The UTS Library is exploring new service models to better meet the needs of students in the future. This includes relocating most of the physical collection to an underground retrieval system to free up space. New services will focus on improved search and discovery, cultural and learning hubs, customizable spaces, and 24/7 operations. Engagement initiatives like Fun Day have been successful in attracting hundreds of students through interactive activities and competitions.

1. UTS Library:
Towards a
future
service
model
IMAGE: (mine) from Expanded Architecture 2011
1
My thanks to colleagues: Belinda Tiffen, Sally Scholfield, Jemima McDonald and Sophie McDonald for their assistance in
putting this presentation together. Most of the images used are mine, but the few that are not are probably theirs.

2. WHAT I’LL BE COVERING
1. Why? The background
2. What? The specifics: new services
3. How? Making it actionable
4. So what? Measuring success
2

3. 1. WHY?
A really quick
review of the drivers
for change as we
see them at UTS
3

4. IMAGE: UTS Campus Master Plan
LEARNING COMMONS
LIBRARY RETRIEVAL SYSTEM
Relocated & upgraded UTS Library
Underground
4
Map context: urban campus, inner city; limited space; Broadway is a major avenue & thoroughfare to Sydney City; close to
Central station and other transport hubs.
This map is the UTS Campus Redevelopment Masterplan. Projects currently underway include the Student Housing Tower,
an underground Multi-purpose Sports Hall and a new Broadway Building for the Faculty of Engineering & IT. Building 14 will
be a Frank Gehry designed building for the Business school and soon we kick off the preparatory work for the Library
Retrieval System with excavation to begin in late 2011.
The UTS Library will be relocated in two stages from its current locations in Building 5 of the Haymarket Campus and the
Kuring-Gai Campus in Sydney’s north:
Stage 1 is the occupation and operation of our Library Retrieval System (LRS) to be installed under Alumni Green. It will be
operational in 2014.
Stage 2 is the occupation of the redeveloped Library building or Learning Commons in what is currently Building 2. Currently
that is envisaged for 2016-17.
UTS Student vision film http://www.youtube.com/user/UTSLibrary#p/c/EB8DFE0C0A8A304D/0/G8TnzAdGnqI
From restricted opening hours -> towards 24/7 services

5. IMAGE: Dr Alex Byrne, Tampere Public Library , Finland
From book storage & shelving deserts
5
(Image taken by Dr Alex Byrne in the Tampere Public Library, Finland.)
Libraries storing all or most of their collections on open access (like this image) become shelving deserts with the patrons
mostly isolated in the remaining space on the periphery as collections continue to grow. Occasionally patrons make raids
into the stacks to hunt for resources, returning to the relative safety of their own spaces.
Our future library will not be designed as a book storage facility. About 75-80% of our collection will be housed in a Library
Retrieval System like the one in this link http://www.flickr.com/photos/malbooth/4118722777/in/set-72157623121781717/.
From book storage facility + a website -> customised physical spaces & personalised web services/apps that assist users to
search for and find what they want and also to discover resources they did not know about.
From books & journals -> multiple media formats & games

6. Library Retrieval
System:
fast & storage for
950k items
IMAGE:J. Willard Marriott Library, University of Utah
6
(Image taken by me in the ASRS of the University of Utah Library, Salt Lake City.)
The LRS will take away the ability to serendipitously browse the entire physical collection. It will, however, improve access to
and delivery of those items stored in it. It also allows for a less cluttered and more spacious display of the most well-used
books on open storage in our new Library, allowing for them to be found more easily.
The LRS is an investment in the Library space. It provides compact storage for much of the book collection and in doing so it
saves investment in about four times as much traditional Library space that would need to be lit, heated, cooled, cleaned, etc.
What we need to do, however, to maximise our investment in such a facility is to encourage use of the materials stored within
it.

