Demonstrating the depth of the collection through exhibitions
Three new exhibitions - Portraits, Music at Monash, and
Coloured Cloth Bindings - provided additional insights into the
valuable material housed in the library's Rare Books Collection and
the Music and Multimedia Collection.
Curated by
Richard Overell, Rare Books Librarian, the Portraits exhibition
was opened by Max Delany the Director of the Monash University
Gallery. The exhibition ran from >29th April - 30
June 2004.
The Music at
Monash exhibition, curated by Georgina Binns, Music and Multimedia
Librarian, was held in conjunction with an international conference of
musicologists and was opened by Professor Margaret Kartomi. The
exhibition ran from 11 July 2004 -
30 September 2004.
Dr Alan Dilnot of the School of Literary,
Visual and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts opened the Coloured
Cloth Bindings exhibition, also curated by Rare Books Librarian,
Richard Overell. The
exhibition ran from 14 October 2004 into 2005.
All exhibitions
were supported with comprehensive catalogues available in print and on
the web at
www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/
Liaising with faculty members about
services and collections
Providing forums for communication with faculty
members
The library's professional staff with subject
expertise work in faculty teams with the team leader attending faculty
board as the library's representative. Whilst the Faculties of
Pharmacy, Law and Business and Economics maintain small library
committees, other faculties have relied on representation at either
General Library Committee (GLC) or one of GLC's subcommittees. With
the disbanding of the subcommittees in 2004 the library will now
explore other options for direct communication with faculty staff.
Improving a co-ordinated approach to induction
of new academic staff
In 2004, 197 new academic staff at Monash
University were contacted by librarians with subject expertise,
provided with relevant information and offered the opportunity to
meet. Seventy-two staff (20.3 per cent) took up the offer to meet.
The goal of this process is to ensure new
academic staff are aware of services on offer by providing consistent,
quality information and an opportunity for the development of
one-on-one relationships between staff and the librarians who serve
them.
An evaluation of this process, which was
devised in November 2003, took place in November 2004. Overall the
process was considered to have significantly improved consistency of
communication and opportunities for relationship building. Several
issues related to the recording of activities in the process where
identified and solutions were developed for implementation in 2005.
Of note is the high number of new academic
staff commencing at Monash in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and
Health Sciences. More than 44.5 per cent of new academic staff in 2004
were from this faculty. Library staff working to support this faculty
were commended for their excellent management of the welcome process,
given the large numbers involved.
Developing academic staff
and student information literacy skills
Conducting orientation and information literacy
activities
In 2004 all
branches of the library held face-to-face information literacy
sessions, including;
- 260 orientation tours;
- 410 basic sessions; and
- 680 advanced sessions.
These sessions
attracted 22,709 participants - an increase of 3284 from the previous year.
Turning research into practice for postgraduates
The joint
library / School of Information Management
Systems research project to investigate postgraduate students'
understanding of information literacy was completed early in 2004. The
findings from this project were used to promote discussion about
postgraduate students' information literacy needs, and supervisors'
roles in addressing these needs, with academics enrolled in the online
Postgraduate Research unit of the Graduate Certificate in Higher
Education.
Collaborating to develop curricula that incorporate information
literacy
The university's
revised Graduate Attributes document, which was submitted to
the Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President (Academic) in 2004,
listed information literacy as one of the graduate attributes that are
to be addressed by faculties.
New courses and
courses under review offer the best opportunities to embed information
literacy programs into the curriculum. In what is hoped to become a
model for better alignment of information literacy with coursework,
librarians collaborated closely with Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and
Health Sciences staff to begin planning for the allied health courses
to be introduced at Peninsula campus. A validated questionnaire was
prepared to use with students enrolling in the Diploma of Health
Sciences in 2005 to evaluate their incoming information literacy
skills so that an appropriately customised information literacy
program can be developed to match needs.
The third year
of the new undergraduate medical course was taught for the first time
in 2004. Librarians participated in the evidence-based clinical
practice curriculum development group and information literacy was
embedded in the course.
Existing courses
which had significant integration of information literacy education
included the Advanced Legal Research unit of the Faculty of Law's
Skills, Ethics and Research program, the Faculty of Business and
Economics Success at Monash orientation pilot program, the
Faculty of Information Technology's Facilitated Learning for
Information Technology program for Masters students, and a second
year Science subject taught at Clayton, Gippsland and Malaysia
campuses.
Staff development for effective student-centred teaching
The 2004 series
of student-centred learning workshops for librarians resulted in
innovative approaches to teaching being implemented by the librarians
who attended, and provided participants with opportunities to share
their experiences with new activities and methods. The series included
sessions investigating issues associated with teaching and learning
for international and non-English speaking background students.
Internationalisation of education was also the topic of the 2004
Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy
Symposium in Melbourne, attended by librarians from several campuses.
There was also strong representation from the library at the 2004
CAVAL Reference Interest Group annual information literacy seminar,
which dealt with online information literacy education.
Improving internal communication and collaboration regarding
information literacy
The information literacy section of the library
intranet was redesigned in 2004, providing a central searchable
location for information literacy material for staff. Weekly
Information Literacy and Reference Digests, prepared by the
Information Literacy and Reference Librarian to disseminate topical
information, have been available since April 2004. Case studies
illustrating innovative teaching initiatives from each of the 10
Faculty Teams were also among the first material to be loaded to the
site. The case studies were originally presented at the 2004
Information Literacy Planning Day at which a student panel and a role
play between an academic and a librarian provided further insight into
factors affecting development of information literacy.
Providing print and electronic guides to services and collections
Proving online teaching and learning materials via the web
The library website provided online information literacy teaching
and learning materials developed by librarians. These included updated
subject-specific and more generally applicable tutorials.
Developing an updated template for library online tutorials
A working group of librarians collaborated with Centre for Learning
and Teaching Support (CeLTS) staff to produce a new
Citing and
Referencing
tutorial that will
serve as a model for updating other online tutorials.
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