November-December

Liaison Service

Thank you to Catherine Haden for running a version of her Introduction to Systematic Reviews workshop for liaison librarians on 29 November, which was very well received.

With QUT’s subscription to Covidence liaison librarians are fielding more requests for information about conducting systematic reviews and have been upskilling themselves to be able to support researchers in their schools and faculties.

The Liaison Service Review team continued its work during this period, focusing in particular on liaison librarian roles.

Reward and Recognition

Congratulations to Thu Hoang on being the recipient of the Library’s Jan Novak Award for Outstanding Client Service in 2023. The award is a well deserved recognition of the wonderful service Thu provides for our students and her great contribution to the team as a whole.

Law Helpdesk & Enquiry Service

Thank you to the Law Library Advisers involved in developing and delivering training for their colleagues at Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove.  Over Summer Semester the Law Library Advisers will be providing group and individual training, as well as self-paced learning materials, covering the following areas:

• A tour of the Law Library and an introduction to systems and procedures
• Shadowing Library Advisers from the Law Library at the Law Helpdesk
• Delivering service at the Law Library Helpdesk with support from Library Advisers from the Law Library

Thank you!

Thank you to the Law Library team for all their hard work and dedication in 2024! There will be some changes in 2024 as we trial new arrangements for the GP and Law Libraries – I look forward to working with both teams in the New Year!

Best wishes for the holidays!

Michael

October

Schools Program

The Library ran a number of successful school workshops and events in October: QACI tours and presentation, Artwork in a Box (workshop delivered by Sonja Carmichael in collaboration with the Art Museum and Equity’s Widening Participation program) and the first iteration of our updated researching workshop, Prove Your Point.

These events couldn’t have happened without the following library staff whose effort, flexibility and initiative made them such a success:

Artwork in a box:

• Michael Hawks and Marvin Van Prooijen for helping with setting up and packing up each time,
• Laura Ross for sourcing materials from far and wide,
• Brett Rock for assembling the trolly that transported the Artwork in it’s box back and forth from the Library to D108.
• From outside the Library:
• Revy Hamilton from Widening Participation, for making the Artwork available, providing student ambassadors and liaising with schools
• Dana Ryan for providing student ambassadors from the High School Engagement Program
• Renae Belton for liaising with the artist and helping with the program from the initial grant application through to sourcing schools.

Prove Your Point

Stephanie Jacobs for developing the workshop to make it more relevant and useful for students – and able to be easily adapted to the sessions of different lengths – and to Stephen Booth and Jacque Quinn for delivering the workshop for the first time to students from Bribie Island SHS.

QACI

Eileen Salisbury for co-delivering the researching workshop and to Michael Hawks for adapting the Amazing Library Race to run in 30 minutes – all for approximately 150 Year 11 students!

Law Library

During October the Law Library team and LRS worked together to successfully negotiate renewals of subscriptions to major legal databases, specifically LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters Westlaw.  As a result of this work students will have access to more, and more relevant, content in 2024.

September

Liaison Service

Emma was part of a QUT panel on “Using AI in your research” with Mark Hooper, Peta
Mitchell (CI) and Michael Milford (Engineering) to talk about the QUT Library guide and referencing tools like Chat GPT.

I’m working on putting together a Rezbaz workshop with Rosie & Jacque on evaluating AI tools for literature reviews, I’ve been asked to present on panels by ALIA & the Centre for Decent Work & Industry.

Following on from the big library event – we invited The Business & Law Learning Designers for a visit to the Law Library for tea & cake to discuss issues around using Canvas & ensuring it is interactive & accessible. We’re visiting their office in October.

Sal & Emma met with some of the learning designers to discuss library assets for Canvas in the Grad School (and across Business) and we’ve also been invited to their faculty drop ins for some of the Schools so we can work as a double act.

Stephanie Paddick is developing a new Libguide on Generative AI, about to be launched, for coursework students – based on the best of some of the guides already out there but incorporating some of Steph’s own AI generated images of cats.

