In the town of Canterbury, at a grand affair,
Celebrating a milestone, joy was in the air.
Monty and Pepper, two mischievous hounds,
Were the talk of the party in the festive surrounds.

It was the 150th year of the university’s might,
A Christmas bash to remember, under the starry night.
Monty and Pepper, with a twinkle in their eyes,
Plotted together for a canine surprise.

As the guests gathered ‘neath the twinkling lights,
Monty and Pepper slipped out of sight.
They found the buffet, a feast laid so fine,
Stole treats from the table, a delicious canine crime.

Monty, the rascal, with a mischievous grin,
Decided a librarian leg was the perfect tree limb.
He lifted his leg, a festive faux pas,
The librarian startled, “Oh dear, oh my stars!”

Pepper, not one to be left behind,
Chewed on a book, a literary find.
Pages torn, scattered like snow,
The chaos of knowledge, a canine cameo.

Amidst the mayhem, a yelp of surprise,
Father Christmas stuck, chimney-wise.
Tangled in tinsel, his sleigh in a plight,
Monty and Pepper, a heroic sight.

With determination, they tugged and they pulled,
Freeing St. Nick, his laughter echoed and rolled.
Applause from the guests, cheers loud and clear,
Monty and Pepper, Christmas heroes, no fear.

As the night wound down, their antics forgiven,
Monty and Pepper, under the starry heaven.
A toast to chaos, with a touch of glee,
Christmas joy, in Canterbury, for all to see.

Kia ora koutou

I’m delighted to announce that Juliet Lackersteen will be our new Library Tautāwhi | Administrator, commencing in role from Monday 15 January 2024.

Juliet will be supporting and working closely with me and the Library Leadership Team in this role, and we’re all looking forward to the many and varied opportunities 2024 will bring!

Juliet notes she’s going to miss being in the ELS team, but is glad that full and final farewells won’t be necessary as she’ll be but a stone’s throw away!

Congratulations and welcome, Juliet 😊
Ngā mihi,
Kat

Kia ora koutou

It seems when it rains it truly does pour (in borrower load land anyway).

Digital Services have sheepishly confessed that from 28th November 106 student records have been assigned UICs (a meant-to-be-unique  identifier used extensively by Margaret’s load programs) that had already been allocated to staff records.  This means there have been some really odd Franken-records loaded to Horizon with a mix of 2 completely separate identities’ data fields.  Corey is working through fixing them up but that is creating a bunch of borrower load errors in itself (new student record tries to load – yay… but can’t because other unique identifiers e.g. barcode and student ID etc. are already in Horizon under the existing botched Franken-record).
We will try to get through fixing them up over the next few days (but TBH I am feeling a bit snowed under with all these issues happening around the same time creating a tangled web to try and sort out…and have a lot of MLM work to do this week).  Be aware that some strange borrower issues could occur.

Ngā mihi,

Romy

In addition to existing agreements, new in 2024 are :

Company of Biologists

All 5 journals, Development, Journal of Cell Science, (cancelled in previous years due to cost), Journal of Experimental Biology, Disease Models & Mechanisms, and Biology Open, uncapped, hybrid & gold.  See author guide here.

ACM Digital Library

All ACM journals, uncapped, hybrid & gold.  ACM aim to be a fully OA publisher by 2026.  See author guide here.

American Psychological Association (APA)

Uncapped in hybrid journals only, some titles excluded.  See author guide here.

As always authors should use their official UC email address to submit, and be aware eligible article types may differ.  We’ll ask for our library libguide to updated with CAUL libguide links in the New Year, thanks Kiera 😊

Kia ora koutou

We’re experiencing a repeat of the borrower load issues we faced recently (posted about on Teams All library staff channel).  There are a handful of student record updates that didn’t load this morning.  We have reported to Digital Services and they’ve restarted the problematic service and are looking into how they can prevent further outages.

Ngā mihi,

Romy (on behalf of library systems)

Action is taking place on Level 7 for the next few months as part of the Physical Collections Project.

• Stock is being weeded or moved to Store/MB
• Stock is also being shuffled within the floor
• The shelving bays nearest the windows are being emptied and these items moved to empty shelves.  The items moved will be well labelled with signs
• In late January, the window bay shelves will be removed
• Lighting sensors will be disconnected and lighting moved to one central control
• We will add more tables/seats along the windows once the shelving is removed to give us more study spaces

As always, I’m happy to answer any questions.

Jenny

Hi all. it is that time of year again. For those who are going down to the wire, remember the annual deeply traditional last day picnic on Level 4.  BYO everything edible. Come with your own lunch and/or bring food to share. Mid-day start time.
Kathryn

Stuart and I are very happy to announce that Jacqui Tither will be joining us as our new Kaitiaki Kaupapa | Subject Librarian.  Jacqui will be known to many of you through her excellent work with the Academic Skills Centre and she is already a trusted partner in a number of our information literacy teaching programmes.  She brings a great depth of knowledge, experience and passion for teaching as well as energy and enthusiasm for supporting our community.

Jacqui will be based at EPS Library and will be starting on Monday 29 January.

Ngā mihi nui,

Sara

Thank you everyone for your feedback – and patience – while we deal with the known and unexpected issues since the new website launch. It will take a while for us all to adjust to the new component arrangement and stricter permissions. More training will become available to us in the new year, as will a new UC style guide, and the Web Project team will continue creating outstanding pages (ie our Art and Archives pages, temporarily housed here).

Some wins are:

• staff contact cards now available on the Contact Us, Te ao Māori and Pacific pages (more work to be done on the cards themselves)
• improved(ish) Databases and Library Room Bookings pages
• new, shinier Library image
• link maker tool page improved

What we’re working on:

• Subject and specialist librarians page – we have gotten some clarity over the issues with the contact cards. We are able to include contact information (will implement next week) and are working on alternative means to display subject areas
• The problem with Library News has been identified and the web team is looking into it (we are not the only department affected)
• The web team will be creating individualised social media icons in the near future
• Converting our external page headers and footers to the new style

The Web Project team report they have received 277 responses to the new website, 158 of those are still outstanding.

Library Systems Team (Leah)

Kia ora Koutou,

I am posting to let you know about our planned commemoration for Tomo Shibata. Tomo, as you know, died on Sunday just gone. He has now been laid to rest with the appropriate Buddhist rites in Japan. Leslie and Viktor have returned to live in Manilla, but she is planning to come back to Aotearoa New Zealand in March next year for a short time.

As there was understandably no local funeral or service that we could attend as a team, we will be holding a commemoration of Tomo here next week to allow a space for those of us who wish to, to say goodbye to our friend and colleague and to acknowledge him and his time with us.

When: Thursday 7 December, 10:00 a.m.
Where: Room 224, Central Library PJH.
Shared kai to follow: ELS workroom (Catered)

There will be only a few formalities, it will be mostly an informal chance for those who gather to share their memories and speak (if they wish to) about what Tomo meant to them.

I will shortly send out invites – including to people in the wider university, and some folks from outside with whom Tomo had close working relationships. The invitation is purely to help gauge catering needs, so if you are considering attending on the day, it will help if you hit the accept button.

Ngā mihi,

Simon