Congratulations to Esther Cable (Deputy Librarian, LaSS Library) who achieved the award of HEA Associate Fellowship, through UCL Arena, this summer.

HEA Associate Fellowship is a recognition awarded by Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) to individuals who demonstrate effective teaching and support for learning in higher education. It is nationally recognised, grants you post-nominals, and can be great evidence for your CV or when applying for jobs. What’s more, the process of applying for fellowship means you reflect on your work in the areas of supporting learning and teaching, and helps you identify areas for development of your skills. In so doing, it enhances your support of students and so contributes to the user experience.

Is HEA fellowship for me?

There are different categories of fellowship depending on your role and experience. Associate Fellow is suitable for anyone in a role that supports learning, whereas colleagues with significant teaching responsibilities and at least 3 years of experience might prefer to apply for Fellowship.

What’s involved if I want to apply?

UCL Arena Fellowship provides an accredited route to all categories of HEA Fellowship and is free for UCL staff. To apply you need to write a reflective report which outlines your areas of activity and includes case studies which illustrate how your work meets relevant criteria outlined in the Professional Standards Framework (PSF). You can submit throughout the year.

What support is available?

In addition to events and support through UCL Arena, there are monthly peer-support hybrid meets for LCCOS colleagues interested in or working towards all categories of fellowship. Esther gained support and encouragement from the meets, as well as motivation to get her application written and submitted.

How can I find out more?

The UCL Arena Fellowship website and Moodle course are great places to get started with finding out more, or attend a UCL Arena Fellowship initial guidance session. To join an LCCOS HEA Fellowship support meet, or be added to the Teams site, please contact Angela Young.

Are you thinking about developing your career? The Career Frameworks provide you with information about a range of roles across UCL, detailing activities and responsibilities for different roles and transferable skills and competencies. They also promote three key ways that you can develop new skills and experiences; learning from experience, learning from others and formal learning.  Colleagues have also very kindly provided Career Case Studies, which provide an insight into their career journeys.

The Career Framework for LCCOS staff is being launched with the area of Customer Service (Library Services), with other job families to follow.  A family is not a section of LCCOS, but a group of jobs that have similar professional characteristics.  Many job roles within LCCOS will combine more than one of the LCCOS families.

If you have any questions or need further information please contact Michelle Wake

The UCL LCCOS Staff Summer School is a series of training and development sessions, events and online activities aimed at staff from across LCCOS, to support their ability to answer enquiries and to provide support, training and advocacy to users and stakeholders. Sessions are generally delivered by colleagues, so we can share our expertise.

Image generated by Microsoft Copilot’s AI

If you haven’t engaged with our Summer School before, it is a series of training and professional development events open to all LCCOS staff but particularly aimed at staff who are customer facing and whose roles include providing information and support, responding to enquiries, or liaison, teaching and training. The Summer School aims to support colleagues in developing their knowledge and skills so they are better able to fulfil these aspects of their roles. Sessions are usually delivered by colleagues, sharing the knowledge and expertise we have across LCCOS, and some may be aimed at staff supporting particular disciplines.

The Summer School takes place during June and July, with a mixture of live online events that will be recorded, and face to face events.

Recordings and materials from previous years of the Summer School are available on the UCL LCCOS Staff Summer School Moodle course.

Please help shape this year’s Summer School by completing our suggestion form by Friday 3 May 2024. You can also use the suggestion form to request the enrolment key for the Moodle course, if you don’t already have access.

• LCCOS Staff Summer School: suggestion form

Are you involved or interested in teaching / training or academic engagement / liaison activities as part of your role? Then book your place now for the 2024 LCCOS eXperience eXchange, which will take place online on MS Teams on Wednesday 15 May from 2pm.

eXperience eXchange – what happens?

LCCOS colleagues come together to share ideas and good practice about teaching or training design and delivery or academic engagement or liaison activities through short presentations or other activities.

How does it work?

You are invited to give a short presentation or teaching activity (5-20 mins) to exchange your experiences on any aspect of your work relating to teaching or training design and delivery or academic engagement or liaison activities. This may include feedback from events or training you’ve attended, something new you’ve tried in your work, an idea you might have and would value some peer input, or simply giving colleagues an insight into your role and activities.

The event also includes Lessons from LILAC, a report by colleagues who attended this year’s LILAC: The information literacy conference.

Who can attend?

Anyone with an interest in teaching or training, or academic engagement or liaison. You can choose to present or simply to attend, but the event depends on contributions so please consider presenting – it can be as short or as long as you like! We particularly encourage LCCOS staff outside of Library Services to consider contributing. It’s a perfect opportunity for colleagues to find out what you do and enable cross-team innovation within LCCOS.

Image created by Microsoft Copilot’s AI.

Why get involved?

