Kia ora koutou

I really am not sure how it is Friday already (though concede I’ve taken two half-days’ leave, which has thrown my whole sense of space/time continuum into the void!).

A couple of highlights to note this week include our Business Continuity Plan (BCP), which has just been revised for 2023. This is our “go-to” document to enable us to respond to any number of possible – and potentially sudden – developments in the wider environment. It’s updated regularly with useful phone numbers and plans for how we deal with everything from floods to computer system failures. Please contact Helen if you notice we’re missing anything or something is incorrect.

Library Committee met this morning, and received our tabled Library Ops Plan 2023 and Ngā Awa e Rua with support and commendation.  Resourcing limitations were noted, and an interest in following progress and tracking achievements over the year to come.  We (Helen, Aurelia and I) emphasised the fact that a raft of core work in library teaching, enquiries, circulation, research, spaces, digital resources, online environments, print collections, art, rare books, archives and cultural heritage underscores all of what “surfaces” to an Ops Plan, and while this scope of activity may not be explicit in words in the actual document, this deserves special notice.

On this note (i.e. the incredible breadth of our services), Library Managers have been working on shaping up our Terms of Reference (TOR) for the Library External Peer Review later this year. As we’ve pulled this together, it’s become obvious that the scope of everything we do borders on the “gargantuan”!  We will therefore need to ensure the panel can be focussed on priority areas as part of their site visit, interviews and analysis.

We are also firming up aforementioned panel members, and have had some very positive responses so far.  I’ll look forward to sharing more details on this in due course, as we reach confirmation.

I’ll be spending Tuesday-Friday next week in Sydney at the IFLA Library Buildings Section conference, based at the University of Sydney.  I look forward to sharing back the latest thinking and innovations in architectural and spatial developments from Australasia and worldwide, upon my return.

Helen is also on leave next week, so Aurelia will be Acting in our stead, along with support from the wider Library Management Team.  Ngā mihi, colleagues!

Take care and see you again on 27 March!

Kat

PressReader – a poweful resource for libraries of all types

PressReader brings the largest selection of global publications from trusted sources to public, academic and government libraries — all on a single digital platform.

The date and time that was originally advertised was Friday April 7 2023, at 11:00 am, but one of our fabulous EPIC members has quite rightly pointed out that April 7 is actually Good Friday.

PressReader have now rescheduled the webinar for Thursday April 6 2023, at 11:00 am.

The access link to attend the session is still exactly the same: https://pressreader.zoom.us/my/jamespressreader to find out how PressReader can help libraries of all types serve the needs of their diverse patrons, from students looking to support their research with up-to-date information or public-library users eager for the latest news, sports or entertainment headlines.

For any questions, contact PressReader at libraries@pressreader.com

Please note that the Standards NZ website has been unavailable from 9:00 am today while urgent technical maintenance is carried out.

All Optics journals from Optics InfoBase are unavailable currently as Optica System is undertaking maintenance.

We don’t know how long their maintenance will last at this stage.

Below is the message on their website.

We thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve our services and apologize for any inconvenience.

If you require assistance, please contact our Customer Service Team at +1 202.416.1907 (Worldwide) +1 800.766.4672 (US/Canada) or by emailing us. Customer Service is available from 07:30 to 18:00 Eastern Time, Monday to Friday.

Thanks

Ngā mihi

Wendy

Kia ora koutou

It’s just been reported to us that the LibCal system-generated appointments and events emails are not being sent to either the patrons/students or admins/staff.  We checked the logs and looks like has been happening since yesterday (Monday 13th ) at 10:30am.

I am working with Digital Services to fix the issue (related to some MFA policy changes they made yesterday) but would recommend Appointments users to check their LibCal Appointments dashboard  or Outlook calendar for appointments that have snuck in there.

Ngā mihi,

Romy (on behalf of Library Systems)

Kia ora koutou,

If you get students asking about exemplars for their ENGR101 assignment, they can be had in the ENGR101 Learn course, under the section titled: Module 4: report writing (Week 3).

Ngā mihi,

Brian

Kia ora koutou,
There are two large marketing assignments under way at present in the Business School.

Students are required to use Ibis, Orbis and Passport databases.

To reference these, have a look at the APA guide under Reports and Government publications, then scroll down to Original Proprietary Database Content.

To add to the fun, there are several points to note with Passport.

New users must complete Euromonitor account registration upon first accessing the database (the account is tied to their Open Athens sign in and logged in to automatically next time they access the database).
This signin does not look like a usual UC one, and Access conditions must be read and accepted: you can’t just tick the box.

