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.

Following the 2017 Staff Survey, Library Services established a new group to coordinate a response and address the issues which were impacting on Library Services staff. This group is the Staff Survey Action Group. The Group devised a Staff Survey Action Plan, which was signed off by the Library Senior Management Team and is being implemented. You can view progress against the actions at the link above.

As one example of an initiative developed in response to the Staff Survey, ‘Welcome to Library Services’ sessions were introduced with Paul Ayris and some SMT members since November 2018. This allows new starters to meet SMT members, and get a sense of the libraries’ key priorities, and also an opportunity for SMT members to get to know new members of the Library. It will become part of the induction process for LS staff, in a similar way to the Provost’s Welcome. To help staff understand Library Services’ place in UCL, new charts have been made available on LibNet to illustrate the Library’s place in the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research) and how the Library reports to UCL Council, the university’s governing body, via Library Committee.

Another need identified from the Staff Survey was to provide accessible formal procedures, implementation and monitoring within Library Services on bullying and harassment. This was done last December with guidance on how to respond if you witness bullying or harassment. This has since been complemented by the UCL Full Stop campaign, calling on our community to come together and say Full Stop to unacceptable behaviour.

Thirdly, as a final example, the Staff Survey highlighted Leadership and Staff Engagement as an area for improvement within Library Services. This has been a significant area where Library managers have taken action through the engagement of Library staff in developing our new strategy, through visits to Library sites and through training schemes to enable Library staff to thrive in the fast-changing environment we operate in. The Library SMT discussed how we might engage more effectively with colleagues at an Away Day in December. We have established a working group to look at making the work of SMT more transparent. We are also exploring ways for colleagues across the service to be able to share the challenges of working in Library Services and raise issues that concern them.  Further information will be forthcoming in the next few months.

All of this work would not have been possible without the members of the Staff Survey Action Group, including Library Services staff and representatives from UNISON. Members attend quarterly meetings and analysed the Staff Survey results last year and continue feed in contributions, in terms of what measures would help to improve the work environment. Members also liaise with Library colleagues on the work of the Staff Survey Action Plan.

There is still a way to go before the actions are all delivered, so that the issues which were identified in 2017 are effectively addressed. If you would like to get involved, there are currently 3 vacancies on the Staff Survey Action Group. If you are willing to devote half-a-day a term to help make UCL Library Services a better place to work, please speak to your line manager to obtain approval and contact me to join. Colleagues at all grades and from all sites across Library Services are welcome to get involved. Find out more about the Staff Survey Action Group on LibNet.

The latest version of the Library Services Staff Survey Action Plan is available on LibNet. There has been activity on the areas which you identified as members of staff working in the Library, and the description in this version of the plan shows what progress has happened since last November. Highlights are outlined below, with a call for colleagues who would like to represent your peers in a new Staff Survey Action Group, which will devise the Action Plan for the next Staff Survey (due in late 2017).

Improvements to communication

Library SMT signed off a new internal communication strategy in May 2017, founded on staff feedback including findings from the Staff Survey. New strategy includes provision for more regular SMT Q&As responding to Library staff concerns or queries in monthly staff newsletter.

New computers

In light of staff feedback about IT equipment in Library Services, senior management approved additional expenditure of £110,000 to accelerate the replacement programme for staff desktop PCs. The Digital Libraries Team has ordered 121 new all-in-ones to replace all the staff Desktop@UCL PCs which are the lowest spec. Exact dates for delivery are yet to be confirmed, subject to the suppliers and ISD’s lead-in times, but the aim is to have the new equipment ready for start of session in September 2017.

Staff Survey Action Group

The Library SMT approved the establishment of a Staff Survey Action Group, chaired by myself as Director of Operations, to oversee action on future survey findings in an inclusive and transparent way. Terms of Reference have been agreed, and I will be calling for nominees during the summer to represent all grades of staff across Library Services. If you are interested in taking part, and have any queries, please contact me.