Meeting of CPD25 Task Group 3 - Operations Management

22 April 2010 at 2.30 pm

LSE Library

1.    Apologies

David Archer , Martin Carbonell, Claire Hackshall

2.    Minutes of the last meeting – 10 Feb 2010

Accepted as accurate.

3.    Matters arising not covered on the agenda

N/A

4.    Update on 2009/10 events being planned and taken place

5.     

a.     Customer service

YD/JP reported. This took place on  13^th April and was extremely successful. Brid Nunn from Marks and Spencer Staff Training and Customer Care worked closely with YD and  a reciprocal visit is planned.

The morning session was led by Brid, who showed an excellent in house training video, which provoked ideas of doing the same in libraries. Breakout groups discussed dealing with complaints.

The afternoon speakers were from Kingston University, which adopts a relaxed approach to aspects of student behaviour, such as allowing food into libraries, and UEL, where, in response to student feedback, a stricter enforcement of rules has been introduced.

The day was attended by a range of levels of library staff and there was enthusiastic participation. It was suggested that a follow up would be useful aimed at a more senior level.

It was interesting to realise that there are many individual practices on customer care in libraries, no national standard and no incentive scheme for staff. SCONUL has adopted a tourist award, for which libraries are eligible. A future event on Reward structures, recognising staff efforts, motivating and retaining staff was considered for the future.

b.    Library Access for non-traditional learners incl. students with disabilities, mature students, international students, distance learners etc

YD reported that it is proving difficult to arrange a date and it is hoped to hold it later in the year. A good range of speakers have agreed to attend.

c.     Working patterns

YD/CF reported. This event was held over from 2008-2009. Speakers have been arranged. Mid November was suggested as a possible time.

d.    24/7

CF reported. This has now been announced for 21^st May. Ex Libris and D-Tech have agreed to sponsor the event.

CF was concerned that booking has been slow , possibly as it was announced just before the Easter break and disruption to returning travel arrangements. A further announcement was due to be made on Monday 26^th April and participation would be widened to everyone, with an announcement on LIS-link. Mary Nixon would be promoting the conference in the Director’s Room.

The group agreed to promote the event in their own institutions.

Suggestions were made for a further event regarding 24 hour services, using podcasts and  Antipodean cross support .

e.    Business Process re-engineering

CP reported there have been problems arranging a date for this event and if it is not possible to arrange a time with Process-fix before July, the event should be held over until January 2011.

f.       Digitising collections ½ day

No report – awaiting confirmation of dates from MC

g.    Visit to NMRC

CP reported that the NMRC are keen to host a visit but the dates they have suggested do not allow time to organise the visit. It was felt that the summer vacation would be an acceptable time for this visit and CP will pursue this.

h.     Copyright

AD reported in DA’s absence. Aiming to run this on 22^nd June. Three speakers are already arranged on “Running a copyright service”, “Auditing by the CLA” and “Images on VLEs and DAX”. A fourth speaker to look at recording and distributing podcasts is being sought. JISC was suggested as their recent conference had been on the theme  “Technology – at the heart of education and research”

i.        Any other visits / events

JP reported on a “Conflict Management” course at UEL, with outside trainers who had inspired the whole group. UEL plan to repeat the training and it was felt this could be a useful event for cpd25. Training cost 1,100 pounds for 14 people.

Following form the copyright event, YD mentioned the challenges of supporting disabled students, particularly regarding dyslexia and copyright issues. This was considered as a possible future event, possibly overlapping with the Legal Framework group.

Dealing with enquiries.

j.        Business continuity planning

k.     Library buildings

l.        Inter-departmental co-ordination

Items j,k,l were all flagged as future events

6.    AOB

Costing of events was discussed in the light of the current financial climate. Staff Development budgets are likely to be cut. More half day events, timed for off peak travel could help. When arranging events the group should look carefully at venues and consider how much  refreshment to offer.

7.    Next meeting – we need to choose some provisional dates for the coming year

Some potential dates will be e-mailed to everyone.