WHELF update: February 2012

WHELF: Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum February 2012: an update

WHELF actively promotes the work of higher education libraries in Wales and provides a focus for the development of new ideas and services.
 
At our recent meeting in February, these were some of the topics under discussion:
 
Welsh history of World War One to go online
The WHELF Archives and Special Collections Group has been awarded £500,000 by JISC  to digitise primary sources relating to World War One. Through digitisation and collaborative working this project will bring together an impressive array of scattered content into one place and promises to become a key reference point for researchers and students looking at the Welsh experience of World War One.
Find out more at: http://whelf.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/welsh-history-of-world-war-one-to-go-online/

Welsh Information Literacy Project
Phase Two of this project is almost complete. The Information Literacy Framework for Wales is available on the project website http://www.welshinformationliteracy.org/ and in Welsh at http://www.llythrenneddgwybodaethcymru.org/. Agored Cymru have since built on the Framework by creating units of learning to accredit information literacy learning. We have conducted a benefits analysis advocating information literacy in the workplace and for employability, and the project is also producing materials for librarians to advocate information literacy in schools and initial teacher training.
Find out more at: http://whelf.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/welsh-information-literacy-project-phase-2/

Digital teaching and learning resources in Welsh schools
Andrew Green, Chair of WHELF,  is part of a task & finish group set up by the Education Minister, Leighton Andrews, to make recommendations on the promotion of digital teaching and learning resources in schools in Wales.
Find out more at: Written Statement by the Welsh Government

Libraries Inspire: The strategic development framework for Welsh libraries 2012-16
The Libraries Inspire Delivery Plan for 2012-13 is now available. It outlines specific actions and targets and a number of WHELF priorities have been included – walk-in access to electronic resources, mapping collections, digitisation, shared library management systems and implementing the Information Literacy Framework for Wales.
WHELF is represented on the Libraries Inspire Advisory Group by Anne Harvey, Swansea Metropolitan University and Julie Hart, Aberystwyth University.
Find out more at: Libraries Inspire

Libraries Inspire Innovation and Development Grants 2012-13 WHELF has made two bids for grant funding:
1. Walk-in Access to Library Resources in UniversitieS  - a pilot project to enable members of the public to access electronic resources in Welsh Higher Education libraries.
2. Collections Wales – mapping the printed and digital heritage of Wales to improve access. 

E-books
A number of WHELF libraries are trialling ‘Patron Driven Acquisition’ or ‘Demand Driven Acquisition’ for e-books.  In this model, the library offers access to a huge menu of content but only pays for material actually used by staff and students. Bangor University have reported on their own project and plan to seek the views of WHELF members regarding a consortial level deal.
Find out more at: http://libalyson.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/e-books-day-in-wales-a-review/

Sharing a Library Management System – Research, Scoping and Specification Study
The final report has been completed for WHELF after a lot of hard work. Thanks are due to Mark Hughes (Swansea University) who led the project, and to members of the project team and steering group. The next stage will be to seek further funding to take the work forward.

WHELF News
We welcomed Sue Hodges as a member of WHELF. Sue joined Bangor University as University Librarian at the start of December.

We also welcomed Emma Adamson, Head of Library Services at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Emma is taking over from Paul Riley as WHELF representative since Paul’s appointment to the post of Head of Library and Information Services. Cardiff Metropolitan University was formerly the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (UWIC) but changed its name on 1st November. 

Cardiff University’s brand new Health Library at the Cochrane Building, Heath Park, opened on 7th November. The new Library, which is open 24 hours a day, offers a range of learning spaces over three floors, tailored for quiet individual study, group work and an informal social space.
Find out more at: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/news/healthlibrary.html

… and the ‘Milne Collection’ of American Civil War material at Swansea University attracted a recent VIP visit from Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United!
Find out more at: http://whelf.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/sir-alex-admires-swansea-universitys-archive-of-american-civil-war-books/ 

For more information please contact:
Sue Mace
Development Officer
WHELF: Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum
http://whelf.ac.uk/
http://whelf.wordpress.com/

Bursaries to improve your library skills

Thanks to Alyson Tyler for this notification.

As in previous years, CyMAL is providing a variety of grants to librarians in Wales to help improve the skills, qualifications and confidence of the library workforce in Wales.

Workforce development is an important aspect of the Libraries Inspire strategy (2012-16). Investing in the workforce will help improve the quality of services for customers.

For full details, please read the document here (scroll down for the Library Workforce Develoment Grants document). The path is CyMAL website / Grants / Innovation and Development Grants 2012-13/ Library Workforce Development Grants.

