University of York

1. Relationship Management Conference - November 2017
Understanding Academics
Michelle Blake, Head of Relationship Management
Vanya Gallimore, Academic Liaison Team Manager

2. Aims
● to gain a much better understanding of how academics at York
approach their research and teaching activities;
● to consider how Library services currently facilitate and support
those activities;
● to integrate the ‘academic voice’ into future service planning and
development of support for academics, ensuring that the Library
continues to engage departments in innovative ways that respond
to both current and future needs.

3. 142 academics interviewed
Cognitive maps
Semi-structured interviews
Transcribing
Coding NVivo
Themed analysis
Ithaka survey results
Methodology

4. Project outputs

5. Small changes
● Flexible loans
● New subscriptions
● Research hotel

6. User requirements from
Reading lists

7. “Inspiring Minds”

8. Treat Your Shelf

9. What does it mean to be
an academic at York?

10. Motivations
● Part of a scholarly
community
● Stimulating balance
between research
and teaching
● Inspiring and
supporting the next
generation of
learners
“I don’t think I’m a researcher who is forced to do teaching, I don’t
think of myself as a teacher who fits in a bit of research. I think
they’re pretty equally important to me and I enjoy them both, and
they feed off each other in a way...The idea of just being a
researcher would send me round the bend and the idea of just
teaching would send me round the bend. I like being an academic. I
like the public, sociable side and I like then going away and shutting
the door and getting on with my work.” Humanities Academic
“...the kind of conversations I’ll have, especially with three seminars, will actually be
really helpful...I found that days after I do seminars in the morning, I often do much
more writing that afternoon even though it’s often unrelated.” Social Sciences
researcher

11. Frustrations
● Workload allocation - range
of responsibilities
● Never switching off
● Pressured times of year
● Publishing pressures - REF
● Space for academic
creativity and innovation
● Adjustments to new
generation of students
“I mean the pressure, right now it just feels relentless. I did a module that was completely
new for the first time but that was sort of the easy part really...In this department we do a
lot of pastoral supervision and that has a paper trail involved and each time you meet with
a student you have forms...we have to take on a minimum of 6 or 7 and I took on more that
I was supposed to this year...And then there’s all the admin work that people get asked to
do in the department. And then you’re meant to have your research ‘persona’ carrying on,
you can’t just let it go and that involves different things. It involves going to conferences
and presenting papers, and the double thing of publishing and bringing in funding and both
of those things are pretty difficult even if you’re a highly skilled person” Science Academic
“And they’re constantly REF, REF, REF, funding, funding, funding,
and you end up working all your evenings and weekends”
Humanities Academic
“It is very important to say that the creativity is the
hardest part because as an academic you get almost
no time to think. I work part time, most of my time is
taken up with admin, teaching and supervising
students.” Science academic
“I taught a course on [topic] which is a notoriously difficult piece of work, it’s brilliant but
difficult. And for that I was reading through with 3 or 4 commentaries every week, reading and
writing lectures for 2 and a half days solidly. That was a different kind of preparation, it was
actually quite exhilarating but you can only do that if you have no other responsibilities which at
the time I didn’t. When you’re constantly seeing students, you’re constantly interrupted, you’ve
got administrative responsibilities, you have a stack of emails waiting to be answered, you just
can’t do that.” Humanities academic
You either work out of hours or it
doesn’t get done.” Science
academic

12. Aspirations
● Research led teaching
● Support for
professional
development
● Better line
management
“Who listens to the needs of academics?” Humanities
Academic
“All the time I’m melding my research and teaching, that’s why I have so
much time compared to other academics! It is so collaborative and
content rich that I am constantly learning from my students” Humanities
Academic
“It is very important to say that creativity is the hardest part
because as an academic you get almost no time to think” Science
Academic

13. Themed analysis
Accessing resources
Collaborations
Current awareness
Digital tools & social media
Digital skills
Literature searching
Reference management
Research support
Working spaces

