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Library Action Plan 2022-23 - Faculty of Business and Physical Sciences

 

Library Actions - What we've done and what we're planning to do over the next academic year 

New ways to discover online library resources - We have introduced two new tools to help you search and find online library resources:

LibKey Nomad is a downloadable browser extension providing one-click access to articles. Read more
Browzine allows you to browse and save scholarly journals available from the library or from open
sources. Read more

Primo LibGuide - Primo is Aberystwyth University's library catalogue and discovery tool that gives you access to library resources. We have published a new Primo LibGuide to help you make the most of it.

Library Floormap - We are launching an interactive online Floormap of the Hugh Owen Library to help people find their way around and familiarise themselves with the library's facilities. The Library Floormap is integrated with Primo, the library catalogue, to help you locate your books. Visit the library online here

Customer Service Excellence - IS achieved the Customer Service Excellence standard in 2015 and has maintained this standard and gained areas of Compliance Plus, areas which go above standard service provision, every year since.

At the last full review in 2021, IS was recertified and awarded 11 areas of Compliance Plus. These were all maintained in 2022 and 2023. Find out more here

Teaching Staff LibGuide - Our Subject Librarians have published a LibGuide for new teaching staff containing everything new staff need to know about the library and resourcing modules

International Students and the Library - This academic year we have been carrying out user experience (UX) research with various user groups to assess their experiences with Library and IT services. In February 2023, we held a week of sampling activities to assess the ways international students interact with our services. The activities were based on UX methods and consisted of a user-led tour of the library and a semi-structured interview to assess their experiences before and since coming to Aberystwyth. See our findings here

Welsh Library Team of the Year Award - Our Academic Engagement team was awarded second place in the CILIP Cymru Wales Welsh Library Team of the Year Award for their work on the Referencing and Plagiarism Awareness LibGuide.

The awarding judges commented “The team designed a new training resource on referencing. The resource is interactive and fully bilingual, is integrated into student learning systems and can be tailored to different student needs. The success of the development of these new training resources was the recognition that successful delivery relied on getting the users involved. It was clear that the team had a real understanding how students would relate to the content and what would reduce referencing anxiety."

NSS 2023 Results - 

Our Library and IT Services continue to outperform the UK sector average for student satisfaction

Library Services - 93    up 6 points since 2022 Top in Wales

IT Services - 89    up 3 points since 2022 Top in Wales 

 

IS User Survey 2022 - We have asked students and staff to take the IS User Survey every November.
We asked what we're doing well and what we need to improve. We use the results to plan and develop our services.

We had 534 responses to our User Survey in 2022. 

Read more about the feedback we received from the survey and our actions as a result

 

Use - Since August 2022 we have:

• Loaned 37,165 books
• Loaned 212 journals
• Digitised 37 items for FBPS and 550 overall
• Borrowed 470 Interlibrary loans and loaned 964
• Given 461 new and returning students guided tours of the Library

Tour attendees by department in FBPS

Department
Aberystwyth Business School	23
Computer Science	7
Department of Information Studies	28
Mathematics	7
Physics	7

• Had 124,031 visits to Hugh Owen Library 
• 15,258 visits to the Physical Sciences Library  

There were 361 visits to the Iris de Freitas over the Easter Holidays which was open 24/7 when the rest of the Hugh Owen Library was closed.

We're working on increasing library opening hours outside of traditional term times to accommodate the needs of all students across increasingly diverse study schemes.

 

Reading Lists - Since June 2022, the following have been added:

• 67 resources to Aberystwyth Business School lists 

• 8 resources to Computer Sciences lists 

• 526 resources to Information Studies lists

• 2 resources to Mathematics lists

• 15 resources to Physics lists

A total of 618 resources have been added to FBPS reading lists since June 2022. *Resources include books, ebooks, e-resources and digitised chapters and articles

Ratio of ebooks and print books on reading lists

Print books 3022

ebooks 1228

 

Reading List Coverage

95.3% of Aberystwyth University's modules are covered by an Aspire Reading List

1762 modules need a list. 1679 modules have a list

Faculty Reading List Coverage

AU average	95.3%
Aberystwyth Business School	89.7%
Computer Science	88%
Information Studies	87.6%
Mathematics	98.7%
Physics	76.1%

 

Aberystwyth Research Portal - makes the very best of Aberystwyth University's staff and postgraduate research openly available online, free of charge. 

