Kia ora Koutou,

This message carries hearty congratulations to Hugh Joughin who has accepted a role as the librarian at the Christchurch campus of Laidlaw College.

It also carries commiserations for us, his ELS team colleagues, and the wider library. Hugh has worked for UC Libraries since 2008. Over the last fifteen years you may well have worked with Hugh at the Central Library, Law School Library, Access and Collections teams and the various guises and names that the ELS team has had over this time. Through it all Hugh has brought to bear his inimitable style, sense of humour, care for his colleagues and love of what it is we all do for a living.

This is an exciting new chapter in Hugh’s career, and I know we will all take the chance to wish him well, though we will miss him when he’s gone.

Hugh’s got some Long Service Leave to work through so last day with us will be 6 October.

A farewell will be organised, and more details on this will be forthcoming soon.

Ngā mihi, Simon

On behalf of the library managers, I need to let you know about a developing issue with our heating:

1. There is an issue with the main boiler that serves the campus including all 3 libraries. It has been shut down.

2. FM are firing up the secondary boiler, but it will take time to come to temp. We will effectively be without heating all weekend.

3. Multiple buildings across campus will be affected.

4. There will be residual heat from the cooling systems in the building tonight.

5. Forecast is for highs of 11 and perhaps 14 on Sunday but very cold overnight.

SLT is meeting now. Kat has recommended and SLT have confirmed that:

1. We keep standard operating hours tonight

2. We close the libraries both days this weekend

Rolling comms from UC Comms will start soonish…

Isabella and Dale are working on posters, Lib social media (will have to wait for UC comms) and contacting affected staff.

Jenny is getting our eResources team to add messaging to our Online resources.

More to come…

Simon Burge

Kia ora Koutou,

As you will be aware, Tomo is away from work undergoing treatment for cancer. While the initial results are very positive, Tomo is not anticipating being back at work until the beginning of next year as his treatment takes its course.

When Tomo first left for Japan, we put in place an urgent acting TL role for three months while we gained some understanding of Tomo’s condition and his likely treatment regime. Now we have the needed clarity, and the initial three-month appointment is ending, I need to arrange the team leader role for remainder of the time he is away.

I am inviting Expressions of Interest from current library staff who would like to take up the role of Team Leader in the ELS team. This would be a fixed-term secondment until February 28, 2024.

If a leadership and coordination role in a busy front facing customer service team sounds like you, please send your CV and EoI to me by 5:00 p.m. Wednesday 19 July.

If you would like to discuss this role, please do get in touch!

Ngā Mihi,

Simon Burge
Kaiwhakahaere Ratonga Kiritaki | Manager Engagement and Learning Support.

ELS has four fixed-term AYO vacancies – that is they will go through until Sunday 12 November.

These mainly cover hours in the evenings, weekends and afternoons but two positions do have significant portions of their hours during the day. This will allow us to become fully staffed once more and augment our evening and weekend staffing to four people.

We are going to fill these using expressions of interest from existing library staff (including our existing Late Team and Casual Team) to allow as quick a recruitment as possible. If you are interested, please send me your expression of interest with a brief CV attached. If you have a preference for a particular one of the roles, please indicate that in your email.

We will assess EoIs that we receive and move to an interview to make the final selection.

Please feel free to ask me about the roles if you are interested.

Closing date will be 5.00 p.m., Friday 7 July.

The roles are as follows:

Ngā mihi,
Simon

It’s coming – just 4 days of exams to go!

A quick reminder that as we go into the Inter-Semester break, our hours will alter as below.

Monday 26 June to Sunday 16 July 2023

Puaka James Hight / Central
Monday to Friday: 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. (open slightly later on the Sunday)

Engineering & Physical Sciences
Monday to Friday: 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday: Closed

Macmillan Brown
No change to hours

Ngā Mihi,

Simon

Kia Ora Koutou,

As you may know, the library has access to four marked, car parks near the Angus Tait building. These are for the use of team members who have an afternoon start and then work through to 9:00 or 11:00 p.m. at night. The close location of the carparks to PJH ensures a shorter and safer walk to the car once we close for the evening. Recently late team members coming on duty in the afternoon have found the car parks are occupied. It is clear that they are not always being used by other late team members.

I suspect that we may be dealing with opportunistic (or desperate) students, rather than other University or Library staff. However, in case – like me – you were unclear about the purpose of the carparks, can I request that you refrain from using them unless you are helping the team out and working a late shift with us. While they are not actively patrolled by Security, they will clamp vehicles that are using the space inappropriately if we notify them.

Ngā mihi,

Simon

Kia Ora Koutou,

As many of you will know, Tomo has gone to Japan in order to receive treatment for cancer. In his absence, Isabella has agreed to step up to fill the team leader vacancy we have at the moment to ensure the team’s leadership and basic day-to-day mechanics are uninterrupted. This will be for an initial period of three months. We will assess at the conclusion of this time the team’s ongoing need and Tomo’s plans around his return to work. In the meantime, I am very grateful to Isabella for stepping in at short notice and fully confident in her ability to lead and contribute to our team in this role. Isabella will keep her coordinating role in marketing and engagement as well as her NZLPP obligations.

Simon.

Kia Ora everybody. It has taken me a lot longer than it should have done but the Service Standards are finished and have been signed off by Managers.

Thank you to all of those who have contributed either with feedback or in our little working party. Special thanks to Sara who really took these on and kept them moving. The standards are designed to be a high-level approach to how we conduct our service. They will not be and cannot be encyclopaedic or capture every nuance. There is hopefully still grey left in there – which I think is a virtue rather than a flaw.

They will assuredly not be perfect. I have set a review date of November this year to look at these again and to fine-tune them after a year of experiencing them in our environment. I’d like us to give them a go until then. However, if there are any mistakes in people’s names or specialties in the Appendix, please let me know.

I have put them into the Files section of the Service Standards Channel of the All-Staff Team (2023 Library_Service etc., etc.). I had issues with CC this morning, so this post is a delayed one.

Ngā Mihi, Simon

Kia Ora Koutou,

On Friday what with the heat, and the need to get some sort of fresh air, the doors and windows were open onto the patio / balcony areas. They were still open on Saturday morning when the team came into work. Security should have caught this on their second sweep through the building (we don’t check L5 as part of our closing down routine) but they did not.

If it is close to home time, and you notice the doors and windows open in the tearoom or around the office space, please do take the opportunity to close everything up. These are mostly internal facing spaces, so our risk from international grade cat-burglars is probably low. Hower, the risk from a sudden change in the weather or sparrows is something more to be reckoned with.

Ngā Mihi, Simon