Teachmeet Abstract

1. Using current technologies to build relationships with academic staff: a
series of workshops
Christina Harbour, Writtle College, Christina.Harbour@writtle.ac.uk
Rachel Isaac-Menard, Writtle College, Rachel.Isaac-Menard@writtle.ac.uk
Staff training sessions are an obvious way to support the research community within
institutions. As Subject Librarians we see this as an opportunity to build relationships
with academic staff. Indirectly we hope this will provide us with academic staff who
are better trained in library resources, and more willing to give us time with students
for information literacy sessions.
Staff notoriously do not value the library/use its services as much as they should,
(Cooke, 2011; Dale, 2006) and this in turn affects how students perceive the library.
By putting on staff training sessions, we endeavoured to improve awareness of the
role of librarians within the larger institution, and make staff aware of the various
ways the library can support them in their research.
A recent Research Information Network (RIN) report (RIN, 2011) recommends that it
should be “made easier for supervisors to keep up to date on training, support and
resources.” After attending a Postgraduate Research Symposium in which the RIN
report was discussed, it reinforced for us the Library’s’ responsibility to help not just
supervisors, but academic staff in general with information literacy. We usually
provide academic staff with a general library induction. We have decided to
supplement these sessions with a series of workshops.
This presentation describes a series of workshops that Writtle College Library has set
up for academic staff. Sessions include: current awareness, effective searching, web
presence, Prezi and creating a blog. We made the sessions related but independent so
that staff members could attend singular sessions. We tried to think of topics that were
relevant to staff, but also relevant to students. These sessions had a practical element,
some background theory and demonstrations. There were things we decided had to be
covered and we left enough time to adapt the sessions based on attendees’ subject
areas.
References
Cooke, L., Norris, M., Busby, N., Page, T., Franklin, G., Gadd, E and Young, H.
(2011) Evaluating the Impact of Academic Liaison Librarians on Their User
Community: A Review and Case Study. New Review of Academic Librarianship, 17
(1), 5-30.
Dale, P. (2006) ‘Professional Engagement – The Subject Specialist in Higher
Education’, in P. Dale et al (Eds.), Subject librarians, engaging with the learning and
teaching environment. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 19-32.
Research Information Network (2011) The role of research supervisors in information
literacy. London: RIN