7. IMAGE: Philological Library of Free University, Berlin
To better spaces for people
7
We believe that a sense of place and space will be important in our new library. With less books on display that is easier to
deliver in a given space.
Even current school students have recently reminded us of the importance of an appropriately welcoming space to first enter
for the Library. They recognised the critical importance of that space in reminding you about the purpose of the institution
you are entering. The use of appropriate orientation spaces has been well recognised in the museum world and in well-
designed new libraries such as the one shown here in Free University, Berlin.
Clever design can assist us in designing out undesirable behaviour (like theft, excess noise, vandalism, etc.) and in
encouraging appropriate behaviour like reading, study, collaboration, self-service, reference assistance, etc.
Some answers and ideas will come from participatory design: we are already working with 4th year design students on
projects such as Designing Out Crime to explore the possibilities offered by RFID and mobile computing platforms as well as
more traditional solutions to be found in spatial and furniture design.
We believe it is very important to have our current and future students participating in the conceptual design stage. As a
university of technology our design, engineering, and IT students and researchers also have much to offer us from their own
expertise.

8. Design
Welcoming
Porous
Merging physical & digital
Encouraging behaviours
IMAGE: Philological Library of Free University, Berlin
8
From restricted opening hours -> towards 24/7 services
From desks/counters/signs/screens/boards -> orientation spaces
From website -> applications and open development with our content/data
From catalogues -> Google, Amazon, iTunes (interfaces)
From face-to-face classes -> ubiquitous learning
From Library (only as a location) -> mobile services across the campus (people & virtual)
From passive consumers of technology -> active trend-setters and explorers through partnerships in research & publishing
From GATES, DON’T! & SHUSH! -> Welcome, how can we help? & influencing behaviour (theft, vandalism, inappropriate
behaviour/food/drink) by design

9. IMAGE: British Museum
And improved search and discovery
9
Image taken by me at the British Museum.
We will replace physical browsing with improved browsing online of entire covers of “virtual shelves” (including the uniting of
print & online resources, books available & those on loan & possibly arrangements other than Dewey), suggestions and
recommendations (like Amazon & StumbleUpon), an opt-in “Genius” like service that can list books you might be interested
in based on your browsing and use patterns.
We are also looking at the application of social bookmarks to the collection (e.g. using something like Delicious or Diigo) as
well as offering users the ability to tag catalogue entries.
We are talking to UTS visual communications staff and students to look at visual ways to represent the vast amounts of data
we have about our collections, their attributes and their use in terms of In addition, we are looking at things like the ratings,
recommendations and folksonomies or tags to our catalogue search and also investigating whether features like Apple’s
Genius selections or a feature like StumbleUpon discovery service might be possible. We know our users also enjoy
accidental discoveries, not necessarily related to what they first started searching for. So we might also look at services like
Tumblr, a cross between a blog, Twitter, and Flickr/YouTube as a good example of shared discovery or crowd-curated
discovery. I think we can incorporate something like this in addition to more focussed catalogue search facilities.

10. Search Discovery
10
10
We think there is a spectrum of difference between search and discovery.

11. Our thoughts and dreams
possess no typographic
system. We dream in
pictures, feelings and
imaginary awareness.
Gunter Rambow
11
Yes, we don’t dream & imagine the same way we search.

12. accidental
efficient incidental
targetted abstract
specific non-text
advanced browsable
expanded shared
text-biased curated
Search Discovery
80 + 20
12
We think there is a spectrum of difference between search and discovery.
So I am not saying that we should ditch Search for Discovery, but maybe just add some of our effort in that direction.

13. RFID - moving away from transactions
Not only:
Self-service
Collection management
But also:
Data collection
Location & guidance
Smarter library
Mobile self-service?
IMAGE:UTS Blake Library
13
We are also tagging our entire physical collection with RFID tags to replace the less capable barcodes and magnetic strips
for security.

14. RFID tags will
allow for virtual
browsing of
these
IMAGE:UTS Blake Library
14
RFID makes data collection much faster and easier. It has more potential for clever future use than barcodes.

