Dear colleagues,

As Inclusion Lead and chair of a group on Invisible Disability at UCL GOS ICH,  with colleagues at ICH we  have organised some talks on Disability and I thought some of Library Services colleagues may like  to attend. All the talks are on zoom  and the links are include below.

We continue with our Disability Visibility Seminar Series in April and May. Join us online as we hear from a range of different speakers.

Tuesday 26^th April, 13:00 – 14:00 – Dr. Lola Solebo and Lucie Teoh 

Childhood visual impairment and blindness in the UK: findings from BCVIS2 

Lola is an NIHR Clinician Scientist based at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, and is also a Consultant Paediatric Ophthalmologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital

Lucie is a PhD student in the Population, Policy and Practice Research and Teaching Department at the Great Ormond Street UCL Institute of Child Health. Lucie’s project will use linked administrative hospital and mortality records to explore healthcare use and outcomes of children with vision and eye disorders in England.

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/92909833232?pwd=RXFiMTNiTURVV2hZN3JPSDFBRm5RQT09

Wednesday 27^th April, 13:00 – 14:00 – Dr. Michelle Heys

Neurodiversity meets cultural diversity and social adversity 

Michelle is a Paediatric clinical epidemiologist and Associate Professor Community and Population Child Health.

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95667837400?pwd=OFplblZqcHBxL1UyMlJ3cVNJS2xZQT09

Thursday 19^th May, 13:00 – 14:00 – Professor Sara Ryan 

How much learning disability awareness is needed before things, er, change?

Sara is Professor of Social Care at Manchester Metropolitan University and author of Justice for Laughing Boy, Connor Sparrowhawk: A death by indifference.

https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93062601699?pwd=czc2THYySVJsU2NDcjNySkZ3eG5BZz09

Best wishes

 

Grazia Manzotti

Updates about comms from across Library Services. 

Comms Calendar 

We are continuing to coordinate our ”locally-delivered, centrally-coordinated communications model” through the annual communications calendar.  

Please check it and get in touch if there is anything coming up in your sections this term.  

Big campaigns in Term 2 

Library Loves Valentines 

The Campaigns group have coordinated a library wide feedback campaign across all the different sites this term. There’s been some great photos of stalls shared on social media: 

• Science Library  
• Student Centre  
• Main Library  
• Cruciform Hub  
• LaSS Library   
• IOE Library  
• Queen Square  
• Stanmore  

We received 150 pieces of feedback, of which 62% was positive, 22% was negative and 16% was both. The negative feedback is valuable as it allows us to improve our services or respond to customers’ issues. We will collate and follow up on this feedback. 

LGBTQ+ History Month 

The Library Liberating the Collections Group sought book recommendations from across the UCL Community to create an article. Some sites, like the Main Library, created book displays. 

We’ve also commissioned a great article from a student journalist LGBTQ+ History Month: Be inspired by UCL library’s collection. 

We have had positive feedback from colleagues across UCL for this work to support EDI values. 

International Women’s Day 

We are seeking book recommendations from across UCL through a libwizard form which we will compile into an article. We’ve also commissioned an article from a Student Journalist. 

Teams from across Library Services also supported the Stand with Hope campaign (led by colleagues in RIGE). Professor David Price has complimented this collaborative work saying it “exemplifies the collaborative spirit embodied not only within RIGE […] but across the university and beyond.” 

Save your searches 

The Comms Team have worked with Bethan Smith to raise awareness of Explore updates and to ensure users make a record of their saved searches. Assets have been shared on social media, OneLan screens and on the library website. The impact of this campaign will be measured following the implementation of changes in March. 

If you missed it? 

Teams from across Library Services supported a week of activities on social media celebrating UCL Foundation Day, Library Lovers’ Day, Jeremy Bentham’s birthday and the Student Centre’s birthday. This work raises the profile of Library Services with our users and also with other comms colleagues across the university. 

The impetus to celebrate Foundation Day came from Library Services. We shared the World of UCL (published by UCL Press), a blog post from Special Collections and other images (including the Deed of Settlement)  

Colleagues from across the library shared photos from their sites with the UCL Social Media team to celebrate Library Lovers Day which garnered some great comments from students.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by University College London (@ucl)

 Coming up in March and April 

• UCL Sustainability Month 
• Promoting Dissertation and Research Support  
• Exams / Assessments Comms  

 

Updates from the sub-groups 

Three sub-groups will help coordinate comms activities across Library Services. 

