Information Services Committee
16th November 2006
Item A3 ISC 03/06-07
Medway Drill Hall Library Users Group
Minutes of the meeting held 15th June 2006
Attendees:
Richie Simon – Senior Lecturer, DEES, University of Greenwich
Mark Reading – Drill Hall Technical Project Manager
Sarah Root – Senior Academic Support Librarian, Drill Hall Library
Carol Pickaver – Head of Library Services, University of Kent
John Sotillo – Director of IS University of Kent
Sam Thornton – Head of User Services, University of Kent
Tim Lewis – University of Kent student
Tony Watts – Senior IT Technician, Drill Hall Library
Alan Le Grys – Manager of Humanities Programme, University of Kent
Maxwell Caseley-Hayford – Lecturer, Medway School of Pharmacy
1.
Apologies for absence.
Maureen Castens U of G, Ann Murphy U of G, Mike Devlin CCCU, Pat Lowndes MKC, Lawrence
Beale Collins student U of G, Dominic Woods CCCU, Kelly Elvidge student U of K, V Wilson CCCU.
2.
Minutes of the meeting held on 21st March 2006.
These were taken as accurate and agreed.
3.
Matters arising.
None
4.
University of Kent Head of Library Services report to Library users’ panel
Carol Pickaver gave a brief overall picture of what was happening within ILS at Canterbury. She
explained about the extended hours pilot that had been run at Templeman. They were also carrying out
an exercise on space usage. The Templeman Library were also looking into providing a refreshment
facility for students within the Library. Carol also announced that they were looking in to the problem
of archiving. She explained that this was becoming mandatory throughout the UK for Universities.
Some discussion also took place regard the pilot scheme that had been run at the Templeman. This had
been run for 22 hours out of a 24 hour day.
1,000 students at peak times
500 students at any one time
200 students at midnight
Between 2 and 3 am there were a handful.
Following questions, it was noted that meeting had received a number of planning documents from
Kent, but similar documents had not been presented for the other partners and it agreed that the group
would be interested to receive such documentation from other partners if such documents existed. John
Sotillo stressed the rationale for presenting these papers was to ensure that staff and students at Medway
who were effected by planning at Kent, had the same opportunities to scrutinise and comment as those
attending Canterbury user consultative meetings.
Information Services Committee
16th November 2006
It was further noted that the short time available to prepare for this meeting had not allowed similar
submissions from other partners. John Sotillo also went on to say that dates for future meetings (3 per
year) would be set early in the term to ensure as much notice as possible was given for meetings.
5.
University of Kent Computing Service report to Computer Users’ panel
The report was presented for note. The report included details of service interruptions and Sam
Thornton detailed instances that had taken place that may have compromised Universities at Medway
student service.
6.
University of Kent Report of Director of Information Services to Information Services Committee
John Sotillo gave a summary of the period since the last meeting. He reported that it had been a fairly
quiet period.
7.
University of Kent Satisfaction Survey
Sam Thornton outlined the Student Satisfaction Survey that had been carried out at the Templeman
Library. Mentioning that the general level of satisfaction was good and that this is a significant result
given the increasing student numbers and pressure on resources.
He also stressed that further more detailed analysis of the comments that had been receied (over 1500)
would be carried out over the summer. He will report back to the group at the next meeting.
Maxwell Caseley-Hayford asked about the access to journals within the Drill Hall and it was confirmed
that all Pharmacy students can access on line journals with their Athens. I.D.
8.
Drill Hall library Manager’s report
Sarah Root reported that 31 P.C’s had been added to the Drill Hall making 351 in total, and that we are
gathering statistics on the usage of I.T facility.
She went on to report that the opening hours for the Drill Hall had been extended and the Library was
now open 8.30am to 9.00pm during term time- Monday to Thursday and 8.30am to 6.00pm on Fridays.
This was in direct consultation with CCCU and Kent.
A new wireless service has been launched giving access to students from all institutions and a number
of students have already registered.
Currently there are :
38 Greenwich students registered
10 Kent students registered
5 Christchurch students registered.
Making a total of 43 students now registered for wireless use within the Drill Hall Library.
Tim Lewis asked whether any agreement had been reached to allow students studying at Medway to
have access to short loan material held at the Templeman. It was explained that many of the items held
at Templeman of this nature were out of print items and could therefore not be ordered for the Drill Hall
library.
Carole Pickaver stated that she and Virginia Malone together with Canterbury Christchurch were
looking into the ISL service as a whole.
Information Services Committee
16th November 2006
Alan Le Grys mentioned that considered the distance and the fact that there were three institutions
working together he was surprised there had not been many more problems than stated.
Maxwell Caseley-Hayford asked whether Pharmacy students could borrow books from the Templeman
and it was confirmed that such students hold both Greenwich and Kent cards and as such can borrow
from Medway and Templeman.
He also asked whether Pharmacy students can order books at the Drill Hall to be sent over for
collection. It was confirmed that this is not possible at the present time but is an issue that the
institutions were working on and would report back to future meetings.