There is also an occasional issue with students being able to log in to Passport.
Digistal Services are looking at it but in the meantime, ask students to open any OpenAthens resource first, then they should be able to log into Passport afterwards.
Any OpenAthens redirected resource will do – e.g. https://go.openathens.net/redirector/canterbury.ac.nz?url=https://dl.acm.org/

Once you have an established session with OpenAthens, the problem seems to resolve – it’s only on first login that it occurs). 

For other Passport login issues, try swapping browsers and clearing caches.

Kathryn or I are very happy to help if students have problems.

Ngā mihi
Kim

Kia ora koutou

I start this week with a new staffing announcement – it’s my pleasure to announce that Jaz Crowther has been appointed into the permanent role as our Tautāwhi/Administrator. Jaz will work alongside the management team to support Library-wide activities and projects.  She comes to us from the SPCA Christchurch Centre which she has been working as their Foster and Volunteer Team Leader.  Jaz has a passion for supporting others and a wealth of experience of dealing with challenging situations. We look forward to welcoming Jaz to our team on Monday 3 April.

Also this week, I met with the VC for coffee.  Cheryl had much approbation for our services and the quality of our services.  And she is excited to see where we might go with future developments, particularly in terms of the digital experience and use of technology to enable learners to engage with library services and learning content.  I took the opportunity to underscore the importance for all people in our university community of human relationships, establishing connection, conveying manaakitanga and providing a sense of belonging.  From a ‘life cycle’ viewpoint, I stressed how crucial we believe this is to establish from the get-go, as one of the formative and first experiences of university life.  I also emphasised the drawcard that is the physical library, and how the presence of physical items does many valuable things for the in-person experience, including setting visual identity, shaping and defining spaces, and for some disciplines, conveying necessary and unique content. I did note though that we’re well underway with a multiyear project across PJH and EPS to reset the balance between physical library items on shelves, and flexible, welcoming learner spaces for both collaborative, social learning, and quiet, individual study.  The VC is eager to see what opportunities and ideas may be forthcoming in the future, both from us, and as a result of the external peer review.

With that in mind, we’re looking now at whom we might identify and approach for forming our peer review panel.  Aurelia and I have some kōrero with university colleagues lined up next week to explore further, and I am approaching university librarian colleagues who’ll be in attendance at the upcoming IFLA Library Buildings section conference at the University of Sydney in a fortnight.  I’m so looking forward to attending this myself and seeing first-hand where spatial developments and in-person user experiences are at the moment, in some of our counterpart Australian libraries (more on this, next week, and a presentation to follow once I’m back!).

On the topic of sector contacts and networks, Library Managers have this week started a Partnerships Register on Teams | Library All Staff (along the top menu bar).

Without being too onerous, this is an attempt to capture in one place all our wonderful collaborations, groups and partners so we can see whom to contact for certain things and so we know who might contact us for what reason.  I’m also really interested in the “visiting or hosting” column in this register and encourage you to fill it out as and when you host teams here, or visit other places.  This will mean we all have an awareness when visitors are in our midst, and can collectively manaaki them at our wonderful libraries!

Finally this week, I want to circle back to the 2023 Library Ops Plan and draw important links with Ngā Awa e Rua, which has recently been updated.  Specifically, we’ve removed years “2016-2020” – this is because the strategy remains relevant.  And we have updated the associated documentation to the latest versions of the Library Strategic Plan, Te Rautaki Māori and UC Values.

Please also take our Ops Plan as an evolving document, which needs to and will evolve and stretch as various themes take fuller shape, and as priorities shift over the year to come.  I feel keenly that some themes may not seem comprehensive enough at this early stage, or some initiatives may need and deserve extra thought and detail.  I encourage all to do this, with your manager as part of your Mahi Tahi, and/or amongst small (or large!) groups.  The management team and I are really keen to hear and share your feedback.  (Also noting we’ll have much more lead time, and a more inclusive, co-design process, for our 2024 Library Ops Plan!)

Happy weekend for now!

Kat

Today the LAWS110 online modules went live.

500+ LAWS110 Students are being asked to complete 4 modules made up of 5-7 videos and then complete a quiz worth 10% of their final grade. These are on the LAWS110 Learn page under Legal Research Skills.

Everything students will need to know is on the Learn page. I’ve also created an FAQ page and added notes so hopefully the questions will be minimal *fingers crossed* But just in case please ask any students to get in touch with John or me if they have any questions.

Students may encounter problems if they are using their own laptops or accessing them from home. The modules will work if the students use the UC computers and access them on Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

Students have until 31st March to complete the modules and quiz.

Thanks

Theresa (and John too!)

PS – there are three (LAWS110, LAWS205 and CRJU202) online legal research modules/lessons all live at the same time. It’s a huge piece of work and reaches 1000+ students each year!