Swinburne Library News

Swinburne library at the end of 2007

As the Christmas holiday period is quickly approaching, we're publishing this newsletter to let you know about some of what the library has achieved in 2007.

More laptop loans

The library will double the number of laptops available for loan in 2008 with the introduction of 100 new dual-boot MacBook laptops (part of the Digital Learning Initiative - DLI). This offers the best of both worlds for students. Apple fans can use the Mac operating system and PC fans can use Windows XP.

The library provides the most open access computing in the university now – 500 desktop computers and 200 laptops for loan – and we know that the demand for computers is continuing to grow. Every year in our customer surveys students ask for more computers.

The library is also piloting an online computer booking system which will enable more equitable access to computers and help us to manage demand.

The Living Library wins an award

A dapper feral, a student on wheels, an intrepid Jamaican traveller, a Hindu Australian and a backyard beekeeper are just some of the people who became living books in Swinburne's Living Library during 2007.

Throughout the year Clare Carlsson, Manager, Information Services (Wantirna and Croydon) has coordinated and/or facilitated five living library events. The aim of the Living Library is to break down stereotypes, celebrate diversity and engage local communities in Swinburne life. The concept enables people to come into the library and borrow people for 15 minute conversations. It gives borrowers the chance to interact with people they wouldn't usually get a chance to meet.

The response from the 'books' and the borrowers has been wonderful and many of the books are keen to participate again. In September, Swinburne Living Library received $7000 from the Fred P Archer Charitable Trust for the Living Library at Wantirna; the money will be spent improving services and supporting a Living Library at Hawthorn with an international focus in 2008.

Rover trial

Towards the end of last semester, the library in partnership with Information Technology Services piloted a trial 'rover' service at Hawthorn campus library. It was envisaged that the rovers' tasks would include proactively providing students with assistance on issues such as logging into computers, resolving wireless and VPN connection issues, and other IT and library related issues.

The aim of the trial was to explore the feasibility of this service model, and evaluate demand and effectiveness of the model with a view to a possible wider implementation in 2008. General agreement was that the trial more than met expectations, and we will be running a 'rover' service at Hawthorn at least for Semester 1 2008.

Library international project: the library listens

Based on student feedback from twenty-five in-depth interviews the library is planning improvements to services for international students. According to Fiona O'Donnell, Engineering Liaison Librarian, who was appointed for six months to manage the Library International Project, 'any changes we make will benefit the whole university community.'

The library initiated this project to ensure that the services the library provides to international and transnational students are appropriate, meet the needs of students, achieve a high level of user satisfaction, and are consistent with university future strategies and directions. We were happy to discover that students feel that their suggestions are taken seriously by the library and for many who live a considerable distance from the university, and have no family or network of support, the library is the most common destination apart from classrooms, labs and lecture theatres.

Showcasing Swinburne image collections

Swinburne Image Bank is an ongoing project providing access to digital images from various Swinburne collections. At present there are almost 3,000 photos available online.

Users are likely to be particularly interested in a wide range of photographs illustrating the learning and teaching of the then college - art, carpentry, chemistry and science, commercial, domestic science, engineering and trades, and other studies. Other highlights include photographs of the evolving Swinburne landscape, buildings, ceremonies, celebrations, as well as many past staff.

Swinburne Image Bank may also be searched via the National Library of Australia's Picture Australia website.

Managed by the library's Online Services and Strategies unit, Swinburne Image Bank is a work in progress with new images continually being added to the database.

We welcome feedback from the Swinburne community. Please email images@swin.edu.au for more information.

Copyright @ Swinburne

The Copyright Office situated on level 5 of the library building has had a busy few months providing copyright services and advice to the Swinburne community. Navigating the copyright maze can be tricky, so the Copyright Office has produced a number of new brochures, guides and toolkits which are now available on the Swinburne copyright website. The Copyright Office has been asked to give many training sessions over the last few months and these have produced great results. These sessions have attracted a diverse range of people within the Swinburne community including students, researchers and teaching staff.

For more information contact Luke Padgett, the university's Copyright Advisor.