14. Accessing resources
● Perceptions of the collections
● Understanding (or not) of Library
processes
● Browsability
● Just in time
"I guess we are used to things being done really
fast, we don’t want to wait three weeks for
anything, we want it right now because you are
thinking of it right now and we are just a bit greedy
that way." Social Science Researcher
"I don’t come to the Library in person a lot but I
use the online resources. I do acknowledge that all
the online resources and information I access is
bought and provided by the Library. I do see that
link but students don’t realise this." Science
Researcher
"Lots of things got moved into store or too many
things got moved online, and the materiality, the
physicality of the book was lost. That for me is my
sense of what a Library really is, a lot of material,
physical." Humanities Researcher

15. Digital Skills & Tools
● Differences across the faculties
● Collaboration
● Reading online
● Huge range of tools and resources used
"So it’s difficult sometimes to find the journals, that’s where things
like Twitter and Facebook, that networking, has been incredibly
useful. And that’s the thing, you used to go to conferences and
meet people, but now you add them on Twitter and they post
something: “I’ve published an article” or “Someone else has an
article”. It’s that drip-drip of contextual information. You don’t
want to tell people they should be on social media but at the same
time they’re missing out on all this stuff. But people have their own
networks. In some way something like Twitter is no different from
keeping up with people via phone calls or writing to them, but on a
vast scale. But the thing with that is all the noise on Twitter."
Humanities Researcher
“My personal preference, and this is just me personally,
I tend not to like ebooks. Because I do so much work on
the computer anyway, I prefer to have a book to read
as opposed to something on my tablet. That’s just a
personal view.” Science researcher
“SPSS is the main one for me. I tried to use NVivo but I got
fed up and it’s not key for most of what I do...X keeps telling
me I need to learn AMOS. I tell my students who want to do
[specific topic] to use AMOS even though I don’t know how
to use it because the other popular one is MPlus but you
can’t access that for free in the University at the moment.
We don’t have a licence” Social Sciences researcher

16. Working spaces
● Conducive to scholarly activity
● The right space for the right job
● Who’s the library for?
“Being in the Library makes [the students] feel
like they’re doing something intellectually
productive rather than staying at home which is
a good thing.” Social Science Academic
“I don’t tend to work in the Library very much,
often because it’s quite full, whereas I do in the
vacation. I quite like working in libraries as
nobody can bother me. At my desk there are
always emails pinging in.” Humanities
Academic
“One of the things that drives me nuts is the way
that areas that are supposed to be quiet, aren’t.
It’s just the way the area seems to be designed to
maximally carry sound.” Humanities Academic

17. Shaping the
Library Strategy
Space
Scholarship
Skills
● How do we make the physical library virtual? In other words,
how do we create a go-to online presence that does the job
of a physical library but in a virtual space?
● How do we make information available in an increasingly
open, virtual and collaborative scholarly environment? How
can our strategy reflect and anticipate new directions in
accessing and using resources?
● What does it mean for us to be at the forefront of learning
delivery? How will we ensure a culture of Digital Skills
curiosity and engagement, and who ultimately has
responsibility for developing digital skills literacies in staff
and students across the University?

18. Recommendations

19. NVivo dataset

20. Confidence and
experience

21. Building our relationships
with academics

22. UX key to our
approach
2016 Final CSE Report:
2016 Final CSE Report
Customer Insight: It is evident from talking to Managers and staff
that there is a good understanding of customers’ needs. This is
obtained from survey feedback, from academic liaison librarians
and meetings with DCOs. Additional activities, such as the Turnstile
Project and the New Support Model are adding to this. However,
the use of ethnographical research is providing an extra dimension
to existing insight and this merits a Compliance Plus.
2017 Final CSE Report:
Customer Insight: ..it was very clear that the level of insight into the
needs of customers is very strong. Information Services is using a
range of techniques, alongside data analysis, to provide insight into
the needs of their customers. In particular, they are using
ethnographical research to develop their insight. Particularly
impressive has been their project on Understanding Academics
which has provided an extra dimension into customer insight.

23. Taking forward UX at
York

24. Focused projects
2015 PGR UX
2016 Understanding Academics
2017 UX Space
2018 Understanding Faculties

25. Sharing our project