15. IMAGE: Salt Lake City Public Library, Utah
Sustainability
15
Image taken by me outside the Salt Lake City Public Library.
• Operations, procurement, travel, relationships, services
• An expectation for all libraries.
• Sustainability as a community obligation
• We have even developed our own sustainable collections model. This can be viewed in some detail in Dr Alex Byrne’s
Designing the Library of the Future (Section 2.2). This is of course available online as a free download via UTSiResearch
http://hdl.handle.net/2100/1037
• Briefly, the model begins with the inner circle of High Use Materials or the most highly controlled segment of the
collection including physical resources on short loan restrictions and digital resources available online through our eReadings
and the University’s online learning system.
• Next comes Priority learning and research materials or the core collection covering licensed ebooks, ejournals and
other eresources central to our learning and research programs, the university’s own research outputs through UTSiResearch
and physical items found in our open access collections (we are planning on approximately 250,000 items here).
• The 3rd band is Foundation learning and research materials, a broader collection assembled to support the university’s
programs. Digital resources in this band are of a lower priority and would be sacrificed under budgetary pressures. Physical
items will be stored in our LRS and accessible within 15 minutes of a request. The LRS itself is a substantial sustainability
initiative.
• The 4th band is Extended learning and research materials. As items age and lose relevance (excepting classic works)
they may be transferred to offsite consortial storage such as the CARM repository operated by CAVAL in Victoria, but still
accessible within a day. This band also includes items not owned or licensed by the Library, but available through reciprocal
borrowing arrangements including the BONUS+ consortium and inter-library loans.
• Finally the outer band is the Global information commons comprising both the extended bibliosphere of over 160
million books plus journals and other resources held in the world’s libraries as well as the open World Wide Web.

16. A Cultural, Social &
Learning hub
IMAGE: http://davidgarciastudio.blogspot.com/2009/07/archive-series.html]
16
• From service provider -> cultural, learning & community hub
• Going beyond the ordinary; Importance of cultural materials within academic & other communities
• Developing cultural & special collections, not an assumption, not passive!
• Artist-in-residence programs
• Understanding the curatorial process and what that means for access, exposure, promotion, research, publication, etc.
• Have we forgotten the full curatorial process?
o Develop>organise>manage>disseminate>imagine & create
o Get out of silos and apply/develop the full range of your skillset
o Better for your career anyway!
• Connecting to others and connecting others
• Engaging effectively in a community – immersive in participation!
• Shared interests – what are they in your community?
• Promoting debate & discussion
• Culture – we should know what it is & why it is important. How did we ever forget that role?

17. Research Spaces & Services
Data Curation Advice & Analysis
IMAGE: British Library Growing Knowledge Exhibition (2010)
17
(Image taken by me in the British Library Growing Knowledge exhibition, 2010.)
Libraries MUST respond to changes in research environments and to changed researcher behaviours and needs
Many researchers are collecting, storing and analysing large amounts of data. Retention, sharing, publication, ongoing
management?
Collect & Store
Provide institutional repositories like UTSiResearch and connect researchers to other suitable repositories
Organise
Provide expertise, training, advice on metadata; data management guidelines and tools
Curating datasets (e.g. ATSIDA)
Analyse
Metrics and citation analysis (expertise, training and tools)
Share
connect researchers by facilitating and enabling social networks both physical and virtual (Shut up and write and Research
@UTS early examples of this)
advise on copyright, IP and open access publishing
There is still a need for dedicated space for researchers and their research partners in our libraries.

18. IMAGE: UTS students outside Blake Library during our Fun Day 2011
Some features our students want
18

19. Inspirational &
Mobile Check Out 24/7 Operations Natural Light
Quiet Spaces
Customisable
Book History Comfy Chairs Participation
Spaces
19
We have become aware of these needs through a number of small but useful initiatives:
. using Wallwisher software on a spare large TV screen with a keyboard in our front stair well to facilitate a regular engaging
conversation with those using our current Library. Moving from a culture of complaint in an old corporate complaint book to
one of conversation with real people in the Library
. by fully participating with academics, researchers and students as a “client” on some of their research projects into library
services and spaces, and
. by getting to know some local co-designers/design thinkers who understand the reality of community engagement and its
potential to deliver outcomes that synthesise organically the perspectives of all people involved in or touched by a project.

