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.

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

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.

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 17 May 2023. 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

Bookings are now open for the 2023 LCCOS eXperience eXchange, which will take place online on MS Teams on Thursday 25 May 10.00 – 12.00.

Following on from our previous online payments training reminder, we would like to share the Online Payments Training Guide.

This training guide is designed to be used to complement the live training sessions. It contains a detailed breakdown of the online payment process, as well as the procedures associated with our new way of paying fines and fees.

We would encourage all colleagues who are involved in customer queries, as well as fine and fee payments, to view the document and use it as a reference guide going forward.

In addition, we would like to remind all colleagues that there are still training slots available for live online payments training and would encourage any interested staff who have not yet attended a session to sign up.

The remaining training slots are as follows:

• Tuesday 16/08/2022, 11:00
• Wednesday 17/08/2022 15:00
• Thursday 18/08/2022 10:00

We would also like to take the opportunity to inform staff that the go-live date for the online payments portal is anticipated to be Wednesday 24^th August 2022.

If you have any questions about the online payment process, please contact Bethan Smith or Jonathan Fowles.

Following on from the previous blogpost regarding online training sessions, we would like to remind you of the Online Payments Training sessions which will be taking place throughout late July and early August. The first of these sessions took place yesterday – you can sign up to any of the remaining sessions.

There are training slots still available for the following times:

• Thursday 28/07/2022 10:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Friday 29/07/2022 14:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Monday 01/08/2022 15:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Tuesday 02/08/2022 10:00 (Aimed at Issue Desk Heads)
• Thursday 04/08/2022 11:00 (All staff)
• Monday 08/08/2022 14:00 (All staff)
• Wednesday 10/08/2022 14:00  (All staff)
• Thursday 11/08/2022 11:00 (All staff)
• Tuesday 16/08/2022, 11:00 (All staff)
• Wednesday 17/08/2022 15:00 (All staff)
• Thursday 18/08/2022 10:00 (All staff)

Furthermore, we would like to inform colleagues of the recent change to the lost item procedure. As of Monday 25^th July, we have made changes to the process for significantly overdue books. Impacted colleagues were informed of this last week.

The changes are:

• We no longer automatically apply a lost status and lost fee in Alma when an item becomes significantly overdue.
• We automatically apply a block on borrowing as soon as the item becomes overdue.
• When the item becomes significantly overdue, we will also apply a block for renewals and requests. All blocks will be removed when the items are returned.

As a result:

• There is no longer any need to add prices to items from an Alma report.
• There is no need to manually block users for overdue items, or to send a second invoice email. Colleagues can still follow their local procedures to chase significantly overdue items, based on due date rather than lost status.
• Alma will no longer produce the following reports: Items Requiring Prices; Items Requiring a 2nd Invoice; Lost Loans Returned Yesterday; Invoice Letters Generated Yesterday. We will also remove the invoicing dashboard.
• If a customer reports that a book is lost, we will have to add the price to the item record and mark the item as lost manually. When online payment is live, this will allow the customer to pay the fee remotely, at which point it will be removed from their record automatically.

For further information on these changes, please consult the accompanying documentation.

We are still reviewing historic Alma lost fees and blocks, and will make a decision regarding these before online payment is operational. This will be communicated to colleagues.

We will also conduct a review in 2023 to assess whether these changes have had any impact on the number of books returned to the Library.

If you have any questions about training or the new lost item procedure, please contact Bethan Smith.

The Library’s Social Media Task and Finish Group would like to invite you to an online training workshop on Using Instagram to connect with library users, 14:30 – 16:00, Tuesday 26 July.

Please note the times have changed from those initially advertised. We’ve extended the session by 30 minutes following feedback.

The session will start from the basics and provide a solid overview of the platform. After this session you will know how to:

• Set up or update your account,
• Take stunning photos that wow your audiences
• Ensure content is on brand in terms of visuals and tone of voice

As well as tricks and tips to ensure you have consistent content.

It is open to everyone in Library Services, particularly people responsible for library social media accounts. You do not need any previous knowledge or experience.

The session will be led by Simon Bralee with support from members of the Social Media Task and Finish Group.

 Book now. 

We plan to offer further training sessions on Sway later this summer.