Events

As part of Wear it Purple Day and QUT Pride month, the Law Library has an LGBTQIA reading display. This includes new LGBTQIA+ books, mindfulness colouring in pages, badges and bookmarks. The display has been a hit with staff and students with a number of books being borrowed. A photo of the display was even shared on Facebook by a student referring to the display as ‘lit’.  Many thanks to Tom Mullins for arranging to order the new collection for the Law Library.

August

Schools Program – High Schools Engagement Seed Funding Grant Success

The Library was successful in its application for a grant to engage local artist Sonja Carmichael to run one or more workshops for high school students, centered around her artwork “gulayi”.  Sonja will be delivering those workshops (for small groups of around 20) and the Library will collaborate with QUT Art Museum in working with Sonja.  The proposal also involves the students coming to the Library as part of their experience on the day.   The workshops are planned for mid to late October and will be a great opportunity to engage with colleagues across the university, e.g. QUT Art Museum, Widening Participation (Equity) and the Oodgeroo Unit.

Schools Program – Get Uni Ready

Day 6 of the Get Uni Ready program was held at Kelvin Grove on 9 August 2023.  Many thanks to Danielle Laing for coordinating the Library workshops as part of this program and to Danielle, Nick Morgan, Helen Batchelor and Jenny Clouston for delivering the sessions.

Upcoming Schools Events

In addition to the events with Sonja Carmichael, planning has started for a number of other school events that have been requested:

• Approximately 50 Year 11 International Baccalaureate students from Calamvale Community College and Cleveland State High School, Friday 8 September.  Helen Davies and Zach Dominello will reprise the “Find It Use It” session delivered in previous years for these students.
• QUT Future You Summit, Monday 25 September.  High School Engagement are running a scavenger hunt for approximately 250 students in Years 11 and 12 and asked if we can help them include the Library in this activity.
• QACI Year 11 students – planning is underway for 150 students from the Queensland Academy of Creative Industries to visit Kelvin Grove Library on Thursday 12 October.

Liaison Service

The liaison teams have been doing great work supporting faculty efforts to embed indigenous perspectives and decolonize the curriculum.  Each faculty is approaching this in different ways and consequently so are our liaison teams.  Some examples of the work that has been undertaken so far:

• • QALT has embedded the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander resources facet into their program, which supports QUT academics developing their capacity to embed Indigenous perspectives in the curriculum.
  • Purchasing relevant materials with Indigenous perspectives wherever possible and relevant and promoting these resources to academics in their faculties
  • Curating lists (libguides) of materials with relevant material for their disciplines
  • Supporting QUT wide Indigenous units (run out of the CIESJ Faculty)
  • Attending Cultural Safety Working Group in Faculty of Health, editing and organising creation of OER on Cultural Safety for Health, which will be used as a resource (or resources) in health units.
  • Editing and supporting the creation of Modules in Cultural Safety training for Health academics.

For more detail see: Embedding indigenous perspectives – decolonising curriculum.docx.

QUT High School Moot Competition

The High School Moot Competition took place on 5, 6 and 13 August in the Moot Courts, with approximately 15 teams attending the Law Library.  Law Library hours were varied opening on Sundays (when we are normally closed) and earlier on Saturday, to provide competitors and their families with ready access to the Moot Courts and the rest of the Law Library for preparation and assistance from the Helpdesk.  Thanks to Thu Hoang, Stephen Booth and Quentin Pope for working these additional hours and improving the experience of the organizers and competitors.

Staffing

Tom Mullins will be acting Health liaison librarian from 21 August 2023 to 2 August 2024.  Tom will be backfilling Cameron Rutter while Cameron is acting University Copyright Officer and was appointed out of the recent Liaison Librarian recruitment round, in which he demonstrated multidisciplinary liaison experience, including health and for the School of Public Health and Social Work. Congratulations Tom.

Options to backfill Tom’s substantive library adviser role are currently being explored.

July

School Visit

On Thursday 13th of July a group of 15 Year 11 & 12 legal studies students from Clontarf State High School visited the Law Library for the Legal Research Skills workshop. They enjoyed a tour of the library, including playing judge in the moot courts, and finding information for their assignment about cyberbullying.

Updates

Lyndelle Gunton was acting MLS Law in the week beginning 10 July. Thank you Lyndelle for taking such good care of the Law Library and Gardens Point Library during this time.

Rachel Burnell will be acting EA to the University Librarian while Sami Dale is on secondment until the end of the year. Laura Ross will provide AO support to the Law Library during this time.

Sally Kleine rejoined the Law Library team, this time in an ongoing capacity as liaison librarian for the School of Accounting and Graduate School of Business.

Tom Mullins returns to his library adviser role after acting in Janet Baker’s former position. Thank you Tom for your great work over the past seven months. Tom will also be taking three weeks well earned leave in late July-early August.

Law Library Researching and Referencing Appointments in Semester 2

After some discussion with Joanna, Bruce and the Senior Library Advisers about our enquiry service offering for Semester 2, we have decided to continue offering Law Library Researching and Referencing appointments in Semester 2.

The appointments will only be offered from Week 4 to Week 8 and be scheduled on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays but not on Wednesdays (when we are supporting an SSG drop-in initiative in the mornings).

The Law Library R&R appointments will appear in the regular R&R appointments calendar that students see. This will hopefully mean that more students will see the appointments and book them.

The link to book only Law R&R appointments will remain on the Researching and Referencing Skills page, so if any students (or staff) are looking only for those appointments they can easily find them.

CDS & Library Meet Up

Around fifty liaison librarians, learning designers and other LTU staff met on Thursday 13 July.  The meeting was an opportunity to learn about each other’s areas, exchange information about what each of us is doing to support faculties and explore possibilities for collaboration.  The session was also the occasion for an advanced screening of the liaison service promotional videos produced by Graham Dawson with assistance from eMPS and an outstanding cast of liaison librarians (and a former liaison librarian, now ADL) and academic staff.  The video on research support was shown and very well received – both it and teaching and learning support video can now be found on the library website: QUT | Library | Liaison Librarians.

QUT High School Community of Practice

I attended the first meeting of the new QUT High School Community of Practice at KG. The CoP is an initiative of the QUT High School Engagement program and lead by Simone Long, program lead for QUT High Schools Engagement, and Lori Lockyer, Dean of CIESJ.

It was an interesting meeting and an opportunity to hear about the wide range of schools engagement activities being undertaken across the University in different faculties and central teams.

We also learned about a seed funding initiative, with $5000 grants available to members of the CoP. The Library will be making a bid for one of these grants.

June

Tour of Fryer Library, University of Queensland

On Wednesday 7th June Katarina attended a tour of the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland conducted by Fryer Librarian, Simon Farley. The library is a special collections library focussing on Australian Literature, Architecture, and History. The collection includes realia, original manuscripts, and rare publications including the historically significant Caroline Kelly Papers, and handwritten correspondence from Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Henry Lawson.

The tour concluded with a presentation by Reconciliation Plan Action Manager Mia Strasek-Barker on the library’s Special Collections Audit supporting research aimed at Indigenising library collections, embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in research, and increasing community engagement and connection to collections.

Staffing

Heather Edwards has been appointed on a fixed term basis to the vacant part-time liaison librarian role in Business &Law, which she will do alongside her current Science liaison role two days per week to the end of Semester 2 (18 November).  Steph Paddick will backfill Heather’s role until 18 November.

Throughout June the Law Library hosted place student Megan O’Neil for 10 days. Megan is studying a Master of Teacher Librarianship at CSU and is completing her final subject. Between visiting different teams and broadening her knowledge of libraries, Megan assisted with an eBook audit and updating Accountancy LibGuides.

Wellness

Team Fab U Less completed the 15-minute challenge and clocked up an amazing 6,820 minutes of exercise between them.  Well done to everyone and keep it up!