20. IMAGE: High School students at a workshop at UTS Library
Future Students Want:
What do future students want?
20

21. Atriums Greenery & Water Media Spaces Obvious Sustainability
Art & Randomness Intuitive Tech Meaningful signage Thematic Identity
21
These points are what the year 7 & 9 students told us they wanted in a university library of the future after a half day
informal workshop in our current library in September of 2010.
Extended learning means the opportunity to learn beyond the set curriculum.
What can we do to provide randomness in our libraries. Everything we do is about (mostly outdated ontologies and
structures!
Gaming & media spaces are probably essential now. A library without them in the future will be irrelevant.
Orientation spaces have a significant effect, more significant than any signage, on the behaviour of those entering. It is
expected by our clients.
Water features, greenery and natural light are probably things we would wish to see ourselves.
Future students will expect all technology that we provide to be intuitive. If it isn’t it won’t be used.
Signage can be over-done, and to be effective it must be meaningful.
Our future students expect like-books to have some kind of thematic identity that gives users/readers a clue about their
content.
I didn’t really understand why students said they liked the curved spaces in the UTS Library until I saw those of the
Philological Library in Berlin’s Free University.
Library spaces and services must learn to be customisable and personalised. Maybe we are too precious about those spaces
and don’t understand their true potential.
We want our future library to be a social hub, but it also must provide exposure to culture, so the use of art within the
library will be critical.
Our sustainability initiatives must be visible and demonstrate our progress (or not) in all dimensions/facets.
Comfy chairs are essential because patrons simply will not spend every hour in a library awake.
“Lack of rules” perhaps indicates that we still have too many rules, or too many signs indicating the rules. Perhaps there are
other ways to influence and encourage behaviour besides rules.

22. 2. WHAT?
The specifics: new
services
22
No, we’re not considering a licensed bar! This is just an interest-arouser slide.

23. Fun Day
Fun day in the Library and online
Engagement
500 students
Competitions Games
Treasure hunt Online quiz
Unanswerable Technology petting
questions zoo
Make the perfect Kinect
paper plane
23
As part of our First Year Experience engagement program we’ve run Fun Day Programs for the start of semester for the last
couple of years. They’ve been pretty successful and well attended and through playful engagement we’ve noticed that
there are more fun ways to present literacy programs. So these have been learning experiences for us too.

24. Innovation in Information Literacy
Using fun, experimentation, play,
simplified language
Delivery: social media; screencasts;
games/races; quizzes; web tools;
just-in-time; mobile support; QR
codes; faculty workshops; FYE
Power sessions for staff
Curriculum Review embedded IL
24
Text from Jemima McDonald for this one:
• There’ve been subtle and not so subtle changes to IL at UTS over the past 5 years
• Broadly speaking, we shifted our thinking, we needed to stop expecting students to do it our way. Sometimes that
can’t be helped but wherever we could we needed to consider changing our thinking rather than the other way around.
This is quite a big shift.
• We’ve been working at taking a more expansive view of information literacy. By expansive I mean that IL is much more
than just what we deliver to our clients via the library website.
• We started looking at how they were finding information, where they were finding information, what format it was in
and how we could help them do better at finding information outside the library context.
• IL isn’t just about teaching how to use a database or the catalogue it’s about developing skills in searching the internet
effectively; it’s about helping them become literate in other ways such as digital, media or visually literate.
• We now deliver IL through multiple online avenues eg facebook, Twitter & our blogs as well.
• We launched the very popular Google Skills classes in 2009 as a result of the shift in thinking. We now include Google
Scholar and Google Books instruction in many classes.
• Since then we’ve added applications such as Prezi, mind42, diigo, academia.edu, twitter for research and tictocs into
our classes.
• We’ve made a concerted effort to simplify the language we use in our classes and on the library website. The language
of our website remained very library centric for some time. We’re slowly sqeezing it out.
• I rarely use the word Boolean in a class but still demonstrate how it works. I would only use it when working with
postgrad students. I think words like Boolean mean something to us but very little practical use to our clients. What’s
wrong with just showing them how it works and not including what I think of as alienating language?
• We’re also updating a series of tutorials put together about 10 years ago which exemplify exactly what we’re not
wanting to do now. It shows how much we’ve changed.
• We’ve tried to make our classes more hands on and focus on giving the students time to experiment in the class so they
can make mistakes and learn where there’s help available. I’ve found that it’s not until you’re actually observing
someone doing a search for example that the ideas really sink in.

