My first professional post was at De Montfort University and, in many ways, I feel a sense of belonging to its innovative and inclusive culture. I am always excited to hear the news that Carol Keddie and Sharon Laverick, current librarians at DMU, bring to share with us at ARCLIB. Even facing a pandemic, their creativity and adaptability continues. They chose to focus their presentation on initiatives engaging faculty staff, not just in the creative subjects, but library wide too. I’m not sure that anything in an online environment could completely replace the Coffee, Cake and Conversations, lunchtime drop-ins, that were already established and well-received prior to the pandemic, but here are some of the ideas I might borrow from them.
- Join with others to raise your profile: For example, teams such as Study Skills, Maths Learning Centre, wider University groups such as University Pride, community groups and also wider professional networks such as ARCLIB. Raise your profile, share ideas, be seen.
- Move beyond the reading/resource lists: I expect colleagues are tired of hearing me talking about these. Try showing them something else. Organize a special event such as a Trend Prediction Festival; themed events such as your teaching offer, image resources, newspaper databases etc.
- Make it relevant: It was interesting to note that Resource Lists are still the most popular sessions. I suppose its because staff need to know about them. Also interesting was that widening these out to library-wide events lost some of the personalisation of those targeted at the Faculty, resulting in referrals to subject specialists.
- Be prepared: Your online audience expects a presentation, even though it might be billed as a drop-in! A simple booking system e.g., though Teams, helps you to better understand your audience so that you can prepare accordingly.
- Consider branding what you do: I noticed that they kept the ADH (Art, Design and Humanities) branding for Faculty events. Bath is doing this too, with its Decolonising Architecture initiative. It made the iniatives memorable for me.
I really must stop procrastinating, worrying that people are too busy to attend. So what if they are? Make the offer, remind them I’m here, they can decide!
Review by Greta Friggens, University of Portsmouth
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