If you have any queries please contact Alyson (alyson.tyler@wales.gsi.gov.uk)  or training and development adviser Denise Lavis (denise.lavis@wales.gsi.gov.uk) or 0300 062 2111.

Libraries Inspire Delivery Plan for 2012-13

The Libraries Inspire Delivery Plan for 2012-13 is now available.

The Delivery Plan outlines specific actions and targets relating to deliver the priorities in each section of Libraries Inspire. It is a dynamic document and will be revised to reflect new priorities which arise during the duration of the Framework. It will also provide an opportunity to highlight the work carried out by the library sector.

Download: Libraries Inspire Delivery Plan

Are We There Yet? Document Delivery in Wales

Forum for Interlending and Information Delivery (FIL) are pleased to announce the return of the Welsh FIL Event, which will take place on the 9th of May 2012 at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff.

Cost: £25 FIL Members / £50 Non-members

The programme features news and developments from the British Library, regional ILL schemes, social media & an exchange of experience forum.

Places are limited to 28 delegates, so book now to avoid disappointment.  All booking forms need to be submitted by the 25th April 2012. 

Programme and booking form is available on the website: www.forumforinterlending.org.uk

The event is sponsored by CILIP Wales with support from the Kathleen Cooks Fund.

Welsh Collaboration in Action: supporting higher education in further education colleges

Higher education libraries have an important role to play in supporting higher education in further education, so each year WHELF organises an event for HE and FE staff – Welsh Collaboration in Action – to enable participants to share experiences, get up to date on recent developments and develop individual and shared programmes of action for the future.

This year’s event will be held on 26th June at the new City Campus, University of Wales, Newport.

This year’s programme will contain a session on Inductions for HE students and a session on the use of social media tools to share information, news & support with/for HE students.  We are really keen to hear from any of you who would consider sharing your good practice and ideas with FE and HE colleagues for either of the sessions. 

Please contact Ann Cross across@glam.ac.uk or Carolyn Howe chowe@cavc.ac.uk if you would like to share your good work at the event.

Digital Wales Advisory Board Annual Report 2011

The report is the Board’s first Annual Report. It includes details of the major issues and recommendations considered by the Board during 2011.

The report fulfils the Board’s responsibility to provide advice on ways to exploit opportunities from the growth of the digital economy. The report also includes details of the major issues considered by the Board during 2011, as well as key recommendations for the Welsh Government to take forward as part of their remit in 2012. These included developing measures to:

• promote the use of creative digital skills by Small Medium Enterprise’s (SMEs) in all industry sectors;
• improve digital literacy at all stages of education and across the general population;
• help stimulate demand and take-up of next generation broadband;
• develop simple online public services such as a free school meals registration system that will help to exemplify how better and more cost effective public services can be delivered through Information and Communication Technology.

Download the report

Technologies to watch

Thanks to Alyson Tyler whose blog alerted me to a new JISC summary of some of the technologies to look out for in the next 1 to 5 years, and how they can help with or relate to learning and education. It’s an excellent short and easy to absorb summary, very well presented.

Staying ahead: technologies to watch in the next five years:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/inform/inform32/FutureTech.html

Alyson’s blog:
http://libalyson.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/technologies-to-watch-out-for/

Welsh Information Literacy Project – Phase 2

Summary of activities January 2012 
The Welsh Information Literacy Project aims to promote the understanding and development of information literacy in education, the workplace, and the wider community in Wales. The project is based at Cardiff University and funded by CyMAL. Phase one of the project ran from September 2010 to March 2011. The second phase of the project is running from April 2011 till the end of March 2012. Joy Head worked as Information Literacy Development Officer on the project until November. Since then the role has been divided between Sarah Puzey and Louise Harrington at Cardiff University, and Pat Hebron at Coleg Llandrillo, all working part-time.

Progress in Phase 2
One of the first tasks of phase 2 was to reflect on the consultation on the draft framework.  By the summer, the final Information Literacy Framework for Wales had been approved and made available on the web and in print.  The framework provides national levels of information literacy for all levels of learners, mapping information literacy learning objectives across the CQFW levels and integrating relevant learning objectives from the Skills Framework for 3 to 19-year-olds. The Framework is available on the Welsh Information Literacy Project website http://www.welshinformationliteracy.org/ and in Welsh at http://www.llythrenneddgwybodaethcymru.org/.

