1. 1
Convergence,
de-convergence and
super-convergence –
Library Services at King’s
College London
Gavin Beattie
Associate Director, Research &
Learning Liaison

2. 2
Outline
• King’s College London
• Library Services at King’s
• De-convergence, super-convergence
• Research and Learning Liaison
– Library Liaison Managers
– Information Specialists
– Collection development

3. 3
King’s College London
• Founded in 1829, one of top 30 universities in the world
• Fourth oldest University in England
• Multi-disciplinary
• Top seven in the UK for research funding
• Over 25,000 students from 140 countries
• Part of King’s Health Partners AHSC with Guy’s & St
Thomas’, King’s College Hospital and South London &
Maudsley
• Five campuses in London – the most central University in
London

4. 4
Library Services at King’s
• King’s was founded in 1829, but Library Services has
only been in existence since 2011
• Six libraries, plus Special Collections and Archives
reading rooms
• 2 million printed volumes, access to over 50,000
journal titles
• 1.5 million visits annually
• Almost 2 million books borrowed annually

5. 5
Library Services in the King’s structure
• Formerly Library and IT functions were integrated as
Information Services & Systems (The L word was
banned!)
• De-converged from IT and ‘super-converged’ into
Students and Education Support Directorate (SESD)
• SESD covers the whole student lifecycle from
Admissions to Graduation

6. 6
Library Services at King’s - 2013
• Higher profile
• Library budgets have more protection
• Record investment in materials over the past two
years – following a period of decline
• Learning more about the wider Directorate –
Admissions, Student Admin, Student Services,
Governance, Quality and more
• However, having to renegotiate our relationship with
IT Services post-divorce
• RLL still liaise on behalf of IT

7. 7
New (ish) Library Services structure
Director of
Students &
Education Support
Director of Library
Services &
Employability
Research &
Learning Liaison
Customer Services
Information
Resources
Archives &
Information
Management
Careers &
Employability

8. 8
Research and Learning Liaison
Associate Director,
RLL
Library Liaison
Manager (IT
Training)
Library Liaison
Manager (Learning
& Teaching)
Information
Specialists – Arts &
Sciences (x5)
Library Liaison
Manager (NHS)
Information
Specialists – Health
(x5)
Library Liaison
Manager
(Research)

9. 9
Library Liaison Managers
• Library Liaison Manager (IT Training)
– Manages our IT training programme
– Provides support for college-wide training system
– Manages a Library of software
• Library Liaison Manager (Learning & Teaching)
– Line management for the Arts & Sciences team
– Overview of L&T support
– Skills and curriculum integration
– E-learning

10. 10
Library Liaison Managers
• Library Liaison Manager (NHS)
– Line management for the Health team
– Manages relationship with NHS partner trusts (King’s Health
Partners)
– Keeps up-to-date with NHS developments
• Library Liaison Manager (Research)
– Lead for Research support
– OA, CRIS, Repository
– Collection development

11. 11
Information Specialists – changing roles
• Subject specialists → Liaison / support / training
– Traditional roles focused on developing Library collections
– Now emphasis on relationships, promotion, supporting
students and staff, training as well as ensuring collections
meet academic needs
– Members of Education Committees, Staff-Student
Committees etc…
– Most have or are working towards PG training qualifications
– Collection development is shared with academic Schools,
Information Resources staff, library users

12. 12
Collection development
• Reading lists and requests from academics go
directly to Information Resources
• ISs still do some selection, and also liaise with
departments to maintain wishlists for e-resources
• Move towards demand driven acquisition (DDA) of
ebooks
• Inter-library loans are now free
• However – King’s is a research University and it is
still important to spend time building research
collections

13. 13
August September October November December January February March April May June July
DDA E-Book Expenditure 2011 onwards
2011-12
2012-13

14. 14
Current structure for RLL
• Retains the traditional and valued named contacts
• Managers have functional responsibilities so develop
knowledge and expertise, give advice to Library
Leadership Team and champion new developments
• Recognised leads for important areas
• Information Specialists get so busy with their schools
and departments it can be difficult for them to engage
with projects and new initiatives
• Streamlined processes for collection management
save time, but have reduced our subject knowledge