Anne Worden and Kate Humby, University of Portsmouth

1. Partnering with Academic Deans
to Pay for
Online Reading List Help
Anne Worden, Faculty Librarian &
Kate Humby, Online Course Developer:
Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences
University of Portsmouth
June 2014

2. Outline of Session
• Library perspective
• Graduate perspective
• Overall verdict
• Discussion
– what do you do?
– would this model work elsewhere?

3. The Library Perspective
• Obtaining reading lists is a problem
• Online reading list systems in place since 2004
• Encouraging buy-in from lecturers
• Good intentions and training given but…
• Could it be done better?

4. Innovation Using Faculty Funds
• Creative & Cultural Industries (CCI) had money
• Strong Library – Faculty partnership
• The Dean wanted money spent on a project
• Hard work getting book budget spent
• Reading list project the ideal solution!

5. Implementing the Project
• Faculty Librarian for CCI took the lead
– Prepared job description/person spec for HR grading
– Arranged interviews
• Job advertised via Faculty mailing list
– Fixed-term contract for 40 weeks
• Strategy agreed with Faculty Library Committee
• Graduate seen to be successful
• Knock-on effect

6. Rolling the concept out across UoP
• Library-friendly Dean of Humanities and Social
Sciences (HSS)
• Agreeing funding was just the start
• Reliant on Faculty Librarian taking the lead
– Amending CCI post job details as 1 year hourly paid
– Arranging interviews, giving feedback
– Liaising with Faculty Manager
– Time sheets as hourly paid
• Support of the Dean made obtaining reading
lists easier

7. The Graduate Perspective
So far three faculties have partnered with
academic deans to pay for reading list help:
CCI: October 2012 – May 2013
HSS: February 2013 – February 2014
Business: September 2013 – September 2014
Why exclusively graduates?

8. Why exclusively graduates?
• Recent experience of higher education as a
student
• Knowledge of university's departments, VLE
and paper reading list constraints
• Easier for graduates to put themselves in the
shoes of current students
• University investing in students who have
invested in an education at Portsmouth

9. Advantages of being employed by a
faculty
• Knowledge of commonly used faculty-specific
resources and databases
• Relationships with lecturers and school
administrators
• Manageable and focused workload
• Future employment opportunities

10. As a graduate, why I wish I’d had
Aspire
• Electronic resources
• Digitisation project
• Lack of copyright breaches
• Accessibility to both print and digital resources
• Online integration with other resources
• Solid academic recommendations and
referencing
• Suits multiple learning styles

11. Benefits of Aspire cont’d
• Improved communication with the library
• Readings can be updated immediately and by
multiple academics / students
• Readings can incorporate current affairs
• Encourages academics to look further afield
for new resources
• Promotion of less commonly used resources

12. Overall Verdict
• Reading list coverage today is very
comprehensive across 3 out of 5 Faculties
– CCI 98% done, HSS 92% done, PBS 54% done
• Each Faculty very pleased
– Lecturers and students benefit
• Library extremely pleased
– Over 175,000 visits to reading lists in 2013/14
– Aspire Dashboard analytics for use of each list
• Graduates delighted
– further employment in UoP

13. Discussion Time
• What do you do about collecting reading
lists?
• Do you already have specific reading list
posts in your library?
• Would Deans fund posts in your library?
• Have you got a good alternative to share?