Agored Cymru, in partnership with the project and with NIACE Dysgu Cymru and Colegau Cymru, have since built on the Framework by creating units of learning to accredit information literacy learning.  These units are available, again on the website, from entry level 1 up to level 4 (which equates to first year undergraduates, or Certificates of Higher Education).  The units are now being piloted and then will be available for anyone to use to accredit information literacy learning. Pat Hebron is supporting and promoting these pilots and writing case studies which will be added to the project website.

We have conducted a benefits analysis advocating information literacy in the workplace and for employability. The benefits analysis has been added to the project website, including case studies of information literacy within various workplaces and sectors. Louise Harrington will be enhancing the analysis with presentation slides and an infographic to help disseminate the message. 

The project is also producing materials for librarians to advocate information literacy in schools and initial teacher training. A short PowerPoint presentation explaining the benefits of information literacy to teachers and schools is available to adapt, and the project has now created a new leaflet. The leaflet is being distributed to school librarians, school library services and librarians in FE and HE supporting initial-teacher training. Sarah Puzey is also creating resources (a presentation and infographic) promoting information literacy to students on initial teacher training. Sarah will be in touch with education librarians soon but would love to hear from those involved in ITT in the meantime. All the resources (including a digital version of the leaflet) are available on the project website. 

Information literacy is key to digital inclusion. The project is recognised as part of the solution and is mentioned in Welsh Government reports such as the Digital Wales Directory of Projects. We are currently updating the project website to create a new section on digital inclusion to highlight the link. 

Phase 3
Cardiff University will be passing the baton (Olympic torch?) of the project to Coleg Llandrillo for phase 3.  Subject to funding, the next phase will be focusing on embedding information literacy in schools, equipping public library staff to facilitate information literacy development and further promoting and supporting the information literacy units of learning. 

Thank you to everyone who has supported the project so far.  Do get in touch if you would like further information, copies of our printed materials, or have any comments on the website or future direction.  Thank you too to the steering group, from all library sectors in Wales, who have been so active over the past two years in steering a path for the project. Keep in touch with us through our blog or on twitter at @Welsh_Info_Lit  

Cathie Jackson
Project Manager
Welsh Information Literacy Project
welshinformationliteracy@cardiff.ac.uk

Welsh history of World War One to go online

A project led by the National Library of Wales in partnership with the libraries, special collections, and archives of Wales has received £500,000 in funding from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) for mass digitisation of primary sources relating to World War One.

The project will make available a unique digital collection revealing the hidden history of World War One as it affected all aspects of Welsh life, language and culture. The project will digitise printed and manuscript sources as well as moving image, audio and photographic material.  These source materials are presently fragmented and frequently inaccessible, yet collectively they form a unique resource of vital interest to researchers, students, and the public in Wales and beyond.

The digital collection will be available through a website, and enhanced through the use of translation tools to enable broadest access.

‘The online resource will provide an invaluable resource for teaching, research, and commemoration in time for the 100th anniversary of the start of the War,’ said Andrew Green, Librarian of the National Library of Wales. ‘This is a fantastic example of collaboration across the libraries, archives and special collections of Wales to make our unique materials available to the widest international audience via digitization.’

The project has been developed by WHELF (the Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum). Collections to be digitised are from the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth University Special Collections, Archives and Special Collections, Bangor University, Trinity St David’s Special Collections, Swansea University, Cardiff University Library, the Archives of BBC Cymru Wales and archives and local records offices that are members of ARCW (Archives and Records Council, Wales). The People’s Collection Wales will gather content generated by communities and local and family historians. It will also digitise and in personal collections via outreach and targeted digitisation of significant material to enhance and complement the collections of the higher education partners. The unified, mass digital collection that will be created will represent the experience of the entire Welsh nation during World War One.

The content to be digitised has been selected in collaboration with academics in Wales and beyond, and the digital outputs of the project will lead to new research findings about Wales in World War One.

Paola Marchionni, JISC programme manager, said: “Through digitisation and collaborative working this project will bring together an impressive array of scattered content into one place and promises to become a key reference point for researchers and students looking at the Welsh experience of World War One. JISC is very proud to support this project which will also complement a number of other JISC funded World War One commemoration activities as well as national and international initiatives.”

The total cost of the digitisation project is £987,916. £500,000 in funding has been provided by the JISC Content programme 2011-13. Matched funding has been provided from institutional contributions from the project partners.

The project begins in February 2012, and the online resource will be launched in June 2013.

Jisc content programme

Jisc ww1 commemoration activities

For information, please contact Lorna Hughes, University of Wales Chair in Digital Collections, National Library of Wales: lorna.hughes@llgc.org.uk