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.