25. Study Skills
BELL & Catalyst
replaced
One stop shop
Graphics & social
media
Academic writing
collaboration
25

26. Research Support
Save me time
Make me famous
Diigo group
Research Week (incl.
vodcasts)
Data curation advice
26
We have a dedicated Scholar’s Centre in the Library for post-grad students.
Our UTSeScholarship department provides assistance primarily to the UTS Research Community in the form
of:
eResearch - some research publications; scholarly works, theses
eData - data curation; ASSDA; ATSIDA
ePress - online open access journals; conference papers; some books
Make me famous
A 1 hour workshop to help researchers maximise the impact of their research by developing a more targetedapproach to
publishing. This hands-on class covers: mastering citation analysis and the h-index with Scopus and Web of Science,
understanding Journal Citation reports and ERA rankings.
Research Week – workshops and seminars for research students and staff, collaboration between research support units
across the university
We present a program of workshops and seminars over a week to help develop the knowledge and skills that researchers
will need throughout all stages of their research career.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Prof. Attila Brungs gave the opening address for Research Week and sessions, delivered
by staff from across the University, covering: understanding research ethics; obtaining research funding; knowing your rights
with copyright and IP; advanced database searching; using collaborative tools; writing, referencing and publishing skills;
managing research data; proving your worth through citation analysis.
Google skills: Google Scholar, Google Docs and keeping up to date with alerts eg RSS feeds
You can download the full program (pdf) or browse and book into individual sessions in our events calendar. Some of the
workshops will were even offered in Chinese.
Check out our research blog and research support program to see how UTS library can save you time and make you
famous.

27. Collaboration
Student Units Faculty
IL delivery Showcase work
Counselling Joint projects
Housing Specific needs
Events Collecting
27
So we’ve started this year to do more serious outreach to units that support students across the university.
By working with them we round out our understanding of students needs and also identify areas where we can expand or
contract what we offer. The contraction is important as we need to be able to sustain what we offer, we can’t continue to
expand indefinitely. The feedback we get from other staff is gold for us and has opened up a rich rich seam of collaboration.
With the Counselling Unit for the first time we’ll be offering workshops to students under academic caution, with the
U:PASS team which is peer assisted study classes, a few librarians were invited to meet the student leaders, from that we
approached a lecturer to run voluntary classes to support a major assignment.
With Faculty we’re showcasing design & other students work in the library. We’re in the initial stages of planning a joint
exhibition with Design staff based on the LoTF.

28. International Student Support
Three member team
Chinese language classes
Researcher consultations in Chinese
Tours for Chinese academics and
government officials
International student web pages
redesigned
28

29. Culture of Reading
Encourage reading (+ WP)
Communication skills
Academic language
Indigenous Read@UTS
National Year of Reading 2012
29
Last year we launched a project to encourage a culture of reading in our community. A regular group of about 12-15
students come along every second Thursday and discuss a journal article chosen by the librarian leading the group. This
helps with communication skills, academic reading skills and is also a social event. We provide yummy snacks too! We run
the Teaser Tuesdays book meme, where you select two sentences from a book you’re reading that make an interesting
teaser then post them on the Read@UTS blog.
We recently launched the Indigenous Read@UTS club.
This is building up to the National Year of Reading in 2012

30. Redeveloped website
http://www.lib.uts.edu.au/
30
Our Library website has been redeveloped and is currently online in Beta form for feedback from clients. It reflects their
feedback and requests for a simpler easy to use structure and it has a new fresh look.

