Colleagues
Here are the (very slightly edited) responses I've received to my
posting of 12 December about electronic reading lists. Many thanks to
everyone who took the time and trouble to reply and for permission to
use their responses on our University of Brighton VLE blog on the
subject of e-reading lists. Angharad James posted a similar question to
mine, so list members might also like to look at her digest of responses
(posted 12 January) as well as mine, below.
Responses to posting by Alison Minns on 12 December 2008 entitled
'Electronic Reading Lists'.
Do your students/academic staff use them?
a) Usage stats show that some students use them. Very few academic
staff use/update them.
b) We have had very good take-up from our students and some staff.
Students actually pressure academics to make e-versions (with full
links) available. In [a recent] meeting the lack of reading lists for
some academics was raised as a problem. Academics are keen to provide
the lists - as long as they are not complex or take them away from a
current workflow. One of the reasons we are engaging with [...] so much
at the moment is to ensure the new system fits much better into the way
academics work - rather than just something that works for the Library.
While it is important that the recommendations/acquisitions workflow is
in place for the library to ensure enough copies of texts, it should
never get in the way of the academic sharing resources with their class.
c) We have no stats or ways of monitoring use. As the lists have
not been updated for this academic year and nobody has complained, the
suspicion is not much.
d) The reading list system is embedded in the VLE and links
directly to the Library catalogue.
Students use it quite heavily: Current total for Oct-Dec: 50,489 visits
(daily average 599).
e) We have no evidence that students use the lists.
Have you had any feedback?
a) Feedback is mostly from academic staff. The [...] interface is
not very user-friendly so staff are disinclined to use it. [...] If the
product were better and integrated better with [...] and our VLE staff
would be more inclined to use it.
b) Yes a lot and most of it very positive (100% positive from
students). Where the feedback has been less than fully supportive is
when academics have been frustrated with the current systems limitations
(ability to put citations into a formal style). One area that we had
problems with was finding out how many students have been using the
lists - the old system did not allow us to track that, making academics
unsure if they were spending their time wisely. But we have just put
Google analytics on both old and new systems and we now have evidence of
decent use. Over 2,000 unique visits each month.
c) It is proving a value added service to students because, not
only are lecturers now making sure that core texts are stock items (and
held in sufficient numbers) but students are able to easily check
location and availability.
d) It's very hard to keep them up to date and we have had a few
technical problems which caused it to lose a lot of credibility with
staff. Librarians, however, like the potential of being able to keep
better track of reading lists and to link into our VLE.
e) Little from students. One or two academics were enthusiastic but
didn't want to do extra work. Librarians and e-learning like the
potential to link with the VLE but in reality, lecturers are putting up
reading lists as Word documents.
f) We have just undertaken a couple of focus groups with
undergraduate students to get their views before we implement changes.
[...] We will be running focus groups with postgraduates later to get
their perspective. Students are currently accessing their recommended
reading in many different ways - from module outlines on the VLE,
lecture slides, hand-outs, searches on the library catalogue, to links
in the VLE to digital documents. The students don't always know about
all the options available to them. What they really want is quick and
easy access to all the items in/from one place but whether this would be
feasible to implement is another question. What is really important to
them are lecturers' recommendations and comments rather than just
getting hold of a list of available items. Some of the students also go
straight to Google books to search for recommended reading, bypassing
the library catalogue. How they are then using Google books wasn't
explored in detail in the focus groups but a couple of students
mentioned they could get the information they needed just from Google
books. The Google books method was mentioned in both the groups by more
than one person.
Roughly how much time do library staff spend on the lists?
a) We employ a temp for 2 months over the summer vacation to add
new lists. Academic staff or departmental support staff are expected to
update lists themselves. Liaison librarians provide training and support
for this and one librarian also has oversight of the whole reading list
project. All this takes approx 1 day a week of librarian time.
b) Not much. Other than training academics (and taking out the work
on the [...] pilot) the Library staff do not really get involved with
the day to day list creation or management.
c) Lecturers select their core texts from our webcat and compile a
list that is then sent to one of our library technicians, who uploads
this list into our online module descriptors. This upload takes approx
10 mins per list. It has taken almost a year to get approx half the
module descriptors updated in this way, so although the time it takes to
action each reading list is relatively slow, it is taking a long time
for the lecturers to do their part.
d) We've never had enough time. At best we had about 10 hours per
week and this was enough to keep up with what came in but not to solicit
the numerous reading lists that we believe are out there somewhere. It's
all at certain times of year so it's almost impossible to keep the lists
up to date. We've stopped doing any input this academic year as we have
fewer staff all round.
e) Academics are responsible for maintaining it. Some love it, some
don't use it as they say it is "clunky". We nag/sometimes assist them in
creating, maintaining their list, but we try and keep this to a minimum.