There are many benefits to being part of the eXperience eXchange, including:

• bringing colleagues together to give everyone a better understanding of activities happening across LCCOS.
• benefiting colleagues who may be inspired by your experiences to inform their work.
• an opportunity to get input and feedback from colleagues to help you develop your ideas.
• a development opportunity which can provide evidence for an application for HEA Arena fellowship or on job applications, giving opportunity to give a presentation or deliver a short teaching activity in a safe space with a friendly audience, and for sharing best practice with colleagues.
• an opportunity to try out new teaching activities or tools, including tools for presenting online, such as polls, breakout rooms and whiteboard features.
• an opportunity to gain inspiration from the work of your peers.

What is the format of the presentations?

This year we invite contributions in one of three formats:

• A short presentation (5-10 mins)
• A PechaKucha (20 slides of 20 seconds each)
• A longer presentation or activity (15-20 mins – allows time for more in depth presentations or opportunity for interactivity and input from colleagues).

If you’d rather not present, you can attend as an attendee only, but remember that the event depends on contributions.

How do I sign up?

Simply complete the registration form. We will send you the link to join and liaise with you over your contribution.

This post is about running a short course for colleagues on cataloguing.  I’ve written it to let people know what we offer, and to discuss too the benefits of sharing expertise for those giving as well as those receiving.

We started running introductory training courses on cataloguing in the IOE Library almost by accident.  Back in mid-2014 a member of staff working in Library Acquisitions in SSEES joined the ‘Peer Shadowing Scheme’, a brief joint IOE and UCL entity before the two institutions merged, and came to the acquisitions section of the IOE Library.  While with us, the shadower asked if he could see how we went about cataloguing too.  We showed him and gave him some to do.  The experience was very positive.  Our first student took to it so well he got a job as a cataloguer at LSE.

Since then a total of 21 library services colleagues have been through 28 courses.  Some have done both general and ebook cataloguing, some both those plus work on metadata for the IOE’s Digital Education Resource Archive (DERA).  Mostly this has been post-pandemic. In the chart below, LCCOS of course means ‘the rest of LCCOS not including the IOE’, just to be clear.  I make the distinction between IOE and rest of LCCOS simply to show how we’ve cast the net more widely over time. In addition to what’s on the chart, Tom Meehan (Head of Cataloguing and Metadata) has also been offering cataloguing practice courses and has seen 7 students (3 in 2022 and 4 in 2023). To find out what the boomerangs are doing on the chart by the way, you’ll have to read a bit further.

So what do we offer?  It’s not shadowing, it’s practice.  The student is given an introduction to the theory of cataloguing and its application here, shown an actual catalogue record or two, then given typically three items to take away and catalogue from scratch, plus a lot of links to documentation for reference.  A feedback session is scheduled on the practice records that result.  After another round or two of practice cataloguing and feedback, if the student wants to do more, we suggest they find items to practise on, then check the catalogue record to compare and if they have questions to ask us.

Those are the bare parameters but the course can be tailored according to what the student wants.  Some may simply want to know what cataloguing is and how it affects other areas of library work, others may have some items in their area of work which they want to be able to catalogue themselves with our guidance. Some may want to add knowledge and practice of cataloguing to their skill set for their own development (and their CV).  Some may even think they want to be a cataloguer, and others may just want an excuse to get away from their own desk for a while (it happens!).  All of the above is fine with us.

Three of the five of us in the IOE cataloguing team are directly involved in offering cataloguing practice.  Kristina Macdonald joined me doing this in April 2022.  She says she was motivated by wanting to gain confidence when explaining our work to colleagues, and a strong desire to demystify cataloguing which she feels is often a gatekept area of library work. And since last year Christina Egan has also been keen to offer an add-on course practising ebook cataloguing as well as our work managing the metadata for records on DERA. Christina cites her love of teaching as the main reason she wanted to join in – she says having that element to her role keeps her happy professionally. As her line manager, I’m happy about that! Plus there’s now Tom Meehan joining in too, and the three of us at the IOE and Tom all liaise on what we’re offering and how it works.

Five temporary staff have taken the course and three people (two of them temps) went on to take jobs either as cataloguers or involving a significant amount of cataloguing.  All three of those jobs were outside of UCL, but I can prove we’re not about providing an escape route: two who did the course and then went on to land a cataloguing job elsewhere, ended up a few years later getting cataloguing jobs back here at UCL. So that’s two boomerang students.  We don’t do the courses as a long-term staffing strategy of course, but well-trained new starters has turned out to be one of the benefits.

It’s also very good for us.  Having to explain what we do, how, and why, makes us think about our own practice, and all these new people coming in and asking questions gives us lots of fresh perspectives.  Those who’ve done the course and go back to their roles here in LCCOS will also have gained some understanding of our work and how it fits in or doesn’t with theirs, which can improve communication between different sections of the library.

A few years ago for a presentation I came over all Venn trying to illustrate how librarians feel about cataloguing knowledge (reproduced below).

How things might ideally be when library staff from other sections meet cataloguers.

How I fear they sometimes are.  (This will vary from individual to individual of course.)

I hope our Cataloguing Practice courses are helping bring those circles together.