31. 3. HOW?
Making it
actionable
31
Another image from BikeTank at u.lab. See BikeTank.org
This was an amazing 16 week Design Thinking process that welcomed people from all over Sydney to work with UTS
academics and staff on socially innovative ways to improve inner city living.

32. Sustainable Services
Focussing on our clients, not us
Broader, shared involvement &
encouraging contribution
Realistic goals
Less is more
Monitoring our environment (DT,
CIIC & collaboration)
Staff learning & updating skills:
mobile technology; e-readers; social
media
32

33. Are we Curating our Collections?
Research
Acquire
Arrange
Describe
Provide
33
Here area a few of my ideas relating to being more active in curating our collections and our services. This is merely to stimulate a bit of thought
and perhaps some re-imagining beyond the silos we now seem to operate in. Somewhere, someone has to consider the entire process or curation
lifecycle.

34. Are we Curating our Collections?
Liaison Research
Publishers, passive, Acquire
mostly text
Dewey, set, inflexible Arrange
Publishers, Worldcat Describe
Shelves & catalogues Provide
34
This might be a bit hyper critical, but we asked some random library users about who does what on this curation process, what would they say?
I think we’ve sliced it up and specialised far too much. We’ve lost the continuum.

35. Are we Curating our Collections?
Liaison Research Connect, engage, learn
Publishers, passive, Active, beyond text,
Acquire publish(!), produse
mostly text
Dewey, set, inflexible Arrange Virtual shelves, crowd
curation, other?
Publishers, Worldcat Describe Folksonomies, ratings,
artist-in-residence?
Shelves & catalogues Provide Exhibits, discovery,
OA, create, imagine!
35
So here are a few random ideas to encourage us all to think beyond the ordinary, beyond what we’ve always done.
The link to our Beta virtual shelves: http://beta.lib.uts.edu.au/imageflow

36. IMAGE: British Library BIPC
CIIC: A Business & IP Centre?
36
(Image taken by me in the British Library in the lounge & networking area outside the BIPC reading room.)
UTS is currently hosting and developing the Creative Industries Innovation Centre and we seem to be located in the centre
of a precinct of creative industries in inner Sydney, all of whom need the kind of business advice provided by the BIPC at the
British Library in London. Perhaps such a centre would be appropriate for the UTS Library?
•Business and Intellectual Property Centre. This is impressive new business for the British Library and an example of seeing
an opportunity and grasping it with both hands. They’ve developed great partnerships with the business of the City and
now librarians in this centre help people starting up new businesses. I believe this is the kind of thing all of us need to learn
how to do in our own communities.
•http://www.bl.uk/bipc/index.html
•On the far wall you can see examples of success stories encouraged as businesses by this centre.
•For UTS I also see this as a model we might use somewhere in our new Learning Commons, probably targeted at our
research community, perhaps to link industry experts with researchers or others from URS starting businesses or seeking
help getting inventions and prototypes off the ground.
•It might also be a useful industry mentoring centre for post-grad students.
•We could even use the model to assist academics and researchers with e-publishing and in order to understand Copyright
better (in he way BIPC does much the same thing with IP and Patents law).
•What are banks, local government organisations, non-profits, and airports doing?
•How will we handle growing collaboration between faculties & universities?
•What is relevant in YOUR community? (e.g. reference materials & services for the unemployed, disadvantaged, children,
assisting literacy, ageing population, changed industry base, IP/Copyright needs, etc.)
•Collaboration with creative industries (digital media, games, digital services, entertainment, our future)
•Facilitating and welcoming industry links and partners
•Look outside for possibilities beyond your usual small world
Another example in London are the Idea Stores in East London – deeply relevant and connected to their communities,
providing what they need. http://www.ideastore.co.uk/

