Last summer 29 members of library staff undertook an online 30 day Research Support Challenge as part of the UCL Library Services Biomedical and Health Information Summer School. This summer the Challenge faced its own challenge, as an entry for the 2017 Sally Hernando Awards for Innovation. We are delighted to announce that this initiative achieved third place in this national contest for innovation in NHS Libraries. Congratulations go to Angela Young, who conceived and authored the Challenge.

The 30 Day Research Support Challenge, which was delivered via the Summer School Moodle course, was inspired by a current trend for 30 day fitness challenges. Participants were challenged to watch a short video on an aspect of research support, and then undertake a short quiz to test their understanding, for 30 consecutive working days. To succeed in the challenge participants did not necessarily need to complete each day’s activities on the day they appeared as long as they completed all 30 days within the six week timeframe. This was designed to accommodate differing working patterns of library staff.

The Challenge was designed to better inform library staff who may be required to deliver advocacy or support for research activities. Most topics were relevant across the service and included citing, reference management software, open access, the Research Excellence Framework, UCL’s Research Publications Service (RPS), research data management and bibliometrics. There were also biomedical-specific topics, such as systematic review methodology and critical appraisal of clinical studies. Engagement with the Challenge was really encouraging, with 9 participants awarded the virtual winners’ cup for completing it within the 30 day timeframe.

Comments from the judges of the Sally Hernando awards included:

“A lot of thought had obviously gone into planning and delivering the course, and it included innovative elements of fitness-type challenges, quizzes and gamification, with just a little bit of new content each day, helping to make it suitable for part-time library staff. The needs of researchers are something that many library staff across all sectors needs to be aware of, and support. I also feel it is a good example of partnership working between higher-education libraries and the NHS, and an example of providing library staff with the right skills to support personalised delivery of library services.”

“[Angela] highlights the continued availability of resources beyond the initial 30 days of training module and presents learning points for future developments.”

The full details all the winning entries, together with the other innovation entries submitted in 2017 and from previous years, can be found on the NHS Library and Knowledge Services (England) website. Angela also had a winning innovation in 2011 for another online element of the Summer School, 11½ Things.

Angela’s award includes funding to present this innovation at the Health Libraries Group or an equivalent conference to help disseminate the work. Angela will now look to update the Challenge and investigate other channels for wider dissemination. The Challenge remains available as a training and development tool for UCL library staff via the Summer School Moodle course. Contact Angela for more information or for an enrolment key for the course.

The Library as a leader in cultural change across UCL

As we start a new academic year, I want to lay out some of the tasks that I have been asked to take on as Pro-Vice-Provost in UCL Library Services. These are objectives which are additional to those in the Library Strategy and to my role as head of UCL Library Services. The theme of all these objectives is ‘The Library as leader across the institution and beyond’.

Kitchens, Burghley House, Lincolnshire

Open Science

Open Science is the process by which ‘Open’ approaches to undertaking research, education and outreach are embedded in the daily work of academic and academic support staff. I have been asked to lead on a number of policy developments: revision of the UCL Research Data Policy and construction of a new UCL Bibliometrics Policy. I look forward to working with Library colleagues, particularly with those involved in open access, research data management, bibliometrics, academic liaison and public engagement/outreach across UCL.

I have also been asked to study the reporting of trials data (especially clinical trials) and, particularly, negative results. In conventional publishing, it would be unusual to report negative findings, but the underlying data may well be of importance to further research. So ‘Open’ approaches encourage the publication of negative results. I look forward to working with colleagues in UCL Press and those involved in academic liaison to take this forward. And, finally, the Library has been asked to lead on the organisation of a half-day Open Science Workshop for UCL in Term 2.

Collections and Culture

In terms of Collections and Culture, UCL hopes to continue discussions in the University of London regarding collaborative activity over Rare Books, Manuscripts and Archives.

Great Hall, Burghley House, Lincolnshire

I will be pressing ahead with these discussions. I also hope to work with colleagues in UCL Culture to identify further modes of collaboration and joint working. Of course, in terms of digital collecting the Library has one of the best digital library offerings of any university in the UK. We will continue to develop this, with a particular emphasis on e-book offerings. In 2016/17, ReadingLists@UCL achieved a remarkable target – 65% of all courses present in Portico had an online Reading List. This is a great achievement, but of course going forwards we want to do even better.

Open Access publishing

In UCL Press, we have the first open access University Press in the UK. We now want to develop the Press’s offering and we plan to do this in two ways. First, we want to re-invent the concept of a journal in the digital age, and in 2017/18 we will be developing an Open journals platform to allow UCL academics and others to construct their own peer reviewed journals. Second, we want to re-invent the textbook for an Open, digital age. In this regard, we have already initiated a call for UCL textbooks and we hope to build on the submissions to create a new mode of delivery for textbook materials. We also intend to further develop our links and collaborative working with the UCL IOE Press.

UK Scholarly Communications Licence

And finally, I have been asked to lead in UCL on consideration of the UK Scholarly Communications Licence (UKSCL). Indeed, I chair the national UKSCL Steering Group.

