Mobile technology for mobile staff : roving enquiry support

The Warwick Enquiries Support Team came into existence in October 2009, and currently includes an Enquiries Support Officer (me) and 4 Library Advisors. Amongst an array of other duties, we provide a front of house roving service over 7 floors of a very busy building, picking up users in need of help or direction (or occasionally a full-on orientation session!) and making referrals to other teams as required

Web 2.0 Projects at Warwick University Library

About 2 years ago at Warwick our senior managers encouraged Academic Support staff to really explore web 2.0 technologies and find out if anything particularly lent itself to supporting library work or marketing. We were given free reign to find out what worked and what suited the library, and what didn’t. The following brief overviews cover only four of the projects that have been running since then. We have also investigated much more, including Twitter, Google Documents, wiki reading lists, You-Tube and more, but we couldn’t possibly fit it all in here. The brief articles below are just to give a taste of the kind of projects we have worked on. There are many more members of staff involved and many more web 2.0 adventures underway..

Get Started at the University of Warwick Library

After the Library's restructure, two years ago, central library orientations became the responsibility of the newly formed Enquiry Support Team, managed by Katharine Widdows. In the first year (2009-10) they adapted existing 'familiarisation sessions' into “Check It Out” sessions, consisting of a short tour of the Library's key service areas and some basic information about other library services. The sessions were intended to compliment the subject specific inductions delivered in departments by the Academic Support Librarians (ASLs). Time pressures meant that this ran on a very small scale and was not widely publicised. Only 76 students attended

Check It Out : University of Warwick Library launches the hottest session on campus

The University of Warwick Library mission is: “Connecting you with information, support and your community.” To help connect our new students as quickly and effectively as possible with information, support and their community the Library - through its induction planning – offers generic induction sessions (alongside subject-focused information) in weeks 0-3 of each new academic year. This in turn supports the University’s key strategic priorities to ensure students receive a “high quality and distinctive student experience.” For the last two years the Library has been running ‘Check it Out’ induction programmes. This submission describes the 2010/11 induction programme and how an increased focus on marketing led to a 717% increase in take up of the programme and increased recognition, understanding and engagement with the Library and the Library brand