37. How social media has helped
Assisting cultural change - fun, play
From corporate to personal voice
(focussing on people)
Learning, exploring & gaining confidence
in content creation
Networking & promotion
Developing new services
Openness, sharing & experimentation
TRUST!
37
I think the words above are pretty self-explanatory. There is more to measuring success in using social media than the
metrics alone.
I’ve also posted about this on my blog: http://www.frommelbin.blogspot.com/2011/03/looking-beyond-metrics-and-
towards-our.html

38. 38
How do we design and offer better services?
• How do we move from Lending, Research Help Desk, Access, Security, IT, databases, and information literacy to
triage HELP and genius consultancies? We like the Apple model that is more generic and helpful than ours is at
present.
• Jane Fulton Suri from IDEO suggested bringing observation, intuition, empathy & imagination together to make an
empathic economy in a presentation for the Business Innovation Factory-2 (2006) event: Finding inspiration
Through the Power of Observation. See http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif2-jane-fulton
%20suri
• Is our process more like that of Social Innovation? See also http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/
Social_Innovator_020310.pdf
• The Stanford DSchool model: empathise>define>ideate>prototype>test
• What does design thinking have to offer us?
• Innovation from within
• Good knowledge of external (non-library, non-academic environments and services)

39. Social Innovation
Active Engagement
Social inclusion
Community participation
IMAGE: Philological Library of Free University, Berlin
39
• Is our process more like that of Social Innovation? See also http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documents/
Social_Innovator_020310.pdf
We certainly need to facilitate participation from within the UTS community as we develop our new service model.

40. Leadership
Roadblock removal
Stay out of the way
Encourage, support, protect
Model desired behaviour
Strategic context & direction
Recognise opportunities,
excellence & imagination
Participate; have some ideas
Trust!
40
These are just my thoughts on what I think is most important for leadership to keep in mind.
It won’t be the same for everyone in every institution, but this seems to have worked so far for us.

41. 4. SO
WHAT?
Measuring
success
41
This is Craig Alexander winning the 2011 Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, about a mile from the
finish. He knows he has won it and has remained focussed all day.
I was there coaching another athlete. I think I’ve learnt a lot more from coaching swimmers and triathletes than any
management course I’ve ever done.

42. Evaluation Surveys - Rodski, etc.
Forums - specific
subject
Feedback forms -
specific to service: Fun
Day, ResearchWeek, IL
Direct - client
Text comments, Wallwisher,
social media, email
Committee
engagement - faculty
boards etc.
Response to outreach -
events, workshops,
IMAGE:UTS Blake Library
requests
42
Most of these forms of feedback should be familiar to everyone.
• We pay close attention and listen to what our clients are asking for. They’re often telling us what they need without
realising it! The research help desk, wallwisher, facebook, twitter, online chat and email question service are very rich
sources of information of what might be useful to students and what they’ve found useful. Wallwisher is an online
suggestion board which replaced our paper feedback forms.
• We’ve introduced a number of classes and initiatives from this informal feedback.
• You can tell if you have the attention of the room by moving around it and watching what people are doing, looking at
them to see if they look as though they’re interested or are understanding.
• A good way to hold people’s attention is to ask questions. It’s really important to ask questions to get the brain
working, it helps them make connections, a bit of a competitive thing sets in...when might you...? who can think of...?
relate it back to the subject they’re interested in.
• We’ve found that we can almost never underestimate how little people know when they come for a class.
• Formal: We have an evaluation form on the library website that we use and we have input into the 2 question survey
which comes out monthly. There are usually 35-40 responses.

43. More is Needed
UX Research
Designing systems with
data-mining in mind
Data analysis on
learning outcomes
IMAGE:UTS Blake Library
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We’ve begun some recent UX research with a professional team of UX people that is focussed on how students use (or
don’t use) our key online systems. That project will inform our future directions re Discovery.
I think that we need to keep data mining in mind when setting up future online and automated systems so that useful
metrics can be collected that when combined with student learning outcomes could give us reliable data about which of our
resources, services and initiatives are most effective.