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First I'd like to thank everybody who responded to my request for information on recording the amount of time spent on preparing information skills sessions. As we suspected there is no simple answer to this. Your responses posed many more questions than they answered! Some of you are grappling with the same problem but others questioned whether it was worth doing at all. One thing everybody seemed agreed upon is that the preparation time is far greater than the contact time with students. Some felt that the only solution was to ask staff to keep more accurate figures of preparation time. Somebody suggested a form for recording this information. Others felt it would be almost impossible to collect any meaningful statistics in this area. The question of what counts as preparation was raised. Sorting out room bookings, photocopying, contacting academic staff, "thinking time" and follow-up activities such as marking were suggested and I think we could all add to this list. Those people who questioned the reason for collecting the statistics in the first place asked "who wants them and why?", suggesting that we might measure them because we are able to do so, and not necessarily because it tells us anything useful. However some felt such statistics might be useful when looking at staff workload problems, and answering the question "what exactly do subject librarians do anyway?" In addition, staff might benefit from recording statistics as they would be actively forced to consider how much time they spend and how to cut it down. An important issue is that senior management are made fully aware of the considerable time and effort required to implement information skills delivery on any sort of scale and that staff are able to manage the workload generated by demand for information skills support. Staff new to the role need to be able to feel comfortable with the fact that preparation will take many times longer than the session itself and that each individual will require different amounts of time Many thanks again for all your helpful replies. Paul Boagey ---------------------- Paul Boagey Nursing Librarian Hartley Library University of Southampton Southampton SO17 1BJ 023 8059 6874 023 8059 2180 [log in to unmask]