Informative flights: Ngee Ann Polytechnic

Showing posts with label Ngee Ann Polytechnic. Show all posts

Wednesday, 4 September 2013

Reference services and Information Literacy

A desk with "help" for primary pupils

Chinatown library has no librarian only a phone

When visiting a library it is always interesting to see where the reference services are located and how they are manned. In terms of design, rounded desks or structures were a common theme. Naming varied between "help" for the infants and juniors, to "information" or "reference" at they poly's / universities. The public library in Chinatown had a "cybrarian" as it is a volunteer run library without permanent staff. Should users have a research or other question, they can phone through to a reference librarian at the central library who is able to assist them with their request.

A few of the libraries employed the "roving" reference librarian model, or a combination of roving librarian and desk located. One library had the reference librarians located in an office with the possibility of appointments for patrons. NTU had specialist librarians who had a degree in the subject they were covering. SMU dedicated a librarian to each school who is responsible for the collection, reference services and database.

An impressive structure in the reference section of NLB

In addition to the reference services, Information literacy (IL) was an important theme.

Different libraries had different approaches. Some had integrated IL into the curriculum, some had it as a separate compulsory topic and others offered it on a voluntary basis. At Ngee Ann, a combination approach was employed. First year students completed an online library orientation at the start of the school year. Later, the librarian was invited as a guest lecturer into the classroom. In further years the library worked in conjunction with lecturer request for more specialized or specific IL or citation or information retrieval needs.

SMU had a "compulsory" information literacy course. When questioned on how this was enforced and whether it was credit bearing, they admitted that it was an administrative detail that students had to have attended to in order to graduate, like paying their fees and settling outstanding fines! This was an interesting cultural insight as they explained that Singaporean students would generally not question the fact that something was compulsory, and would merely comply with the requirements. In fact they had a compliance rate of around 97%.

We also learnt about how SMU was using Wiki's in order to teach IL. Law students for example had to research a particular aspect of Singaporean law and create a wiki on that. In the process they learnt about research, searching, citation and the credibility (or not) of sources. Their own posts were then exposed to scrutiny and the authority rating process.

Most of the libraries created some kind of a game or quest, particularly for their orientation programmes. Some were on paper, and some made the use of mobile devices. In the case of mobile devices, often the specifications had been set out by the librarians and the programming or design was done by students at their institution.

NTU has an instructional services arm which helps with creating awareness of the library, tutorials, literature reviews, tools, citation analysis and scholarly communication. Each librarian is expected to be a teacher. The take-away for me here is that IL does not stop with first or second years, but can also be vital for people further up the feeding chain as they find out how to market themselves and their research in an increasingly digital academic world. I was very impressed with their services in combining their technical and digital and library knowhow to the needs of lecturers and professors. They also have a youtube channel for self-education.

A little bit of fun on roving reference librarians:

Monday, 2 September 2013

Promotion

Student designed periodical stand

Lifestyle section organised like a bookstore

The survival of both the physical entity and concept of "the library" depends on it being well utilized. All libraries visited were extremely proactive in their promotion efforts. Most began during the orientation week with activities to get students into the library. These ranged from library orientation programs in the form of games, exhibitions and events. At NTU, each new student gets a letter from his/her "personal librarian" inviting them to tea!

Ngee Ann Polytechnic use their interactive space for presentations and lectures, outside visitors and have created a very inviting "lifestyle" area based on a bookstore / cafe concept. They were the first academic library here with a life-style area and took their ideas from shopping centres and bookstores and cafes and ventured out of the library to see where their students hung out. As a result they created a board game zone which is a popular cafe concept in Singapore. They have an extensive collection of both common and unique board games. Having a Board game rooms was a theme we saw duplicated in nearly every library here.

Ngee Ann - a collection on wealth creation situated next to the Bloomberg monitors and a presentation area where speakers are invited on finance / entrepreneurial / business matters.

Cafe with bar stools and ipads in Lifestyle area

Interactive desk top with games and quizes

Student designed lighting

Singapore Polytechnic differentiates different areas of the library by colors and has invited students and lecturers to play an important role in the design of the library and the library furniture and hardware. This has resulted in students feeling a sense of "ownership" of the space, as well as very aesthetically pleasing areas. Details such as display, lightening, notice boards, magazine cabinets etc, had been designed and created on campus.

Innovative flexible signage

The library was also exploring having makerspaces with 3D printers, lego mindstorms and creative space where students were challenged to create something with materials provided.

interactive booth

Almost all the libraries provided some kind of an e-newsletter or alert service to subscribers. Most had some presence on social media, the most common being Facebook. In some instances the Facebook presence was as a marketing or information tool on services or newbooks or event advertising (Temasek, Singapore Poly, Ngee Ann, NTU, NLB, ), in the case of SMU they explicitly chose to use it purely for social interaction and to use other mediums for promotion. Temasek had an interactive booth at its entrance with various features including an auto-photo link to Facebook.

Libraries also created posters to share around campus advertising new books, events or other services. A particularly cool idea was that of the off-site or on-site book fair. In the case of Ngee Ann, as they are affiliated with the Ngee Ann shopping centre, they hold a big book fair in the shopping centre, where vendors put books on display for sale. Students can then go and browse and "purchase" a book, if it is not already in the library catalogue, it is then purchased by the poly, processed and immediately loaned to the student.

Some of the libraries (UWCSEA, Ngee Ann, NLB) had a bookcrossing / read and recycle programme which both helped promote the library and literacy, but also helped with the recycling of weeded library materials. The NLB has a huge public booksale each year which is very well received by the public.

Since libraries are moving towards more digital material, they also needed to make the digital collections visible through signage or links on their websites, in the facebook or other social media pages or other posters.