The Recipe Exchange, a joint initiative with GP Library, is into its fourth month.  Themes to date have included: slow cooker recipes, chocolate recipes, breakfast recipes and winter warmer recipes.  Next month’s theme is ‘favourite recipe of all time’.

May

Get Uni Ready

Get Uni Ready is a QUT Widening Participation program for Year 11 and 12 students that targets students at 15 partner schools. It is run by Equity.  Students in this program have already participated in the Great Library Race at GP and KG (run by Michael Hawks and Stephanie Jacobs).

On Thursday 4 the whole cohort of students had a full-day on campus experience and approximately 100 of them came to the Library to do the Library’s Researching to Save Your Life workshop.

With thanks to our amazing library advisers, liaison librarians and senior library advisers*, the day was a great success, as is shown by the feedback (and photos) below:

“There is nothing that I can think of currently regarding feedback other than it was awesome and I loved every second of it”

“I liked the study workshop, because it helped show how to find reliable sources and narrow down the options”

“I enjoyed the Academic Research skills. It was just fun and I think I gained very beneficial information.”

“QUT sport was great because we got an insight on Sport Technology and got to try out the fitness equipment which was fun”

“The CAD program was what I enjoyed most. It was really fun engaging in group work with people I didn’t know, and we had a lot of fun using tinkercad”

“Business gave me a better understanding of what I want to do for my career.”

Student survey responses from the 4th of May:

Today’s sessions have engaged my interest- 89% Agreed or Strongly Agreed

I have made more connections and feel more comfortable with the group.- 87% Agreed or Strongly Agreed

I feel more confident about being on campus.- 99% Agreed or Strongly Agreed

* thanks go to: Thu Hoang, Nick Morgan, Kristiana Darling, Stephanie Jacobs, Tom Mullins, Brendan Sinnamon, Heather Edwards, Jacque Quinn and Kate Thomas

OER “Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide” launched

The CAUL OER Collective release their latest open textbook: Legal Research Skills: An Australian Law Guide and it was great to see the Law Library’s Katarina Borcherdt recognized as one of the contributors and Thomas Mullins acknowledged for his role in support of the project.  The Guide has been well received by academic law librarians across the country and will be a great asset to students and to aspiring law librarians.

Aus-Award Program

Stephen and Steph taught a one-hour library workshop via Zoom to 20 students in Vietnam as part of the AusAward program on the 15th of May 2023.   These were undergrad and post grad students in Hanoi, Vietnam, preparing to attend QUT and other Australian universities. The session on academic library skills was well received and they will be following up with another session: Intro to Library Services/ Searching Databases in late June.

Staffing

The Law Library team would like to thank Ann-Maree Graham for increasing her hours and helping the Business and Law Liaison team which was down to one liaison librarian at the end of May.  It was great having you onboard Ann-Maree!  Mathew Fletcher resigned from QUT in May – we would like to thank Mathew for being a part of the Law Library team since late 2021 and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Wellness

Seven members of the Law Library are participating in this year’s 15-minute challenge as part of Team Fab U Less.

On 22 May GP Library joined us for a morning tea and some tea-rivia as part of a fundraiser for Cancer Council.  Not only did we get to enjoy one another’s company and some delicious food, but we also raised $100 for Cancer Council.  Everyone enjoyed the tea-rivia too and went away learning some new things about tea!

April

Wellness

GP Library joined us in mid-April for a Wellness morning tea.  It was great to get together and we had fun completing an Easter themed quiz.

Research Support Planning Day

Michael Wallace, Emma Nelms and Tom Mullins attended the Research Support Planning Day at SERF on Tuesday 4 April.

CAUL Law Content Working Party

On Friday 18 April members of the CAUL Law Content Working Party (including MLS Michael Wallace) met with representatives of Thomson Reuters to raise a number of concerns about TR subscriptions and content that are not well adapted to meeting the needs of academic libraries.

