For Staff

INU Special Interest Group for University Libraries

The initiative to set up a Special Interest Group for University Libraries came from the Head Librarians at three of the INU members, Bill Cations (Flinders University, Australia), Earle Gow (La Trobe University, Australia) and Jette Guldborg Petersen (Malmo University, Sweden). Additional members are University of Leicester, United Kingdom, represented by University Librarian Christine Fyfe and James Madison University, USA, represented by Ralph Aberico, Dean of Libraries and Educational Technologies. All INU member universities are welcome to join the group.

The Special Interest Group held its inaugural meeting in Malmo on 26 April, 2006. All INU universities were asked to fill in a profile questionnaire in preparation for the meeting, which formed the basis of discussions and enabled members to learn more about each other's focus and activities.

The results of the Profile questionnaire distributed to member Universities have now been collated (with many thanks to H. Yamane, at the Hiroshima University Library). The collated document is available to download in Pdf format.

The Special Interest Group plans to cover themes such as:

• benchmarking in library processes and library management and study visits
• shadowing program & staff exchanges
• collaborative purchasing
• information sharing
• conference collaboration
• collaborative digital reposity for research output
• community involvement projects
• information literacy projects
• the use of ICT
• branding exercises

A second meeting of the Library Special Interest Group was held at La Trobe University in April 2007, during the Learning and Teaching Workshop. The meeting was very productive. The issues discussed included:

• Digital institutional repositories and the stages of development within each University/Library.
• Measures adopted to assess the quality of services provided by the libraries.
• Collaborative approaches to professional development of staff in member libraries (including exchange arrangements, where feasible).
• Changes to the physical environment in libraries, including the current emphasis on flexible learning spaces.
  The expanding role of library literacy programs and the integration of library information resources into learning management systems, such as WebCT.
• Discussion on current staffing structures in member libraries, and the possible shape of staffing structures was considered and
• The need to maintain the momentum created by the Library SIG meetings held at Malmo (2005) and La Trobe (2007). The plan for a possible meeting at James Madison University in Virginia in 2008 will be explored.

For further information, please contact the INU Secretariat.