The UK newspaper Guardian occasionally have articles on academic libraries. Normally they’re not too favourable, but last week there was a really interesting article about how academic libraries are undergoing a quiet revolution.

The article talks about how the information environment is changing and with that the role of the academic librarian must adapt from one of a keeper of information to one of a marketer of services and teacher/trainer to help students (and academics) use the right services with the appropriate tools and techniques to get the best information.

The article features insights from academic librarians in the UK and gives examples of the sorts of activities and skills required for an academic librarian today. A lot of the article really resonates with me – I’ve always been a strong believer in improving communication and marketing services (I even plan to complete my MSc dissertation on this topic), and agree that even in the short space of time I’ve worked in UK University libraries the climate has changed. Particular interesting quotes from the article for me include:

people recruited to work in them have to be willing to embrace new technologies and customer service

tuition in research skills and how to use online library services is crucial

[f]lexibility and willingness to adapt to new ideas is key

It’s really worth a read for those already working in the profession, those considering entering it, and those who wonder what life as an academic librarian is really like!

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Well, the point has finally arrived where I get to blog for work! One of our academic schools is concerned by their low student support results from the most recent student survey, and have approached the Learning Centre asking what we can do to help.

A large percentage of their students are part time (almost 70%!) so one of the problems in the past has been that they are unable to visit the Learning Centre very regularly so aren’t fully aware of our services. This is particularly true for those students who work full time and only come into the University in the evenings when our services are limited.

We’re hoping to embed some information skills sessions into their new modules when they revalidate next year, but in the meantime I’ve been set the task of improving the support by setting up a blog and will hopefully be improving the subject web pages and VLE support also.

Blogging for the Learning Centre is very different from my personal blogging, I’m using it more as a sort of noticeboard at the moment to make sure students are aware of the different services we can offer but hopefully in the future it will grow to be a place used for feedback and discussion via comments too.

I’ve chosen to use WordPress again, and have hosted it on their web space. I have to say I’m very impressed with just how easy it is to get started. It was relatively easy using their software on your own hosting but for beginners, WordPress’s own hosting package is great. I am also addicted to checking the stats which are built in, hopefully I’ll get over that soon! Big thumbs up to WordPress though, I’ll definitely be recommending it to beginners who want to start blogging.

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