Under the OIA and the Privacy Act these records can be requested. It was noted that we need to be mindful and consider the content and personal commentary that is often sent via email. The person you are talking about in your email may end up having acess to these records.

I could go on, it was a very interesting session. If you would like further information please get in touch with me. As the Library representative on this group, if there are any issues that arise in the workplace that you think I or another member of this Network can help you with, please contact me.

Heather Jenks
Associate University Librarian

Applications are being called for the 2011Rosalind Patrick Award by Thursday 27th October, 2011. Please submit your application to Sue McKnight, PVC Learning Resources and University Librarian by 5.00pm Thursday 27th October, 2011.

The Rosalind Patrick Professional Development Award was established in 2002, in memory of Rosalind Patrick who was employed in the University of Canterbury Library from 1980 to 2002. An award is given each year to a member or members of the University of Canterbury Library staff, to undertake some form of professional library development. This was a cause dear to Rosalind’s heart and Dr Brent Layton, Rosalind’s partner. Dr Layton was keen to see a fund for such a purpose set up in memory of Rosalind and her work at the University of Canterbury.

Application form
The Rosalind Patrick Development Award celebration will be held during the week of the 21st November. Time and venue to be announced.

We look forward to receiving your applications
Sue McKnight, Anne Scott and Heather Jenks