Open Days Group 

• Created a Prospective Students subpage on library website. Beginning to look at how other libraries support recruitment work. 

Campaigns Group 

• Agreed approach and rationale for supporting communications campaigns. Supported Library Valentines campaign, LGTBQ+ History Month and International Women’s Day. 

Social Media group 

• Identified a series of discrete projects which can improve library’s social media offering and empower staff across the team tasked with delivering comms. Workstreams include looking at metrics, writing a paper on TikTok and working with the UCL’s Chinese Social Media team. 

 

At a glance updates from Term 1 (2021-22) 

Most read ‘Library News’ articles 

1. Library Services During Winter Break 
2. Books to celebrate Black History Month  
3. Elsevier Negotiations  

 UCL Libraries in numbers 

• 88 Tweets sent  
• 68890 Total impressions  
• 783 Impressions per tweet 

Top Tweet 

 

The Duchess of Cambridge visited UCL Special Collections this week to meet researchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies to discuss a landmark early years study https://t.co/B27xBSen87

— UCL Libraries (@UCLLibraries) October 8, 2021

If you have any questions about comms, please get in touch with Simon Bralee. 

 

The Library Services EDI Committee would like to highlight some content you may find interesting as we continue to celebrate Black History Month 2020 (BHM2020).

You may not be aware but UCL’s Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health have a newsletter which lists interesting online events, provides summaries on Black historical figures, highlights literature, and poetry and even shares recipes. The archive of the newsletter is available but you can subscribe to it to receive a copy in your mailbox.

Goldsmith’s Library, in conjunction with the Oxford Centre for Religion and Culture, is putting together an online event entitled ‘Liberating & Decolonising Historical Minds’ for 29^th October. It features some interesting speakers including the historian and librarian Dr Elizabeth Williams. Do sign up for it if you can take the time off to listen to what promises to be a relevant discussion for us.

At the IOE Library, the BAME Resources LibGuide has been updated for BLH2020 and includes relevant content for schools such as Black historian David Olusoga’s Black History We’re Not Taught in Schools and the Black Curriculum created by Lavinya Stennett who worked with over one thousand teachers in schools, as well as the IOE’s Teach First lecturers, to come up with the curriculum.

John Amaechi’s talk on ‘The Big Questions on Race’ at the online RIBA Inclusion by Design Festival took place as part of Inclusion Week (28^th September to 2^nd October 2020). Amaechi, a former NBA basketball player, is an organisational psychologist and best-selling author. He recently caused a stir with his short talks on BBC Bitesize answering difficult questions such as What is White Privilege? and explaining the difference between being Non-Racist and Anti-Racist. More recently he gave an interview on TimesRadio where he highlights the everyday racism he and members of the Black community experience.

The RIBA talk is an eye-opener and recommended to anyone who is interested in organisational cultures and change (register with RIBA). Amaechi focused on how to be an ally to Black and Brown staff and how to work on being anti-racist (it doesn’t come naturally). To demonstrate how unconscious biases are appropriated, he showed the audience a video of ‘‘The Doll Test’ experiment which was conducted in 1940 by a group of US psychologists. By the age of four, children have already decided that Black / Asian / mixed-race people are ‘not good’. It is therefore important for us to be vigilant of our unconscious biases – and stand by our values for simply intending to be anti-racist is not good enough. Anti-racists should communicate their values in the workplace making it clear that they will not tolerate racism or any form inequality whether it relates to homophobia, islamophobia, misogyny, sexism, disability, etc. Amaechi does not beat about the bush. On nepotism, he says, if people get promoted to jobs because of the people they know, that a sure sign that the organisation has a problem. Additionally, those that are tired about talking about race after a mere three months (since George Floyd’s death) are the problem. Change needs to happen now because Black and Brown people have waited centuries for change and asking them to wait longer is akin to letting them watch a group gorging themselves whilst they are kept hungry. This, he says, is the indignity of racism. Listen to Amaechi – the clarity of his arguments surpasses other speakers on racism.

Addendum: John Amaechi’s talk on LinkedIn is here – this one focuses on how to be an ally.