Many congratulations to Jo Baines (Academic Liaison Librarian / Archivist – Special Collections) who has achieved the award of HEA Fellow, through UCL Arena Fellowship, which is testament to Jo’s commitment to professionalism in supporting learning and teaching in higher education.

Why apply for HEA fellowship?

HEA fellowship is a nationally recognised award and can be great evidence for your CV or when applying for jobs. In addition to gaining post-nominals, the process of applying for fellowship means you reflect on your teaching and work to support learning and develop your skills, identify areas for your future development and enhance your support of students so contributing to the user experience. There are various categories of fellowship depending on your role and experience, including Associate Fellow, Fellow and Senior Fellow, so it’s relevant to all sorts of roles across LCCOS. UCL Arena Fellowship provides an accredited route to HEA Fellowship and is free for UCL staff. Why not make working towards HEA Fellowship a development goal in your appraisal this year?

LCCOS support for HEA fellowship

Did you know that there are monthly peer-support meets for colleagues in LCCOS who are interested in applying for HEA fellowship? Jo found the meets invaluable for providing encouragement and support, as well as motivating her to get on with her application and get it submitted. Jo will return to a meet soon to share her experiences and what worked for her.

We also have an LCCOS Teams site for sharing friendly tips, asking questions and providing peer support and motivation for getting started and getting on.

How can I find out more?

The UCL Arena Fellowship website and Moodle course are great places to get started with finding out more, or attend a UCL Arena Fellowship initial guidance session. To join an LCCOS HEA Fellowship support meet, or be added to the Teams site, please contact Angela Young.

Aside from obtaining a formal qualification (e.g. Masters / diploma / apprenticeships), there are several options available to LCCOS colleagues who wish to advance their professional knowledge, experience and skills. This can provide evidence for your expertise and commitment to professional development in the sector through attainment of a professional qualification. This survey will give us an understanding of the current status and future aspirations of LCCOS colleagues in relation to these qualifications, which will inform how we can best support staff who would like to work towards them.

To get a full picture, we kindly request all within LCCOS complete the survey by 12th January 2024.

All responses will be treated in confidence.

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Many thanks

Craig Martin, Subject Liaison Librarian
Angela Young, Head of Library Skills

In this edition of Induction insights 2023:

• Sign up to be part of the Library Induction Taskforce.
• Helping students understand what to expect from their library when they start university.
• Sharing induction materials.

1. Sign up to be part of the Library Induction Taskforce

The Library Induction Working Group invite all library staff to get involved with meeting, greeting and supporting our new students by contributing to our face to face, central library induction activities as part of the Library Induction Taskforce. This is an opportunity to meet and work with other colleagues from across Library Services, to broaden your experience of providing support to students and develop or enhance your professional skills. Contribute as much or as little as you are able over the induction period, mainly in the week commencing 25^th September 2023.

Activities include staffing a stand at the Support Services Fair or a ‘Getting Started’ space in Main and Science libraries or contributing to demonstrations of Explore or welcome talks to international students.

If you would like to get involved, with consent from your line manager and prioritising support for induction activities at your own library site as required, please sign up.

• Library Induction Taskforce Signup 2023

If you routinely contribute to central induction activities every year, please ensure you still complete the form so we have a complete record of everyone who will be involved to help facilitate communications.

2. Helping students understand what to expect from their library when they start university.

For students starting at university for the first time, getting to grips with navigating UCL’s many libraries, collections and extensive online library resources can be overwhelming and daunting. We have produced a short guide with tips to help smooth this transition. Initially presented as a Sway, we plan ultimately to turn this into a video, and have deliberately framed it so it is relevant to anyone about to start at university, not only at UCL, so it can be useful to people before they have a confirmed university place. It is available on the Pre-arrival page of the Library Skills pages. Please share in any communications where it might be relevant.

• Transition to university: What to expect from your library.

3. Sharing induction materials

At the recent Induction Exchange (part of the LCCOS Staff Summer School (Get an enrolment key for the Moodle course)) we discussed the benefits of sharing induction materials put together for academic programmes or library sites. These might include videos, Sway presentations, quizzes, etc. Sharing can inspire, ensure best practice and save duplication of effort. Please share your local induction materials in the new ‘Induction sharing’ tab in the Library Skills Team site. Materials shared by colleagues at the ‘Induction exchange’ and previous staff training events are already listed.

• Induction sharing

The UCL LCCOS Staff Summer School (formerly UCL Library Services Staff Summer School) is a series of training and development sessions, events and online activities aimed at staff from across UCL LCCOS, to support their ability to answer enquiries and to provide support, training and advocacy to users and stakeholders. Sessions are generally delivered by colleagues, so we can share our expertise.

For full details of the programme and to book your place(s), see the UCL LCCOS Staff Summer School calendar. Presentations, accompanying links and materials and recordings (where applicable) will be made available on the UCL LCCOS Staff Summer School Moodle Course. If you do not already have access, please get the enrolment key. Sessions are open to all UCL Library Services staff, with approval from your line manager.