Sarah Root mentioned that the joint registration of students could lead to confusion with students
borrowing materials and not necessarily understanding the each card is linked to a separated borrower
account. This often led to students presenting the wrong card for the borrowed items.
Alan Le Grys mentioned that it is possible for a student to have double the quota of books. It was
however, mentioned that the students are only allowed to use one library card within the Drill Hall.
Book drops for Templeman Library was mentioned and Carole indicated that there was a solution on the
way.
Tim Lewis asked why inter-site loans from Greenwich could take considerably less time to arrive than
those from Kent (24 hours from Greenwich and up to 4 days from the Templeman Library.
The different schedules for van deliveries for each institution was felt to be at the root of these
differences as Kent only has a single drop per day and requests that miss the departure from Canterbury
are therefore not picked up until the following day. It was not clear why items should be delayed by as
much as 4 days however.
Tim Lewis asked whether someone was available all day including evenings at the Templeman Library
to deal with faxed enquiries. Carole confirmed that there is someone available all day including
evenings and that as soon as the request is received at Templeman it is dealt with.
It was agreed that monitoring of this service should take place to establish service levels being achieved.
Action Andy Major to gather statistics on turn around time for ISL to Templeman Library.
9.
Medway IT developments report
Mark Reading stated that there had been problems with room access and environmental monitoring
systems and access control systems during the period since the last meeting. He stated that there had
been extensive dialog with Facilities Management over various issues.
He reported that the Drill Hall was going to become the hub of the shared infrastructure, whereby the
helpdesk will become more self reliant.
He reported that there would be a new shared desktop image and Medway students would see this from
September. Within the Drill Hall students would be able to access Autocad, ArcGIS and Pharmacy
packages among others. Testing of this will take place over the Summer.
Mark reported that Academic members of staff would be invited to test out the new image during
August and that this was an important element of the image preparation which academic staff were
encouraged to participate in Further reminders would be sent to staff nearer the time.
Information Services Committee
16th November 2006
Alan Le Grys asked how the students felt about the new Desktop and it was reported that feedback from
Greenwich students had been very positive. Tim Lewis expressed surprise that the feedback had only
come from Greenwich students and John Sotillo reported that the image changes would provide
specialist applications for Greenwich students and that these changes would not be visible to kent and
Christchurch students. He went on to say that the approach adopted to deliver these additional
Greenwich applications would be closely monitored and examined to see if it might be used to the
benefit of the other two institutions. A project at Kent to look at this specific service development
would take place next year.
John Sotillo suggested that although the desktop image was complex, the user group could look at
proposals for future software lists and review these annually in advance of work beginning on new
desktop images.
10.
Medway user satisfaction survey
Sarah summarised the Medway user satisfaction survey which took place in March. She reported that
most students appeared happy. Although it had shown that there were problems with stock and these
figures had been passed to Academic Support Librarians who in turn are working with academic staff to
address.
The survey also showed that the Drill Hall had a problem with group study spaces and silent study
spaces. Some discussion took place with regard to the opening of the Pilkington Building. This in turn
would free up some of the rooms in A & C and therefore designation of rooms for quiet or group study
could take place.
John Sotillo agreed with this and said that Phase II – the Pilkington Building would take away the
teaching requirement for Kent and that a number of rooms would revert back to ILS.
Alan Le Grys mentioned that the problem of noise within libraries had been around for many years.
The provision of social aspects was also mentioned with the opening of the Pilkington building. It was
agreed that this would improve the situation and would be reflected in the next survey which would
hopefully be a little earlier, i.e. February next year.
It was agreed that Virginia Malone and Sarah Root were to develop more focus groups to help inform
planning for the future development of space.
It was reported that there were plans for next year’s survey to be on-line and would provide a crosssection of students across the institutions.
A draft version to be bought to next meeting. VM & SR action
11.
AOB
The issue of locally resident, non Medway-campus-based students using the Drill Hall Library was
raised. Carole reported that this issue was being considered along with others as part of a review of
service provision which was expected to make recommendations in time for next session.
Tim Lewis asked whether the question of Sunday opening had been discussed.
He mentioned there was a reasonable cohort of part time students and out of hours service should be
looked at.
John Sotillo mentioned that there were financial aspects involved in Sunday opening, but that opening
times would be regularly reviewed.
Information Services Committee
16th November 2006
Tim Lewis bought up the subject of library fines going up at Greenwich. He mentioned that these were
increasing “five-fold” and asked whether the money goes back into the library or another fund.
Sarah mentioned that with the students receiving “under-due” emails and the other mechanisms in place
for students to renew their books, there should be no reason why students run up fines.
Alan Le Grys agreed that students need to take responsibility for the items that they have borrowed and
fines were in place to keep items in circulation. There will always be too many students for every book.
Tim Lewis felt that the level of fines were hard for students who faced hardship
12.
The date of the next meeting was fixed at 23rd November 2006 at 1pm.