The University of Liverpool launched its Reading Lists @ Liverpool system in September 2013 with 1,700 imported reading lists. While library staff initially created the lists, the goal was to engage academics and faculty to take ownership of the lists. A success project from July 2013 to July 2014 engaged liaison librarians, provided training, and used advocates and marketing to encourage faculty adoption of the system. Evaluating early feedback found that students responded positively and faculty saw benefits when lists integrated with other university systems. Continued effort focused on gaining support from different subject areas and addressing varying challenges to wider reading list adoption.

3. University of Liverpool
— Reading Lists @ Liverpool Iaunched in Sept 2013
— 1,700 lists at the outset
— Mostly imported from our previous ‘system’:
catalogue records with a reading list field added

4. A pre-populated system
— Current recommendations were solicited by email
from module coordinators
— Lists were created/edited by Library Acquisitions staff
— Much easier to engage academics if some of the work
has been done for them

5. Why engage the academics?
— Library staffing capacity
— Ownership
— Immediacy
— Student experience

6. Ethos
— Culture change
— Ownership passing from the library to the academics
— Removing barriers
— Giving the academics the power – by making them
List Publishers

7. How to engage the academics?
— Success project
— Liaison Librarians
— Meetings
— Mandate?
— Web presence
— Training
— Persuasion by their peers …

8. Success project
— July 2013 – July 2014
— Academic Liaison taking the lead
— One Page Project Plan
— Tasks mapped against a timeline

9. One Page Project Plan
The original OPPM is Copyright OC Tanner 2008.
One-Page Project Plan was adapted by
David Sommer Consulting
for the Practical Project Management Workshop.
http://www.DavidSommerConsulting.com

11. Objec&ves:
Champions
have
been
iden&fied
Support
and
training
has
been
established
Marke&ng
has
been
delivered
Student
feedback
has
been
obtained
Project
Name:
Reading
Lists
@
Liverpool
Success
Project
Goal:
Staff
and
students
are
using
Reading
Lists
@
Liverpool
by
July
2014
Comple&on
Date:
30-­‐Jul-­‐14
Project
Leader:
Clair
Sharpe
Updated
on:
09-­‐Jun-­‐14

12. Tasks
1.
Senior
University
staff
have
been
engaged
and
policies
agreed
2.
The
Guild
have
been
engaged
3.
Early
adopters
have
been
offered
VIP
support
by
Library
4.
Academics
have
been
engaged
as
reading
lists
published
5.
Liaison
Librarians
have
disseminated
info
at
relevent
meetings
6.
All
library
staff
have
been
updated
7.
Train
the
trainer
training
has
been
arranged
8.
A
mixed
programme
of
training
has
been
devised
9.
A
checklist
for
trainers
pre
&
post
session
has
been
prepared
10.
Reading
List
LibGuide
&
LibAnswers
have
been
updated
11.
Drop
in
training
sessions
have
been
added
to
calendar
12.
Short
demo
video
clips
have
been
added
to
the
LibGuide
13.
Training
for
Guild
student
reps
has
been
delivered

13. 14.
Resources
for
Courses
has
been
launched
15.
High
visibility
of
Reading
Lists
on
Homepage
has
been
secured
16.
High
visibility
of
Reading
Lists
on
catalogue
has
been
secured
17.
High
visibility
of
Reading
Lists
on
DISCOVER
has
been
secured
18.
High
visibility
via
VITAL
(Building
Block)
has
been
incorporated
19.
Marketing
has
been
aligned
to
the
Library
branding
exercise
20.
Digital
signage
inside
libraries
has
been
used
21.
Digital
signage
elsewhere
in
the
University
has
been
used
22.
A
"talking
head"
style
video
clip
of
an
academic
has
been
made
23.
A
focus
group
of
users
has
been
indentifed
24.
Feedback
from
academics
has
been
gathered
25.
The
use
of
module/programme
evaluation
has
been
explored
A
We
think
academics
will
get
on
board
B
We
think
we
will
manage
user
expectations
C
We
think
Reading
Lists
@
Liverpool
will
fit
the
rest
of
the
University

14. Liaison Librarians
— Main channel of communication between the library
and staff/students in academic departments.
— Other library staff, (e.g. on the desk) need to be up to
speed to a certain extent, but can refer.

17. Meetings (various!)
— Student Experience Committees
— Staff-Student Liaison Committees
— Blackboard Baseline Group
— Guild (Students’ Union)
— University Learning & Teaching Conference

21. What should a reading list be?
— Just ‘library’ materials: books/journals?
— Encourage the debate
— If the academic owns the list, it’s up to him or her …

22. To mandate or not to mandate …
— We decided not (for the moment at least)
— Depends on your institution

23. Web presence
— Reading Lists LibGuide used as homepage – for
news, training materials etc.
— Ubiquitous links to reading lists

28. Integration, integration, integration
VLE: Blackboard (known as VITAL)
Library Web pages
Library catalogue
Discovery service: EDS (known as Discover)
LibGuides
Programme Planner
Work is ongoing to make reading lists part of university
systems and processes.

37. Training
— Module coordinators were invited to lunchtime training
sessions. Staff signed up in advance via LibCal.
— A total of 6 workshops ran in December and February.
— 47 academic staff attended in total.
— 3 Liaison Librarians were in attendance each time.
— Training academic staff is nothing like training
students!

38. I went to the workshop on the Library’s excellent Reading Lists @
Liverpool enterprise, a scheme that allows you to construct a
reading list via the library site (but which is not limited to the library
holdings and allows links to external resources to be added in one
place, even letting media clips be inserted) which you can then link
to your module VITAL site and by which students can access the
catalogue, the resources and their availability as relevant, directly.
It’s very impressive and, crucially, easy to use. I’d encourage you all
to think about using it and if you need any help getting started I’ll do
my best to assist.
Dr Rebecca Dixon
School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies

39. Students seemed to react well to it: it’s visually more
attractive than other available forms of listing we have
used (e.g. within VITAL itself) and directly brings up
much more relevant information (such as library stocks).
So I would say that student response has been positive
so far, though I can’t say that I asked them specifically
about this function — it was just there in the background.
Prof Mark Collier
School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology

40. Varied perspectives, different
challenges
— Different subject areas have different priorities for their
lists – Humanities and Social Sciences have longer
lists and may need more support from the library.
— We need to figure out who is and who isn’t engaging
and why.
— Liaison Librarians are the key, thanks to their
knowledge of departments.

41. Advocates
— Our early adopters have been invaluable as
advocates
— Academics are best placed to persuade their peers

42. “At first I didn’t see the point of this system. Now I wish
we’d got it years ago. I wouldn’t want to be without it.”
Dr Laszlo Pazmany
School of Medicine
Author of our most popular lists:
PBL modules for Medical students.
Module 2.13 had 3,139 page views in May 2014.

45. Persuasion by their peers …
— A short video, professionally filmed
— Featuring an academic from each of the three
Faculties
— Footage of the library and relevant screenshots are
shown while the academics describe the advantages
of the system
— http://libguides.liv.ac.uk/readinglists