March

Law Library and Law Library Helpdesk Hours

Starting on Friday 24 March (Week 4)  and running though to the end of exams (Friday 23 June), the hours of the Helpdesk have been extended from 6pm to 8pm on Fridays. This, along with opening the Law Library until 10pm, is a trial to gauge what uptake of the service there is during the extended hours and the impact on staff resources.

Schools Program

• On Thursday 2 March Michael Wallace attended a STEM Teacher Cluster meeting organized by QUT High School Engagement and gave them an overview of QUT Library services, with the teachers indicating an interest in learning more about access to open data.
• IES College – twenty Year 10 students. Researching to save your life workshop delivered by Ishara and David.

AI-Based Intelligent Solutions in the Legal Profession

On Tuesday 21 March Dr Michael Guihot, lecturer in the School of Law and Deputy Chair of the Society on Social Implications of Technology (Australia) gave a presentation to members of the ALIA Law Librarians Queensland Group on AI and the Law.   Dr Guihot’s entertaining and insightful presentation was very well received and attendees had many questions that generated animated discussion. The session was well attended with fifteen librarians from different academic, court and corporate libraries joining colleagues from QUT library.  Thanks go to Dr Quentin Pope for organizing and to two former QUT Library staff from the ALIALLQ who are coordinating PD activities for the group: Madelin Maddy) Meddlycott and Katherine (Kat) Lee.

Unfortunately, no photos were taken of the event but thanks to Midjourney AI (and Stephanie Paddick!) you can enjoy these recreations of the event.  Spoiler – in reality no cheese worshipping took place nor were any illuminati present.

January/February

• Nick and Steph updated the virtual tours for the Law Library and Gardens Point Library.
• The adjustable height desks on Level 5 are now bookable and updates to main library website to reflect this. Booking procedures are available on SharePoint.
• Library Workshops training went ahead in preparation for Semester 1 classes – a mix of f2f library tours & introductions & online workshops.  There is a recording of the training available on the Library Workshops SharePoint site.
• A big thank you to Sal Kleine for her work as library workshops coordinator & Helen Davies for her extensive additions to the Cite Right! Class.
• In February Michael Wallace was on a selection panel for a position in the Office of Research Services.

Bond University Visit

On Wednesday the 15th of February the Law Library all piled into the QUT Tarago to visit Bond University at Robina on the Gold Coast.

Ian Edwards, Manager of the Law Library and Daniel Walker, Faculty Librarian organised a packed program not only visiting the Law Library but the whole campus.

The highlight of this valuable networking visit was definitely meeting the Law Library Dog Kaya, an extremely well behaved  8 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback.

During her weekly visits she welcomes all students and visitors to the Law Library. Kaya’s role is a popular contribution to student wellness activities and provides much happiness especially to international students who are missing pets at home.

Bond University has the largest private collection of Indigenous Artwork in Australia which is all on display throughout each building on campus.

Faculty of Business and Law faculty Expo

The Faculty of Business and Law faculty Expo for new undergraduate and postgraduate students was held on 21 February during Welcome Week at GP campus.

QUT Law Library team was part of the ‘Extras’ including SSG and Equity Services, who brought along our banner and badge maker at our own market stall running morning and afternoon together with food trucks and faculty merchandise.

Thu Hoang organised the market stalls, Stephen Booth designed new badges and together with Quentin Pope and Mathew Fletcher they ran the physical stalls while Katarina Borcherdt and Nick Morgan ran the virtual drop-in tables for the online version of the event.

The badge maker proved a great success and brought the students to our stall in winning numbers.

Schools Program

• Michael Wallace spoke to Year 10, 11 and 12 students at Kelvin Grove State College in February, encouraging them to make use of the Library for study and to access and borrow resources.
• On 13 February Helen Davies ran a workshop on researching and referencing at Kelvin Grove for a group of Year 12 students from Browns Plains High School.
• Michael Hawks and Stephanie Jacobs worked with the coordinators of the new Get Uni Ready program to deliver a “Great Library Race” event as part of the launch of Get Uni Ready: