Kia ora koutou

Another week of hard mahi, and great to see so many of you donning pink today 😊

Library Committee met this morning and so fulsome was the discussion on the Committee’s revised Terms of Reference, we only got part-way through the meeting agenda. However, some important themes around representation, equity of voice and voting rights, and how Library Committee can embrace and enact broader UC Te Tiriti partnership aspirations, were all discussed.  These themes will continue to be worked on over coming weeks.

Ongoing mahi is taking place at Macmillan Brown with the valuation of collections, and the archival shelving replacement project, continue to bustle along.

The Library Management System replacement project has also been a focus this week, and we are tantalisingly close to the reveal!  Put a placeholder in your diaries now for something to be shared on Monday 29^th May….

Exciting news also regarding our panel membership for the Library external peer review.  We have someone very keen to take up our offer of panel membership to bring Aotearoa insights and look in particular at how well-developed we are with regard to the development of Te Tiriti o Waitangi-responsive services, that meet the needs of kaimahi and ākonga Māori.  The Letter of Invitation has been issued, and once accepted, I’ll take great delight in sharing the news with you as to who this person is!  A reminder, they’ll join Margie Jantti (Director, Library Services, University of Wollongong) as Panel Chair, and Andy Priestner (UX Trainer and Consultant) as Panel Member.

Finally, I’m fresh out of a meeting with a number of PJH based colleagues on how we can use the upcoming mid-year break to maximise study spaces on Levels 2, 4 and 7 in particular (in full compliance with the latest floor loading numbers we have to hand).

I for one am well ready for weekend respite and relaxation! Happy Friday, all.
Kat

Mōrena!

For those who are keen, we will be following tradition and posing for a lovely pink-themed photo on level 2, PJH at 12pm TODAY to celebrate Pink Shirt Day 2023!

Where: PJH level 2, in front of the positivity wall

When: 12pm

Please wear/bring something pink! See you there!

Ngā mihi,

Isabella

Digital Services will be making some changes today to the underlying systems that support PaymentPlus, and this may have some impact on the performance for a short period this afternoon.

Testing should occur around 1.30pm. If there are any problems with the changes, then they will be reverted shortly afterwards.

If there are any reports of problems with payments, please let Library Systems know.

Ngā mihi,
Donna
Library Systems

Tēnā koutou,

The Library Marketing Group have been kept busy over the past few months with various requests, events, promotions, and more! You can read all about it in our latest marketing report here! (as well as all previous reports).  K:\Operations\Marketing\Reporting\2023

As always,  if you have an idea for a potential marketing request we would love to hear about it! Flick us an email to librarymarketing@canterbury.ac.nz or fill in the request form here. 

Ngā mihi,

Isabella (on behalf of the Library Marketing Group).

UC Libraries again participated in the architectural ‘Open Christchurch’ Event on Sunday 7 May 2023.

This year we offered a more complete look at our buildings and architectural offerings. Erin Kimber provided guided tours of our archives collection as well as organising talks by Ian Lochhead hosted at Macmillan Brown Library. These tours were booked out early on and saw 30 people experience our wonderful archives.

Puaka-James Hight was also opened up to the public, and the team (Isabella, Hui, Zina, and Dale) were on sight from 10:00am to provide impromptu guided tours, answer questions and support our guests to understand the rich history and heritage of our brutalist marvel in the heart of Christchurch. Zina also worked on a fantastic display in Central Library, which is still up. This display featured architectural drawings, photos from its history (including the fabled picture of Margaret Thatcher’s visit), and descriptions of other major events (such as the earthquakes). We had 37 groups of around 87 unique people come through. We provided postcards of our libraries, badges with images of our libraries and two bookmark designs as well. These were popular, and helped us engage with our visitors, many of whom shared stories about the library when they were students in the 90’s or earlier (one guest spoke about the time when she was studying in the University in the arts centre during the transition to the Ilam campus and her experience studying IT at the time!)

Overall, this was another successful Open Christchurch event which engaged with our community to further their and our own appreciation for our buildings and collections. Future participation could look at expanding what kind of offer we have in Puaka-James Hight and Macmillan Brown to further engage with our communities.

Kia ora koutou

What a week!  Some incredible milestones achieved, thanks to ongoing hard mahi on behalf of you all!  At risk of leaving out some crucial headlines, these are just some of what hit my radar this week:

• Open ChCh tours and visits last weekend
• Visualise your Thesis launch on Wednesday. An incredible turn-out of approximately 60 budding visualisers (and at least one baby!) The power of exemplary promotions, free pizza and an awesome initiative!
• Inaugural wananga for our NLZPP research – ka pai team to get these wonderful wheels rolling
• Ongoing work on our MLM project with lots of input from very many people across our team to the evaluation and vendor demo process
• Ongoing work in PJH on re-homing the 40 seats that were removed from Level 9 at short (i.e. no) notice last week, with more thinking underway on how we might (safely and compliantly) scale up our offer of study spaces before study break and exam period is upon us
• A beautiful wānanga with Māori and Pacific staff and their managers, to kōrero and share our thoughts and feelings about how best to support ongoing mahi

Again, keeping this short in the interests of time.
Happy and safe weekend all!
Kat

Kia ora koutou

Digital Services have fixed the problem that stopped the library receiving student information updates for borrower records on Horizon.