Via this licence, if adopted, each staff member would grant to UCL a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide licence to make manuscripts of his or her scholarly articles publicly available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial v4 (CC BY NC) licence. The benefits of adopting this licence are significant, the main ones being that

• academics submitting to REF 2021 can more easily comply with REF’s Open Access requirements
• a complete record of the full-text of academics’ publications is available
• research outputs can be used more easily in taught course programmes

The licence is based on a similar development at Harvard University and Princeton University has recently adopted a similar position. Discussions with publishers about the implementation of the licence are ongoing. I look forward to working with our copyright and open access teams in the Library as well as with all colleagues engaged in academic liaison to take this debate to academic colleagues.

The role of Pro-Vice-Provost in the Library is a recognition of the immense contribution that the whole Library makes to the corporate life of UCL in offering leadership and secure learning environments and services. The areas outlined above are ones on which I will be concentrating in the coming months, alongside the day-to-day running of the family of libraries in UCL Library Services. I look forward to many interactions with colleagues as we take this ambitious agenda forward.

Paul Ayris

Pro-Vice-Provost (UCL Library Services)

Bookings are now being taken for the Biomedical and Health Information Summer School 2017, a series of training and professional development sessions which aims to enhance the knowledge and skills of UCL Library Services staff to better enable them to answer enquiries and support the needs of UCL and NHS library users. Although some sessions have a biomedical or health emphasis, some are generic in their nature and relevant to library staff from any discipline.

The programme this year has a variety of sessions pitched at a range of levels, running throughout June and July:

• Literature searching: the essentials OR A flipped learning experience
• Critical appraisal library staff journal club
• Reference management software training and support forum
• Systematic Review Support Forum
• PubMed and OvidSP: training the trainer
• Research Data Management for biomedical and health librarians

As in previous years there is an online component – Literature searching: the essentials OR A flipped learning experience. This combined online and face to face experience is perfect for novice literature searchers to learn the basics, but it’s also a chance for staff interested in flipped learning to experience it first hand. If you can’t make the face to face session, feel free to work through the online component only.

Full details of the programme are available on LibNet. Sessions are open to all UCL Library Services staff, however priority will be given to those based on biomedical sites. Please ensure you have the permission of your line manager to attend.

Please email info.skills@ucl.ac.uk to book a place or for further information. Please include your name, site/team, telephone number, email address, and the session(s) you wish to attend. Alternatively contact Angela Young (angela.young@ucl.ac.uk, 020 7794 0500 x33201) or Steven Bembridge (steven.bembridge@ucl.ac.uk, 020 7794 0500 x38238).

Best wishes,

Angela.

Congratulations to Anna on her second paper co-authored with Eastman Dental Institute staff.  The article, ‘Professional mechanical plaque removal for prevention of periodontal diseases in adults – systematic review update’ has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Clinical Periodontology (IF 3.610)

Continuing the research excellence theme and news of the emerging Knowledge Quarter, yesterday Betsy Anagnostelis and I visited the Francis Crick Institute currently under construction behind the British Library. The Institute will be a world-leading centre of biomedical research and innovation and UCL is one of its six partner organisations.

From the giddy heights of the 5th floor looking over the full expanse of the atrium that runs along its length, to the sub-basements we last saw at the excavation stage, its a hive of activity with a contractor workforce of 900+ helping to achieve completion by autumn 2015. An iridescent multi-storey glass wall will greet passengers arriving at St Pancras, there is a sizeable public engagement space and an area designated for outreach work with schools. Plans for the Institute’s library and knowledge service are under development.

There is more information, images and details about the architectural design on the Institute’s website.

A quick reminder about the process of saving to USB stick from the Explore Access Points, and some hints and tips.

• It is possible to save to a USB stick from any Explore Access Point (EAP).  Users should however observe the terms and conditions displayed via the link on the EAP homepage.  These include copyright guidance.
• A few e-resources are only licensed for UCL members – these will present a UCL  login box when accessed via the EAPs.
• Occasionally, a user’s USB stick may not be compatible with the EAP and will therefore not show up as available in the ‘Save’ dialogue box.  In this case, the user is able to purchase a basic USB stick at the nearest issue desk.
• Journals from some publishers may take some time to download for viewing in the PDF viewer.  In these cases, we advise users to try and save direct to their USB stick for later viewing.  During the save process, it is possible to monitor progress to ensure the whole file is downloaded.  There is also an ‘Open’ button on the EAPs which users may like to try in order to view the downloaded file on the EAP.  See the help on downloading to USB.
• If there are problems with a particular publisher’s resources which cannot be fixed as above, please use the problem report form to notify staff in the E-resources and Digital Libraries teams.

Good afternoon,

Building news for w/c 23 September

Main Library:

No planned works.

Science Library:

Painting will continue on the main stair case. There should be no disruption to students or services.

The work on the 1^st floor toilets and the 3^rd and 4^th floor disabled toilets will continue.

Painting will continue in room B21 in the basement.

Please note that 2 sample desks for the Cruciform Hub have been delivered. They are based in the Learning Lab so that Estates and Library colleagues and students are able to see them in real life and make any necessary minor adjustments before these are mass-produced.