Improving the user experience

We're interested in improving the experiences our users have when they use the library, and in 2008 we will be employing a full-time user experience specialist, Dana McKay. Dana has been with us, working on ARROW projects, during 2007. In 2008 she will work on the library web site, the university web site, and will do some consulting and contracted work.

Taking a user centred approach is a key element of the library's ICT strategic framework, and is also a response to recent feedback surveys. We'll be conducting user surveys and analysis in order to better understand our users' activities and needs, and making improvements across a range of library user experiences. How can we help our users to find, share and return to our content and services? What are the emerging user needs and expectations we can be anticipating and responding to?

If you're interested in more details on our user experience work you can contact Teula Morgan or Dana McKay.

Student ambassadors promote database

Two Swinburne post graduate research students, Jiafang Li and Claude Lobo (pictured) were Elsevier Student Ambassadors for six months between April and October. Their role was to work with the library and Elsevier to promote the Scopus and Science Direct databases to research students and academic staff. Scopus has approximately 17,000 peer reviewed titles across science, chemistry, engineering, life and medical sciences, and offers linked citation data too. The ambassadors worked with the Engineering Liaison Librarian, Fiona O'Donnell, to run activities such as training sessions and the very popular Scopus quiz. Elsevier generously provided the prizes which included an iPod for the major prize, as well as laptop bags and wireless mice, for the runners-up.

Swinburne University Library is the first Victorian academic library to use the student ambassador program, and the number of searches run on Scopus has increased 61% from the previous year (to October). We will be working with the Student Ambassador program again in 2008.

23 Things program: Web 2.0 savvy staff

Finding time to learn about emerging technologies isn't easy. But according to Katherine Greenhill who was recently nominated for an Edublog award for her blog Librarians Matter, it is vital when you work in libraries, where technology and people intersect. This year Swinburne library staff have all been given the opportunity to learn about 23 different Web 2.0 technologies in the Swinburne 23 Things program. These include social networking, blogs, RSS, social bookmarking, wikis, Second Life and more. A total of 91 staff have participated in the program and set up their own blogs to track their Web 2.0 journey.

It has been an amazing experience and staff have learned so much. Each campus library has a 23 things champion to mentor other staff and Clare Carlsson, the coordinator of the program, has been overwhelmed by the positive response. 23 Things is based on the Learning 2.0 program developed by Helene Blowers of the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County.

If you are interested in this staff development program, contact Clare Carlsson for more information. Anyone can run the program, which is licensed under a Creative Commons licence. The application of Web 2.0 technologies and their impact is being explored more and more in an educational context. In 2007 the library has successfully utilised a number of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance its services including podcasts, online videos, a blog, and SMS notifications.

Marketing planning underway

A group of eighteen library staff got together to talk marketing for an afternoon in November. The result is the beginning of the Swinburne Library marketing plan. After years of marketing on the fly the library has decided that we need a more strategic approach to marketing and this new plan will provide the blueprint for marketing library services and facilities.

The group came up with nine marketing objectives for next year and a number of strategies for achieving our goals. We are now committed to the following in 2008: communications planning, reviewing signage and publications and developing a library brand. Marketing planning is really about ensuring that we have the right mix of services and facilities to meet the needs of the Swinburne community and it will help keep our marketing efforts on track.

Raising money for men's health

During November Team Limos (that's short for Li-brary 'Mo's) have been sprouting facial hair to do their bit for improving men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer.

Gary Hardy, James Costello and Dragan Sturevski managed to raise $1,300 which will be donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and Beyond Blue - the national depression initiative, who will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

Closing remarks

In my eight years here I have never seen the library staff all together in one place before. But in 2007 it has happened twice, despite our spread over five campuses. On 5 December we were all in one room (at Croydon) for the Big Day In staff development day, and for the past few months we have all been virtually assembled for the 23 Things staff development program, which involves 91 staff of our 75 FTE staff. A great year in lots of ways.

And 2008 looks even better.

Best wishes,

Derek Whitehead
Director, Information Resources