Study Visit 2017, Western Sydney Reflection

Western Sydney University (WSU)

This two year old, multi-level library displays what I believe to be the benchmark of university libraries. Its primary function is to aid students to succeed in their chosen field of study, closely linking the goals of the library to the universities goals. This university has a large geographical spread with over eighty percent of its student being undergraduates and over twenty four percent of student being identified as low SES. This university library provides resources and learning spaces to support the achievement of its patron which also includes the academic staff. This is reflective in the support programs implemented to aid undergraduates in academic writing, research and the academic research support it provides other employees of the library.

Challenges for WSU supporting and providing resources to aid students and academic staff include budget cuts, increased costs of subscriptions and the difficulty with various economic and cultural background in a large geographical area. The increased popularity and collection size of digital textbooks has resulted in a large amount of time and effort by staff to negotiate with providers to get the best deal possible even though the cost of subscriptions are increasing well above CPI.

Of particular interest, was the layout and design. The design process was a collaborative process involving numerous parties such as architect, various library employees and most notably students through surveys. The design and space was amazing, consisting of numerous study areas, wifi hubs, computers, collaborative learning spaces and resources displayed in easily accessible Dewy Decimal format. 

WSU provides immense value to undergraduates and postgraduates through design and layout, services such as support through the entire research process and twenty four hour services. Furthermore, the assistance they provide other employees through academic research, copyright, reading lists, usage reports of reading lists, publishing their work is of immense value.

State Records Authority

The State Records Authority, as I discovered, is of great importance to the many stakeholders. State Records Authority is a place where records, that have survived the turmoils of age and change of government, come to be assessed, cared for and their fate decided by government policy and their value State Records Authority also enables teachers, students, police, lawyers and film makers to access resources that could be pertinent to current legal cases or to reflect events in popular drama series such as ‘Underbelly’.

My focus was on the design and layout and purposefully premediated, in its simplest form this institution is a mixture of old and new, state of the art preservation and storage facility with parts fitted out with fire extinguishers that would not damage documents if activated. A conference room compliments part of the service provided by allowing a space for induction and information session. A purpose built reading room for the public to conduct research is user friendly with the information desk positioned with computers on it to allow staff to easily interact and aid the researcher.

Challenges faced include policy pressure and policy development that influence and gauge the value of a resource ultimately deciding what is kept and what is discarded, with only 4% of part of the collection being archived, along with what resource needed to be converted to digital format are just some of the many challenges this agency faces.

The State Records Authority is of great value to the public, government and nongovernment organisations by providing the services it provides such as contextualising each resource shaping and providing meaning. Of particular importance, this agency can be the sole place where some Australian Aboriginal and Torres Striate Islander families can access family information.

Office of Environment and Heritage

Office of Environment and Heritage is an agency used by many stakeholder. These include member of the public, councils, architects and primarily OEH employees. It provides these stakeholders with information that will aid in ensuring developments comply with government policy protecting the environment and Australians heritage.

It was unfortunate that relocations and future merger with another library agency didn’t showcase the potential of the design and space layout. This recent move inhibited some of the essential service OEH Library provides as I does not have a reading room that would allow unsupervised research visits to occur. Due to the building engineering the resource and collection at this location were incomplete as they would exceed the weight limit for the building specification.

Funding restrictions, increasing workloads and decreasing timeframes for Development Application to be processed are some challenges OEH face. This could dramatically affect the essential services it provides such as quickly providing staff with information about the area or building being developed ensuring that the surrounding area and its culture or heritage is preserved whilst allowing growth and progress to occur.

Although it appeared less organised and advocacy for this agency somewhat non existent, I believe this agency to supersede the importance of information agencies visited thus far. The services provided by OEH is essential to the preservation of Australian buildings, pubic areas/spaces and culturally significant landforms.

TAFE Library Services, Blacktown

TAFE Library Services supports a range of TAFE courses with a particular focus on business and accounting and other identified skilled shortage areas with its primary aim to assist students succeed in their studies. Another interesting focus of this organisations is it large and growing collection of resources in different languages to support the 25% of ESL patrons. This library has a large geographical spread of Western Sydney comprising of 9.4% of patron identified as disadvantaged and 7.8% identifying as Aboriginal. Of great personal interest was the design and layout of the library space which was a large modern design consisting of two meeting rooms, wheeled shelving to create learning spaces and reduce noise, kids corner, computer area with it collection organised in the Dewey Decimal format with a move for collections to be grouped into topics. Consultation with an expert, Kevin Hannah, was sought resulting in the current layout. The location of this site is close to public transport and the facilities and layout I believe compliment its purpose.

Challenges face by this organisation include budget cuts, increasing costs of its growing digital collect that support course requirements and the growing need to support the large percentage ESL patron.

TAFE Library Services provides in invaluable service to its patrons and staff, particular ESL patrons who has expressed their hesitance to attend University yet would like to further their education and employment opportunities. 

Parramatta City Library

Parramatta City Library services the Parramatta area and the collection reflects the diverse demographics with a large percentage of their patron identifying as low SES and ESL. This library provide the upmost professional services ranging from HSC support, story time for toddlers, homework help, story time in different languages leaving a great positive impression of this library, its staff and its services. Although its current location is temporary this multi-level organisation has provided patrons with a modern looking space with newspapers and magazine located on the bottom floor, heavily utilised by the public due to its proximity to Parramatta Bus and Train station. The second floor layout is a reflection of the engineering specifications of the floor with the bulk of the collection located around the perimeter. However, this space is cleverly organised with quite areas, meeting/study rooms, training room, story time area and computers. The collections are displayed on low-lying shelves in a combines Dewey Decimal format and topic area with a move for some of the collection to be organised by language.

