VALNOW CONFERENCE, UCLAN, 16 th MAY 2013 Steve Cropper, Wirral Metropolitan College

Using and Promoting Online Reading Lists Adding Value to Your Reading Lists and getting Your Students to Use Them

First, A Bit of Context: At Wirral we: Have about 360 HE Students and 17 programmes at HND level or higher. Run UCLAN FDs in Chemistry and in Forensic Science. Are currently seeking validation for the UCLAN Cert.Ed./PGCE. Work with 7 different university partners.

The Reading List: All HE reading lists are hosted on our library VLE pages. All reading lists are checked and corrected as necessary by us. All students are directed to their list at induction. The philosophy is to add value to the list by making it an easy access portal to material.

To Add Value: All reading lists are hypertext linked to the OPAC, to show current holdings of any item in real time And hypertext linked for seamless access to our e-book platforms And to web-based material

With the intention that... The reading list becomes an easy point of access to everything the student needs. The Library keeps control of the quality, accuracy and currency of information students are given, so that they don’t become frustrated chasing out-of-print titles or old editions. It also affords an opportunity to promote e-materials held off-site, at UCLAN and elsewhere and raise awareness of these.

A quick digression... At Wirral we have also achieved very high levels of flexibility and value for money in our purchasing. We have a corporate credit card, and use Amazon for a lot of our book purchasing. We are also an Amazon retailer, aka “End to End Books”, with a 100% rating! We often buy used items, and do our bit for the planet...

And this is relevant because: We can achieve real value in our HE purchasing We get some monies back if an HE programme folds We can reduce our risk exposure with low-cost, used stock until a course becomes established We can respond rapidly to updates or demand for more stock We can delay purchasing until a course actually recruits viable numbers

And finally from me... If you want students to use something, make it easy and convenient. Technology allows us to be more flexible and responsive. College credit cards really are the best thing since sliced bread. And if all that lot fails, print the reading list and give it to the student yourself!