April 2022
ACTIVITIES
Welcome back Annette!
GP welcomed Annette Sondergeld back into the GP fold the best way we know how – with a yummy morning tea! We are thrilled to have Annette with us as a Library Adviser on a part-time basis until the end of the year.
GP Library displays
Our display on level 6 has been updated with beautiful images from the QUT Digital Collections celebrating camping and caravaning. Big thanks to Stephanie Jacobs for working with Jill Rogers on creating these lovely curated displays for us at GP.
GP Success Champions for April
Stephanie Jacobs was named a Success Champion for her work with the OSC on the 23 Things program. Thanks Stephanie!
Sharon Graham was named a Success Champion for her role in keeping the GP Library staff area green and fresh. Staff regularly comment on how much they appreciate the gardening tasks that Sharon undertakes and the positive impact this has on morale and wellness in the section deserves recognition. Thanks Sharon!
Facilities
- Plans for the upgraded bathrooms on level 7 at GP are progressing. Works look to be completed by semester 2 2022.
- 24/7 Opening hours continue to operate without major incident. Occupancy numbers are also increasing as knowledge of 24/7 expands.
- We are working with FM to update the building directory signage due to multiple changes in room ownership throughout the building.
GP TEAMS
GP Library Adviser team
GP LAs continued to provide excellent service even when cross-branch staffing is extremely tight causing greater pressure on all LAs. During April, GP LAs helped students with 394 Chats and 25 appointments. This is a busy and often stressful time of semester for students with a lot of assessment due. We often helped very tired and frazzled students who were very grateful. Student feedback indicates we make much more of a difference to them than just providing the answers they need:
- ‘Was made to feel that my questions were valid. Makes the service provided feel like a judge free zone and I felt very comfortable asking for assistance’
- ‘always great service’
- ‘very helpful and kind’
- ‘thank you for providing this service’
- ‘they answered promptly and kindly’
- ‘professional service and extremely helpful’
Science Liaison team
The Science Library Team had a first conversation with Joe Sambono – LTU, Program lead (Embedding Indigenous Australian Perspectives) – about Indigenous representation in Science Research and Publications and our Library collection. This was an initial conversation beginning a larger project the Science Library will progress this year in reviewing our study areas collection regarding Indigenous perspectives.
The re-accreditation of the Bachelor of Science (ST01) has been extended for 1 year. The Faculty is looking to “re-imagine” the entire degree in the hope of addressing falling enrolments. Originally, the new degree was meant to rollout from Semester 1, 2023. It will now rollout from Semester 1, 2024. This will align with the launch of QUTYou.
Additionally the Bachelor of IT is also being “re-imagined” and due to rollout in 2024. Liaison Librarians continue to be part of the planning process, particularly, at this stage, through meetings which are run by the Faculty of Science ADTL, and attended by the Academic Leads for Teaching and Learning from each of the 6 Schools in the Faculty.
Engineering Liaison team
The final two information retrieval skills with engineering librarians class engagement sessions (for first semester) were conducted in early April for the Master of Engineering Project 1 ENN590-1 + ENN592-1 cohort. The tutorial on Friday 8 April in GP-V401 was our first face-to-face tutorial offered since the coronavirus outbreak.
Two library authored articles were published in the Faculty of Engineering staff newsletter (issued from the Executive Dean’s office 6 May).
- Paperpile : no-fuss reference management for the web
- SciVal Personalization Feature – Link your Scopus Author Profile to SciVal Benchmarking
We also pioneered use of QUT’s engineering student community blackboard announcement system to promote Elsevier’s ANZ Engineering Academic Challenge where students make use of library subscriptions to both Engineering Village and Knovel platforms in a quiz competition against other engineering programmes in our region.
Web & Digital Engagement Service
- Held the very first meeting of the new ‘Libguides’ working group in April with members Michael Hawks, Stephanie Jacobs, Katarina Borcherdt, Thu Hoang and Craig O’Neill. This group will take ownership of the Researching by Study Area guides and the Library Course and Unit guides. Some great work to streamline the use of these guides was initiated and prioritised in April and will continue throughout the year.
- Jenny Thomas and Gabrielle Hayes continue to work with SSG on the re-write of the HiQ Study Pages, with the updated pages due to be rolled out by Semester 2, 2022.
- Progressed the reassigning of ownership and deletion of certain service-related FAQs in AskQUT.
External engagement
QULOC – Jenny T was a co-presenter at the QULOC career development session: Preparing to Get that Librarian Job on 29 April. Jenny presented tips and tricks for interviewing over Zoom. The session was aimed at HEW4-8 roles and the session proved timely and popular with approximately 80 attendees from QULOC libraries.
CAUL- Jenny T is a member of the CAUL Learning from bold Minds in Leadership Working Party and the fifth event – Leading for Innovation: Fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation – was held on 5 April. The presenters were Nic and Lucas, the 2016 Young Australians of the Year and founders of Orange Sky Laundry. It was a really inspiring and uplifting session.
Jenny T & Joanna Logan have submitted an abstract to the Library Assessment Conference in November 2022 about the work the Liaison Impact Working Group undertook in 2021/2022. Awaiting acceptance…