The Learning Resources Centre at Luton operates a converged service.
The information assistants who staff the service points in Learning
Resources provide traditional lending services; deal with general
reference enquiries; assist students with electronic information
retrieval and provide basic IT troubleshooting in Microsoft Office. I
think that the current buzzword ‘multiskilled’ is a very apt
description of Luton’s IAs.
As Training Officer I am responsible for ensuring that staff keep
their skills up to date by providing a range of training opportunities
and materials. Needless to say, ensuring that a group of staff (many
of whom work evenings and weekends), keep up to date is very
difficult especially as the amount of time they have available for
training is limited.
This is why I’m sending out this SOS to try and get some new ideas
and approaches. How do you keep your staff up to date with new
developments? How do you provide adequate training for part-time
staff? Do you have structured training programmes for information
assistants? How much responsibility do the staff have for their own
development? etc.etc.
I'm interested in any ideas at all and would be glad to summarise
responses for the list as I'm sure this is a predicament that is
facing us all to some extent.
Thanks,
Cath Ladley
Snr Assistant Librarian (Reader Services)
Learning Resources Centre
University of Luton
Park Square
Luton
Beds
LU1 3JU
01582 743262
fax 01582 489325
[log in to unmask]
Cath Ladley
Snr Assistant Librarian (Reader Services)
Learning Resources Centre
University of Luton
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