#walktowork

Over the last year after changing my job I have had the pleasure of walking to work instead of an hour and 30 mins commute both ways by car. It seems like I am not the only the one and over the last few weeks I have found a small crowd of walktowork hastaggers tweeting pictures of their daily stroll. I still enjoy walking to work but it is mostly the same route so I thought a way to liven this up was to take a picture with my ipad and tweet this along with the track I was listening to when entered the door to work. The challenge I gave myself was to take a picture of the first thing that I thought was worth capturing, to not change my mind and to take an old fashioned approach by only taking the one picture and not to look at it until I got to work, thus not getting myself into the perfectionist digital spiral we all seem to get ourselves into. To be honest not looking at the picture was a greater challenge then I expected, initially it was a digital itch almost an automatic reaction to look and ponder whether I could have taken a better picture. The other antagonism was seeing something else as I walked to work that I thought would have made a better picture and to resist the temptation of taking picture of that.

It's interesting in days of yore before the digital camera explosion, the opportunities for perfectionism were particularly limited unless you had a really expensive polaroid instant. In fact taking a picture was almost a luxury, could I afford black and white or colour; should I buy a 400 or 100 film because I was not sure if I was going to be mainly inside or out, in shade or sun and finally shall I get a 24 or 36, as I was unsure the amount of poorly exposed pictures I would take and how many copies I would want. In fact I do not think I would have taken any pictures of my sojourn to work as I would have accepted the repetitive scene as an acceptable background to my walkman soundtrack.

Increasingly individuals are turning to mindfulness  living in the present as a means of dealing with this fast paced world that we live in and often there are recommendations that we drop our digital baggage to enable this. However, listening to my music and taking my pictures has helped me to focus on the fascinating elements of my walk to work thus eradicating some of my relaxed mundanity. It is also fascinating to see that other fellow walking commuters are doing the same all over the world. I am really enjoying starting my day with posting my picture together with my soundtrack and my seeing what other passing scenes are being captured by the people in my #walktowork gang - so keep taking the pictures, I will.

Here is my current collection together with the tune I was listening to when I stepped into work

Soft Shot Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Why Don't You Love Me No More John Grant

I'm Aquarius Metronomy

Ysebeidiau Heulog Super Furry Animals

Newton's Cradle Enaudi

Houdini Kate Bush

Black Belt John/Grant Dido My Life

It's the time of the season for reading lists

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kristykay/63408853/sizes/o/

Manically preparing for this year's induction and for the 14-15 academic year, as students all over the country shout with glee with their A Level results or ponder their future academic path because they have not been so successful, my mind turns to reading lists. I am about to start a project with my colleagues to implement more widely our Rebus reading list software after a successful pilot. This is open source and provides an online reading list the url for which can be put in various locations for students. Academic staff when creating the list can pull information from our library catalogue which should help mitigate errors.

Our reading lists don't look like Kirsty's 1998 Reading list on the left but the illustration is analogous of the difficulties some students have finding and using their reading lists, for example I have encountered  a situation where the reading list was midway through the module handbook, we also still have occasions where reading lists have not been proof checked and students struggle to find the title on the library catalogue. Admittedly, as staff increasingly put their content into the VLE and can see the benefits of linking straight to resources some have created their own interactive reading lists using  MS Word.  The benefits of having software to creating reading lists are similar to having anything online in a web format it can be viewed anywhere, you don't need a viewer for MS products, although tablets are pretty savvy re: this these days. However, linking to the existing collection provides a more streamlined approach for students accessing their resources, for example they may be one or two clicks away from viewing the availability of the title and reserving it if it is on loan.

For students about to start their courses acquiring their reading lists is a part of their rights of passage when starting their HE career, along with getting their key to their accommodation, joining clubs, finding the nearest supermarket and bar, meeting fellow students and teaching staff and the library induction. I was trying to find some articles on reading lists and pedagogy, a challenge that seemed to equal the challenge some students have with finding their reading list. I did however find this presentation from the University of Northampton Reading List Revolution: Exploring the Value of Reading Lists as a Pedagogic Tool (2012) by Sidall and Rose, it contains some insightful quotes from students about the value of reading lists, in particular this quote from a 1st year student:
particularly with students that have been out of the education system for a number of years, styles of learning have changed dramatically from when I was at school. So reading this [list] gives me some sort of idea as to where I can begin, where I can start, even what things to look at..
Lea and Jones (2010) in their research for their article Digital literacies in higher education: exploring textual and technological practice (Studies in Higher Education Volume 36, Issue 4, 2011) also found for students
guidance given by their tutor is the starting point for their studies, following links on reading lists, lecture notes and PowerPoint presentations, and supplementing these with searches using their own chosen applications, usually Google and Wikipedia. (p.387)
I think the last word should be left to Brewerton and O'Neil's at the University of Loughborough, in their presentation The Reading List Challenge: Implementing the Loughborough Online Reading List System (LORLS) (2014) they reveal ambiguous nature of reading lists
Academics aren’t aware of how (or even if) their Reading Lists are being used; The Library can only provide access to resources it knows about ; The institution’s reputation may suffer if Reading Lists aren’t doing their job.

Tracking the User Journey

Tracking the User Journey

In the latter half of the spring term I ran small project to track the user journey, we wanted to see where students went to first when they begin their research and we also wanted some feedback in on our library homepage. We use two methods to survey students. For the survey to find out where students went to first we use an iPAD and Qualtrics we only asked them 4 questions. With survey on our library homepage we also used Qualtrics but this was a lengthier survey that was in Blackboard. (Infograph to the left)

The response to both surveys was pretty good given that students may well be experiencing survey fatigue.

For the on the spot survey we had 116 respondents 46% of respondents go to Google first followed by Google Scholar (21%) and Library Resource 24%. The majority of respondents had accessed electronic journals (78%) and electronic books (73%), mostly via the library resources page (67%), 24% accessed electronic resources once a week (24%), followed by 2-3 times a month (20%) and 2-3 times a week (19%).

For the survey in Blackboard overall most of the responses were positive with respect to the library resources web page. The statement that received that highest number of agrees (61%) was the ease of understanding of the information on the web page, followed by 51% agreeing that the organisation is clear. However, 33% found the web site cumbersome, 32% disagreed that is clear and simple, followed by 31% finding it difficult to find information. The closest number of agrees and disagrees, was whether the web site is intuitive, 38% agreed and 35% disagreed.

With respect to describing the library resources page the highest percentage of agrees were that the webpage is credible (61%), followed by it being helpful (51%) and easy to use (47%). However, 40% disagreed that it is engaging and 31% agreed that it is frustrating.

66% thought the number of links is about right but 25% thought that there are too many, 9 % thought there are not enough. 68% thought that the content is about right where 20% thought that there is too much, where as 13% thought there is not enough. With respect to colour and image 36% thought that this does make a difference where as 38% responded that it makes no difference.

When asked to give an overall opinion 41% stated they were happy with the library resources page where as 12% were unhappy and 8% very unhappy.

When respondents were asked how they would change the library resource page most said they would change the way resources are found, followed by the look and feel and layout. Most of the respondents’ thought that the best feature is the information resources, whereas the worst feature is that there is too much content.

Although we took quite a simple approach it has helped to confirm that our library resources page requires a redesign. We had an inkling that a lot of students start with Google when they begin their research but it was reassuring that students were also using the library resources page as much as or really slightly more than Google scholar.

We are currently undertaking a redesign of the library resources page using the libguides platform. We have also decided to undertake some further tracking in the latter half of the next academic year but this time focusing on discipline and level.

User takes control - Spring Term PDA Pilot

PDA Infograph

In Spring term I managed a Patron Driven Acquisition Pilot Project at my institution.

For those unfamiliar with PDA, PDA is an example of the ‘Just-in-time’ acquisitions model which is a reaction by the library to ensure the needs of the user are met, as opposed to the ‘Just-in-case’ acquisitions model which is the traditional way in which materials are selected by a Librarian or teacher in anticipation of the user’s needs.  (Hike Project Huddersfield ) We also wanted to use analytics to review user behaviour with respect to their use of eBooks and eventual use of those purchased via PDA. We thought that we if we decided to fully implement it this would have a positive impact on user satisfaction. In addition, was also  opportunity for us to promote eBooks.

The PDA pilot is part of our resources for courses strategy where purchasing focuses on the demands of all users within the context of learning and teaching. Using a model similar to Liverpool University we had already begun to implement Rebus Reading Lists and working closer with academics and students with respect to purchasing of resources for modules. So to create a fully developed model look into PDA, however but before formally implementing we decided to fully test from a user and acquisitions perspective, so that we could develop appropriate processes and practices.

We opted for quite a simple approach, rather than selecting titles for the pilot we gave users access to all of the ebook collection provided by one of our suppliers. A title was automatically purchased after 5 minutes of viewing, if the title was below £150 if it was over the title purchase would require our approval. The amount we allocated was small in comparison to those in the 2012 SCONUL study  and the money was predictably spent very quickly - in 3 weeks.

The pilot was seamless for librarians as once PDA was set-up no further intervention was required after configuration the pilot seemed to run smoothly and PDA was automatically de-activated once the limit had been met. Most to the titles chosen appeared to be appropriate. The administration was straightforward and it was a good public relations exercise for eBooks

The main challenges were on the acquisitions side there was a delay in the sending of some of the invoices and it was less automated than the usual eBook acquisition process as records had to manually downloaded and the order had to be entered from the beginning, which might be difficult to manage if there were a lot of purchases Some of the eBooks were earlier editions than those already in the University collection

The PDA usage stats will be reviewed after 6 months within the context of our existing eBook collection to examine and compare usage. It has been recommended that a PDA exercise be undertaken on annual basis to enable our “Resources for Courses” strategy but to trial with a different supplier and undertake the following:

• Switch off access to old editions
• Ask the supplier to assist with building a collection
• Investigate automating the import of records

The PDA Infograph above provides an overview of the pilot stats.