As announced in TheWeek@UCL, this year’s Professional Services Conference will be held on Tuesday 5 June at Logan Hall, UCL Institute of Education. The theme of the conference is ‘Working in Partnership’ and the organisers have planned an exciting, interactive programme. Registration is open so book your place now. Library Services staff are eligible to register, subject to line manager approval. Although we are part of the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research), you can register with a “Library Services” ticket (in the list): https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ucl-professional-services-conference-2018-tickets-45721610568

Professional Services Awards

Nominations for the Professional Services Awards opens today (Friday 4 May) and closes at midday on Friday 18 May. ‘Working in partnership’ happens across all areas of Library Services, so please consider putting forwards your team(s) or initiatives which you have been involved in. Library Services has been successful in previous conferences, with awards granted to the Main and Science Library Daytime and Evening/Weekend teams in 2016 (https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/libnet/2016/02/04/library-services-teams-win-excellent-service-award/) and UCL Press in 2017 (https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/libnet/2017/02/16/ucl-press-wins-ucl-brand-ambassador-award/).

The Professional Services Conference is a real opportunity to showcase the work of Library Services in partnership with academic colleagues and other professional services teams, and how we contribute to making UCL one of the world’s best universities for study, research and sharing knowledge.

The categories for awards this year are:

• Working in Partnership
• Sharing good practice
• Process review/system improvement
• Improving efficiency
• Improving service user satisfaction 

If you are interested in nominating your team for one of these awards, please email professionalservices@ucl.ac.uk and they will send you a nomination form and guidance notes. Details and templates for nominations will be available from the Professional Services webpage shortly, and nominations open from today until the deadline for submissions on Friday 18th May at 12 pm: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/professional-services/prof-services-awards

UCL Professional Services: Awards success

15 February 2017 saw the 3rd UCL Professional Services Conference take place in the UCL Institute of Education. Just under 700 people registered for the event from across UCL.

The theme of the day was the ‘Student Journey’, from recruitment to graduation and beyond. Our keynote speaker was Nica Burns OBE, a Laws graduate, who is now a renowned theatre producer. Nica gave a sensational perfomance, rather than a formal presentation, encouraging us all to be bold and to aspire to make a difference.

The keynote was followed by short presentations: TOPS (Transforming Our Professional Services); UCL estate developments in Transforming UCL; and a final presentation on networking skills from our host for the day Sue Tonks.

The ‘Student Journey’ was then portrayed in a bustling marketplace, which allowed Professional Services, and professional service colleagues based in academic settings, to learn more about how students are supported throughout their association with UCL. After this session, the UCL Leadership panel – comprising the Provost, Wendy Appleby Registrar, David Price Vice-Provost for Research, Dame Nicola Brewer Vice-Provost International, and Celia Caulcott Vice-Provost Innovation & Enterprise – answered questions from the audience on subjects as varied as Brexit, student fees and TOPS.

The final session of the day was the Presentation of Professional Service Awards in 5 categories, for which there were just under 100 entries. One of the categories was Brand Ambassador, and I am delighted to say that this was won (in the face of very stiff competition) by UCL Press, pictured above receiving their Award. It is an outstanding result and the whole team is to be congratulated.

I was honoured to be co-chair of the UCL Professional Services Organising Committee which oversaw the event. It was a great day for networking and community building – with the added bonus of a prestigious Award for UCL Library Services as well.

Paul Ayris

Pro-Vice-Provost