What grade (professional/clerical) of library staff are involved?
a) The temp is on an admin grade. The librarian who has oversight
is on a professional grade.
b) The library doesn't administer or create lists. Subject
Librarians and Senior Subject Librarians (HERA G6 and G7) will train the
academic staff.
c) We have had [...] for about 5 years but it has always been a
time consuming clerical task to input reading lists.
d) Library Assistants have done this. Librarians were also doing
some input but it is considered a waste of their time. Attempts to get
academics or academic support staff to do it have failed because the
system is not user friendly and you need a certain amount of
bibliographic awareness to ensure you have the correct details.
e) In the [...] Faculty Library team I have 1.5 Library assistants
and they spend over 30% of their working week processing reading lists -
this is not entering details on the lists, this is ordering new material
and extra copies, changing loan statuses, fixing broken URLs and
ordering electronic copies of articles and chapters of books. Work all
generated through the reading list system.
f) At the moment we use our [...] and are using a field in the bib
record to add the module code to any item on a reading list for a
particular module. The library assistants do the checking of reading
lists and add the module code to the bib field. The students can then
retrieve the reading for a particular module by using the reading list
tab on our library catalogue and then typing in the module code. This is
an interim measure at present before we decide on whether to put in
place any longer term changes. These lists don't provide details of or
link to digital journal articles as digital documents or links to
digital documents are currently made available through module areas for
specific students on the VLE. Professional library staff and academics
are providing and maintaining the links to digital journal articles on
the VLE. The reading lists are also generally provided to students by
academic staff as Word documents on the VLE. Sometimes within course
content on the VLE there will be a link from the course content area to
the reading list for that module on the library catalogue so that
students can check item availability for books. This link might be
provided by professional library staff or academics who have been given
instructions by the library on how to do this. Library assistants use
the Word documents provided by academics to check lists for stock
availability in the library and then professional library staff check
the lists annotated by the library assistants for stock purchase
purposes. The reading lists provided by the academics as Word documents
on the VLE generally provide more information than the reading lists on
the library catalogue by indicating essential and background reading,
perhaps specific chapters for specific lectures and they might also
provide a list recommended databases. Students seek guidance on their
reading and look to this additional information for this, as well as the
verbal recommendations provided during lectures.
If you've abandoned them, have you provided an alternative?
a) We decided not to abandon these lists. They are core to the
University's commitment to technology enhanced learning. We decided to
share our concerns with the suppliers and have been lucky enough to now
have a say in improving the service. The students would find it a very
retrograde step to stop providing the means to make online lists
consistent and embedded in their VLE.
b) In effect, we have abandoned. We're waiting until [...] can
provide their new product but I am not convinced this will be worth it.
We're officially having a review.
Do you have any tips for better promoting e-reading lists?
a) Not really. We show them to all students at induction. We have
had very limited take-up from academic staff.
b) Get the students involved. Once the academics know the students
value the service they will see the point. We also had an "open event"
the summer before last. We called it "anyone for [...]" ran it during
the Wimbledon fortnight and had a Wii Tennis game running between
demonstrations - as well as laying on squash and strawberries and cream.
Sounds very trite but it did get the academics out in force, people
still refer to it, and we set-up a number of new lists directly from
that event. I shudder to think what my subject librarians will come up
with for [...], but I know it will be successful!
c) Not really, other than making them available on the VLE. We have
a collection development policy that emphasises the importance of
reading lists in getting material purchased for the library and will be
doing more to strengthen this with academics.
d) We promote the Online reading list system through emails,
posters, staff meetings, workshops
Do you use the lists for other purposes (eg stock management)?
a) It is possible to get reports from [...] that would help with
stock management but we currently only use these on an occasional basis.
b) Not as much as we would like to; that was one of our concerns
around the old list. Again we are hoping that we can influence the
workflow of the new system enough to ensure we start getting smarter
with the data on the lists.
c) Yes. Most purchases are driven by reading lists and our
Collection Development policy places considerable emphasis on reading
lists and categorising material into essential and background reading.
The online reading lists are always incorporated into scripts for
weeding, so we do not weed material that is being recommended by
lecturers
Alison Minns
Information Adviser
University of Brighton
St Peter's House Library
16-18 Richmond Place
Brighton
BN2 9NA
e-mail [log in to unmask]
tel: 01273 643942 (direct); 643221 (enquiry desk)
fax: 01273 607532
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