• 171 FBPS Research outputs since the start of 2022
• 6 FBPS Research theses since the start of 2022

 

LibGuides - Our Subject Librarians maintain a range of LibGuides as a one stop source of library help and support. LibGuides contain information, resources and links relevant to specific subjects or general topics. 

Our Referencing and Plagiarism guide has been viewed more than 44,053 times in one academic year, which is 6212 more views than the previous academic year

Subject Guides   

Aberystwyth Business School viewed 1757 times in 22/23

Computer Science viewed 150 times in 22/23

Information Studies viewed 1052 times in 22/23

Maths and Physics viewed 102 times in 22/23 

 

Your Subject Librarians 

 

Information Services Teaching and library support - Information Services offers a number of training opportunities for staff and students to develop their skills and make effective use of its services. We offer training in the following topic areas:
Academic Skills for Students
Administrative Systems
Digital Skills
Learning and Teaching
Personal Development
Research

In 22/23 our Subject Librarians ran sessions on Metrics and Altmetrics, Finding Quality Resources, Referencing and referencing software including EndNote and Mendeley

We are working to revamp the AberSkills pages to make them more comprehensive and useful for students. The all-new AberSkills will be launching early in the next academic year.

Librarians' teaching activities by department

Department	Teaching hours	Attendees
Computer Science	1	2
Information Studies	13	313
Mathematics	1	7
Aberystwyth Business School	27	767

 

Digital Skills - Meet the team

• Sioned Llywelyn - Digital Skills Lead 
• Shân Saunders  - Digital Capabilities and Skills Development Coordinators 
• Laurie Stevenson, Jeffrey Clark - Student Digital Champions 

• Contact us: digi@aber.ac.uk  
• Subscribe to the Digital Skills WordPress site 

Digital skills are the skills, knowledge and practices that equip us to live, learn and work safely and effectively in a digital society. We are supporting students and staff at the University to assess and develop their own digital skills. 

Key highlights

September ’22	Digital Discovery Tool available to all Foundation Year and Year 1 students
2022/23	Year 2 and Final-year student pilot of the DDT
April ’23	Launch of the new Digital Skills Library and LinkedIn Learning Digital Skills Collections
September ’23	DDT available to all students (UG and PG)
November ’23	Digital Skills Festival

 

Jisc Digital Discovery Tool - Online bilingual resource that enables students and staff to self-assess their digital skills, allowing you to identify your confidence and capability within real-world practices.  

Since September 2022, over 800 foundation and first-year students completed the Digital Discovery Tool. All second year Business students 2022/23 were facilitated in sessions to complete the Digital Discovery tool to assess their digital skills. 

• Aberystwyth Business School – 71 
• Computer Science - 92 
• Information Studies - 7  
• Mathematics - 1 
• Physics - 51 

 

Digital Skills Library A new library of resources to help you develop your digital skills, ranging from supporting you to develop healthy digital habits to learning how to code.  

 

Digital Skills Festival Next year: We have an exciting event planned in November 2023, the Digital Skills Festival! A week filled with workshops, training sessions and activities, all designed to help you develop your digital skills. 

 

LinkedIn Learning Online learning platform which has an extensive library of expert led online courses and short videos to help you develop your digital capabilities, in addition to several other skills. Activate your LinkedIn Learning account  

Since September 2022, 4,535 courses and 31,246 videos have been watched in LinkedIn Learning. 

New: We’ve launched 15 new collections this year, containing LinkedIn Learning courses and short videos that will specifically help you to develop your digital skills. 

New: Our Student Digital Champions have also created a range of collections to support students in: 

• Tackling exam stress 
• Staying safe online 
• Staying motivated 

Top LinkedIn Learning courses for FBPS students in ‘22/23: 

1. Excel Essential Training (2h 22m) 
2. Python Essential Training (2022) (4h 22m) 
3. 20 Rules of Visual Communication (1h 47m) 
4. Overcome Overthinking (36m) 
5. Academic Research Foundations: Quantitative (1h 41m) 
6. Beating Procrastination (23m)