The main challenge that I identified was sourcing and securing staff, maintaining the high-energy atmosphere and the valuable varies programs and services this organisation provides to its patrons. This organisation is a priceless resource to its patrons. It’s location, quality enthusiastic staff members, collection and the numerous services it provides such as its outreach program, sourcing and delivery resources to people unable to make to its location has provided me with a model on not only how a library/information organisation should and how to conduct myself within this profession.

Brush Farm Correction Service Academy Library

Brush Farm Correction Service Academy Library is an organisation that provides correctional service staff including legal teams, executive teams as well as external patrons and ex staff to a collection of resources that support leisure and academic purposes. This organisation supports research and researchers that will aid in the area of correctional services. This service is reflected in the physical and online collection of Crime, Sociology and Psychology. As this is a training facility for Correctional Service Officers, the collection also contains numerous training material that supports the online modules students must complete. This library services a large geographical area as it resources all correctional centres in NSW with inmates privileged to access appropriate fiction, nonfiction and legal material within their institution while also being able to make orders for resources.

The physical space and design of this Library is a reflection of the budgeting and advocacy issue expressed by the library staff. The space consisted of a small space for computers and group work with its collection displayed on floor to ceiling shelves organised in the Dewey Decimal format with a move to reorganise into genres. A small room provided a space for staff to do their administration work.

Budgeting and advocating the importance of the library to executive staff are the major challenges for this library with Teachers within the numerous correctional institution being made redundant and minimal training for staff to use the in-house library facilities.

With no prior knowledge of an organisation like this existing, I have develop an admiration for this organisation and its employees as it provides varies services that aid employees through course work, research assistance and most importantly inmates with a facility to read and research.

Parramatta Heritage Centre

PHC provides access to resources pertinent to the culture and heritage of Parramatta to government and non-government agencies as well as the public. Its main purpose consist of aiding research and archiving historically significant artefact from the old and current Parramatta areas. The design and layout of this organisation reflects its purpose with numerous rooms to archive significant artefacts, a large room overlooking Parramatta River displaying some of the artefacts, a meeting room to conduct information sessions and a reading/research room. Resources in the research room are displayed in a combination of Dewey Decimal format and geographical areas with patrons having access to computers, microfilm and microfilm readers.

The challenges face by this organisation include the difficulty in determining the significance of artefacts that are donated or retrieved from archaeological or development sites and storage policies and shrinking storage space. Government policy and amalgamations of councils are  challenge for PHC as resources from other sites need to be analysed and if deemed significant need to be transferred and stored with the existing growing collection.

This organisation provides a service that greatly impacts its patrons and the community of Parramatta. Preserving, storing and making available resources of cultural and historical significance is of great importance, not only the direct community but outreaching communities, as it provides a link to the past that can shaping the culture of Australian citizens.

Reflection

As an aspiring Teacher Librarian (TL), visiting these diverse information organisations has provide me invaluable experience and knowledge that I hope I can integrate into the TL role if I’m fortunate enough to be inducted into the profession. I’m grateful that my initial concerns prior to enrolling in this subject about these visits were hastily subdued by a CSU lecturer as my knowledge of the diversity within this profession would not have expanded to what it is today. Throughout these visits it was great to see professional, enthusiastic staff who appeared passionate about their role within the organisation and the purpose/goals of the organisation. Although this kind of professionalism and enthusiasm was evident across all organisations visited, must notably organisation with large working cohorts and volunteers such as Western Sydney University and Parramatta City Library these attribute appeared more prevalent. The services, collections, and staff in these organisation are a credit to the profession and a great point of reference for me as an aspiring TL to model these attributes.

Commonalities evident in a majority of the organisations visited included budgets, advocacy and attitudes towards digital collections.

Organisations funded by councils (PHC and PCL) appeared to have less issues with shrinking budgets while organisations funded by the government appeared to have a greater challenge with this issue. Notably, government funded organisation advocate their need ruthlessly, persistently and passionately on what appears to be deaf ears such as the Brush Far Correctional Service Library who I believe to be invaluable service and opportunity for inmates to access resources and for correctional centres to meet new government targets and policy such as reducing time for inmates in cells. Advocacy for each organisation varied, however I believe in some cases this advocacy came from the enthusiasm of the staff and their passion to help their patrons.

Of particular interest was the approach organisations had towards digital collections. It was evident that organisations linked to educational institutes and as TAFE and universities favoured digital resource as they were easily accessible by students, usage data was easily collected and they were easier to manage. Organisations such as NSW State Archives and OEH favoured physical resources for similar reasons such as ease of access for patrons. Furthermore, the PCL stated that although their patrons have access to digital resources they are repeated told by patrons that they prefer physical resources and this is reflected in the usage data.

What was evident from attending these study visits is that the role of a TL or Informational Specialist is multifaceted and information organisations are diverse in their collection, demographics, geographical location and purpose. All organisations played an integral role serving their area and patrons and I believe that the focus, aims and purpose lead by an influential few have allowed these organisation to weather the numerous challenges they have faced, not only surviving but striving in an informational changing landscape catering for diverse needs of their patrons. This has been a great opportunity personally and professionally visiting these various information organisation as I hope to not only work within the profession but emulate the passion, enthusiasm and professionalism shown by the presenters and staff at these organisations.