FE library update June 2009

The CoFHE self assessment toolkit for learning resource services is now available in hardcopy and all colleges in England should hopefully receive copies shortly via their local JISC RSC.

The recent CoFHE conference at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh was widely covered in the Web 2.0 arena. On Twitter posts can be found using the #cofhe09 tag.

Jo Alcock has written up a number of the conference sessions on her blog.

Presentations from the conference can be found on the CoFHE website.

CoFHE London and South East Circle (LASEC) now has its own blog which also includes some references to the conference.

FE Toolkits, CoFHE conference session

As part of the toolkit session two colleges volunteered to be evaluate against one of the key questions.

Against the Key Question ‘How well is the learner supported and guided?’ one institution was deemed to be grade 1 (by the session participants) for the following features:

Delivering information literacy skills
Roaming library support
Effective use of LMS data
Effective use of signage and zoning of stock
Integrating e-resources with library eg renewals link via Athens

The second college looked at KQ3 with regards to consulting with users, provision of resources and partnership working.

The following grade one features were identified:

Wide range of consultation methods with users eg Moodle forum, feedback forms, minutes.
Good provision of ICT
Mixture if learning environments
Good provision of e-resources
Member of regional partnership

The question was raised about what if your institution is below the PIs for stock but user feedback in this area is positive? The view was that simply having a lot of stock is less important than demonstrating that you satisfy user demand (libraries with a lot of stock may have a large number of dated items for example).