Learning Resources Forum

LRC Forum

The Learning Resources Forum takes place once a term and provides an opportunity for library staff from the East Midlands region to meet to discuss common issues and to share best practice.  Forums are advertised on our website and if you'd like to come along all you have to do is book online at: www.rsc-em.ac.uk.  Attendance is free!

You can also join the LRC mailing list to receive news and information relevant to your area of work.  To do so, please contact Judi Millage: judi.millage@rsc-em.ac.uk Tel: 01509 618115

Sharing Practice

9 June 2010

Following the success of last summer’s forum and back by popular request, the theme of this LRC Forum was again ‘sharing practice’.

Aims of the forum:

• Provide the opportunity to exchange practice and to explore issues of common concern.
• Enable you to draw on the knowledge and expertise of library colleagues in the region.

The focus of this term’s forum was on sharing practice. It provided delegates with the opportunity to hear from colleagues in the region about the activities/initiatives they had been, or were currently, involved with and gave  them the chance to discuss and exchange ideas on issues that have affected/impacted on their library service.

Feedback on the Forum

"Thanks for the great day!"

"Many thanks for yesterday.  I thought that it was great and picked up lots of ideas to present to the team."

"Thanks for arranging the forum: it was fantastic!  We are so glad that we came and we left with some gems of information."

The marketing and promotion of e-resources

2nd March 2010

Many librarians are increasingly spending a higher proportion of their budgets on e-resources and, in order to increase usage and maximise a return on their investment, are continually seeking ways to promote the resources to library users more effectively.

During the Forum we considered how best to promote e-resources, including the e-Books for FE Collection.

The Forum began with a brief introduction to marketing and promotion by Kevin Spencer, Information Officer at JISC RSC East Midlands who is a Chartered Marketer. Anna Vernon, e-Books for FE Project Manager gave tips on the best way to promote the e-Books for FE Collection and also highlighted some of the main outcomes from the JISC National e-Books Observatory Project. Anthony Beal, Learning Resources, West Cheshire College talked about how e-resources are promoted within West Cheshire College and Jane Parker, Librarian, New College Nottingham (NCN) shared the techniques being used at NCN that have resulted in the College attaining 17th place (January figures) in the national e-Books for FE usage statisitics.

Feedback on the Forum

"Enjoyed this meeting and brought a huge amount back with me to work on!"

The changing role of library staff in the digital age

12 November 2009

This was a joint event run in conjunction with CoFHE East Midlands Circle

New technology and the way learners expect to use it is already beginning to influence the way library services are delivered and this, in turn, is impacting on the role of library staff.

This event considered ways in which library staff need to adapt their roles to meet the challenges of the digital age.

In his presentation Peter Godwin, Academic Liaison Librarian, University of Bedfordshire addressed the question: 'As our libraries adapt to meet changing 21st century demands: what kind of librarians should we become?'

And Sarah Crossland, Site Librarian, University Centre Doncaster, talked about how an increasing involvement with e-learning is changing the role of library staff at Doncaster College.

Sharing Practice

11 June 2009

The aim of the forum is to:

• Provide the opportunity to exchange practice and to explore issues of common concern.
• Enable you to draw on the knowledge and expertise of library colleagues in the region.

The focus of this term’s forum is on sharing practice. You will have the opportunity to hear from colleagues in the region about the activities/initiatives they have been, or are currently, involved with and will have the chance to discuss and exchange ideas on issues that have affected/impacted on your library service.

Topics covered:

• Encouraging reading with ESOL and level 1 learners: the Six Book Challenge (Lynn Goodman, Northampton College)
• The challenge of multi level use of the LRC (Fliss Edkins, Regent College)
• Media Server: home grown digital recording system (Dorothy Mingay, South East Derbyshire College)
• Use of Clickview digital video (Mas Sore, Northampton College)
• Effective liaison with HE (Sue Sproston and Emma Hayes, West Nottinghamshire College)
• Implementation of MyPC (Jane Parker, New College Nottingham)
• Mystery shopper (Linda Richardson, Lincoln College)

Feedback on the Forum

"It was a very useful forum and I hope we do it again next year. Thanks for organising it"

"The forum and [EMIS] meeting went well.  Very pleased with the network we have"

Presentations used during the Forum can be found below:

Accessibility awareness for library/LRC staff

26 February 2009

The focus of this term’s Forum is creating an accessible and inclusive library service. It will include the opportunity to complete the new TechDis Online Accessibility Self Evaluation for libraries and share and discuss the anonymised results.

JISCTechDis has recently produced a range of online Accessibility Self Evaluation tools which allow organisations to self-assess role related accessibility practices. During the Forum you will have the opportunity to complete the evaluation for library staff facilitated by Alistair McNaught from TechDis.

For more information on the evaluation tools, go to: www.techdis.ac.uk/index.php?p=2_2_9

e-Books for FE

This section contains useful information about the JISC e-Books for FE project.

LRC e-Bulletins

Regular e-bulletins containing news and information of interest to library/LRC staff  are sent  out via the LRC mailing list.  Here are copies of the bulletins just in case you've missed one.

Case studies on the Excellence Gateway website

If you go to http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=casestudies this will give you access to all the case studies on the site.

Here are a few examples that we've selected that may be of particular interest to you: