Editorial

Citation

Ashcroft, L. (2012), "Editorial", New Library World, Vol. 113 No. 9/10. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw.2012.072113iaa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: New Library World, Volume 113, Issue 9/10

As part of a study tour organised by librarians from the Association of Landbased Libraries in Colleges and Universities (Allcu), a Malawian library student is spending a month in the UK. The student is studying for a Diploma in Library and Information Science. A link exists between Malawi colleges and Fife’s Elmswood College, and Elmswood’s librarian approached Allcu to see if it would support this student in his studies. This resulted in a further offer for the student to come to the UK. He will also spend time with librarians in Suffolk, Devon, Gloucestershire and Kent. “Connecting across continents” is the topic of the article from Davis, Hallam et al., which also relates to learning. They focus on a university course offered to students in both Australia and Germany, which encourages them to learn about designing, implementing, marketing and evaluating information programs and services in order to build active and engaged communities. This demonstrates opportunities for LIS courses to work across geographical boundaries and it introduced students to a collaborative approach to continuing professional development.

An e-textbook app for Android has been released by e-textbook platform VitalSource. The e-textbook platform, VitalSource Bookshelf, is available in online and offline environments with dedicated apps for tablets, smartphones, laptops and desktops. The new app can be used both online and offline. The article from Hahn considers mobile augmented reality applications for smartphones. Hahn also reviews a number of augmented reality uses for next generation library service and suggests uses of augmented reality applications in library settings.

Talis Aspire Campus Edition is digital reading list software from Talis Education, which is designed to give students easy access to the resources they need. Six UK universities have signed up for this edition for their faculty and students. The advantage of this software is easy integration into Moodle and seamless working with catalogues. In their article, Beard and Bawden examine the library/information issues affecting graduate students, both those undertaking research and those on taught courses. They focus particularly on postgraduate students’ perceptions of the value to them of physical and digital resources and spaces and how well their needs are being met. They note that postgraduate students are different from others by virtue of the nature of postgraduate study and have different needs.

Information skills for a twenty-first century Scotland is a new information literacy project launched in Scotland to help promote skills for the future. The website will include case studies, links to new research in the area and a chance to share ideas. The project will provide an online space for the information literacy community, which will allow anyone with an interest to join and collaborate with others. Zanin-Yost, in her article, discusses information literacy education in the context of a project to develop it into interior design programs in higher education. She points out that for effective inclusion of information literacy, faculty need to buy-in, and a solid, collaborative relationship between faculty and librarian is essential.

The Welsh Archives, Libraries and Museums partnership has secured funding for six 12-month traineeships from the Heritage Fund’s Skills for the future programme. The traineeships are aimed at young unemployed men and will offer 12 months experience in heritage skills, focusing on digitisation, research, collections and conservation management and community engagement. This is part of the Conserving Local Communities Heritage (Cloch) project, which is a partnership of libraries, archives and museums in south Wales, and which will recruit 16 trainees over three years. Trainees who complete the 12 months will be helped to find entry-level jobs in the sector or the option to look for further training.

A different aspect of library work is the topic of the article from Thomas and Holley. They consider ways to motivate staff whose job assignments include repetitive tasks. They refer to management techniques for enriching the work experience including effective communication, appropriate incentives, sharing tasks among staff and treating each employee as an individual. However, they also point out that sometimes eliminating tasks adds efficiency to the organisation without reducing key services.

Customers who use Oxford University Press mobile-optimised journals can also enlist for off-site access to institutional subscriptions. OUP’s new system will allow users to register a mobile device. This device can then be used to access content even when not signed in to an institution’s network. Each mobile device must be authorised individually through the institution’s network after which users will be able to view the protected content wherever they are. Grosch reports on survey results in his article and shows which media are accepted by students in higher education and which are not. Findings demonstrate the increase in use of new devices, such as the tablet computer, smartphones and the new generation of e-book readers, which indicate that libraries should focus on different types of electronic text in their strategies.

Linda Ashcroft