There was a bit of a backlog of information to load so is possible there are some things are not quite right.  If you notice information that isn’t quite right (e.g. old contact info or course information that doesn’t match, missing distance courses etc.) let us know and we can request a fresh update from Jade.

Ngā mihi,

Romy (on behalf of Library Systems)

Kia ora koutou

It’s Visualise Your Thesis time again! Not sure what that means? This is the communication we’ve been sending out to postgraduate research students:

The UC Library team is once again running the Visualise Your Thesis programme.

Submit a 60-second audio-visual presentation that explains your research project to a general audience and be in to win cash prizes!

What are the prizes?

• 1^st prize – NZ$1000 (& entry into the international Visualise Your Thesis programme)
• 2^nd prize – NZ$500
• 3^rd prize – NZ$250
• People’s Choice Award – NZ$250

You are invited to a free lunch and information session to find out more about Visualise Your Thesis.

You can register here for the lunch, which will be on Wednesday 10 May 2023, 12–1 pm, in room 224, PJH / Central Library.

OR

to register and learn more about Visualise Your Thesis, follow this link: https://canterbury.libguides.com/visyourthesis

If you, or anyone else, has any questions about VYT, Rachel Doherty is the main contact point, but Brian McElwaine, Roman Lytollis, or me (Kiera Tauro) are also part of the organising team and happy to answer questions!

Ngā mihi

Kiera

Kia ora koutou

I’ll keep this brief, in acknowledgement of your time, and how much you are all juggling with incredible composure just now.  My week has reflected everyone else’s to a greater or lesser extent, I’m sure, with so much on, and so much coming at us (sometimes completely from left field)!

Amongst other initiatives, I note that Macmillan Brown staff are involved with our valuation project, that many of us are immersed in evaluation of vendor proposals for our new Library Management System (including attending the vendor demos on two afternoons this week), and that a number of PJH-based staff swung into magnificent action with short (well, really, it was “no”) notice when fire egress compliance issues on Level 9 were brought to our attention on Thursday.  All this while heaps of our ongoing mahi continues, all the name of incredible service for our community.

May is here now, so NZ Music Month has commenced, May the Fourth took place with its usual hilarity, Open ChCh is underway this weekend (special mention to library staff who are hosting these tours!) and next week is Rotuman Language Week!

For now, have a lovely weekend.  The forecast tomorrow is beautiful.  Do enjoy, especially if you are out and about exploring local architectural delights as part of Open ChCh!
Kat

Kia ora team,
We had some concerns about the ‘squeeziness’ of shelving and seating layouts on Levels 6, 7 and 9 in PJH, and asked FM to work with fire engineering consultants and undertake a fire egress compliance assessment of these floors.  The last assessment was undertaken in 2011.

Initial findings:
Library managers were briefed earlier today on initial findings, which show we have some issues:

• We need to reduce the number of seats on Level 9 down to 60 seats in total.
• We don’t have the required 1m clearance around the shelving/seating in certain places on each of these floors.  This is exacerbated by library users spreading out their bags and gear, thereby blocking fire exit routes.

Now:
First thing tomorrow morning (before the library opens and students arrive) we are removing enough seats on Level 9 to bring the overall floor quantum down to 60.  We are prioritising the removal of seats that abut onto range ends (i.e. those seats that create most obstacle where they are currently). Those excess seats from Level 9 will be relocated to our Level 5 staff workroom area for temporary storage, so they don’t take footprint elsewhere that can be used for students/study spaces.

Today we are also deploying signage throughout the building to ask users to put their bags/packs under desks, to keep fire exits clear.

Next:
We are still awaiting confirmed findings and receipt of the report.  In the meantime, we have asked the fire engineering consultants to:

• assess every floor in PJH. This is so we can understand how best we can configure each floor, to ensure compliance across the whole building
• provide floor plans of shelving/furniture layouts on each floor, which ensure we are compliant.  Note, we may need to reconfigure shelving layouts and move some sections of collection off some floors to create the 1m clearance around range ends, but this is to be confirmed.

Communications and questions:
There will be communications with the wider university, particularly Library Committee and our UCSA reps.  In the meantime, I’m keeping Ian (our DVC-Research) in the loop, who is liaising with other senior leadership team (SLT) colleagues.

This represents an opportunity to get things right and make things better, but I appreciate it is a big body of work, in the mix of other big pieces of mahi on our plate!

Please don’t hesitate to ask me or your manager if you have any questions or concerns.
Kat