1. ALLCU Roles past and future Discussion summary Roger Mills

2. Valuing ALLCU  Plus:  Meeting people at conference  Discussions / advice with like-minded colleagues in person and online  Visiting other libraries / college / gardens  Minus:  Lack of continuity between conferences  Meetings too infrequent  Distance makes face-to-face meetings difficult  Not enough time at conferencews  Website needs developing  Big universities don’t come eg Reading, Newcastle

3. Other groups  Current membership:  PTEG  Info Literacy  HWATL  CILIP  ANGLES  COFHE  UCR  West Midlands Univ Libs Staff Dev Group  TALIS  KILN Kent Info Librarians Network  Univ Greenwich Partner College Librarians Group  COLRIC  COSCOL Circle of Susses College Librarians Group  EBHL  Inspire  ALA  AHIS  TAFLIN Tayside and Fife Library Information Network  Scottish Further Education Community I Practice Librarians Network  Mensa  Past Membership:  MidAIG (folded)  COFHE  Info for Energy  UKSG  BCS  HWATL  ARLIS  CILIP  Kent Ag and Hort Libbns Group (folded)  Aslib Biosciences Group (folded)  Future:  None  Like somewhere to share good practice in relevant areas

4. Difficulties  Distance  London-based meetings  Staff cover  Money  Time  Too many e-mails  Accessibility by public transport

5. Support I need  Chartership  Staff development  IT  21 st C technology – Web 2.0  Learning the new language  Sharing journal access  Maintaining identity within merged org  Institutional repositories  Other new developments  More contact with other librarians  Informed overview of most important issues I could give  Mentoring, chartering  Introducing people  Sharing experience  Listening  New builds

6. Subject provision  Improving – online access facilitates  Subject specialisation within land-based libraries?  Evolution with college  More info available but experience librarian knows where to find and what to exclude  Subject provision good at HE level but poor at Nat Cert/Diploma level  Challenge to know what your subject is  Many new non-traditional areas being taught  Need to keep up subject knowledge to support and based industries

7. When I leave  No succession planning – loss of 20+yrs experience  What about old print holdings?  Basics OK but subject knowledge gone – institution may not know or care  Good if line managing successor  Subject knowledge takes time to build up  Lose IT skills  Fairly easy  When good procedures in place much easier for successor

8. Contacts outside subject/sector No formal subject contacts Contacts outside FE/HE:  Regional  Important esp contact with partner institutions and awarding/validating institutions  CILIP regional branches  Public libs  School librarians – assessing info literacy levels of prospective students  Place within ALLCU for regional groups to meet/visit libraries  National  Training with CILIP  International  Partner colleges (ERASMUS)  Libns in countries where we have joint delivery of courses  Beneficial with shared issues eg info literacy

9. Institutional change  Huge growth  Rebuilds  Viability of unmerged institutions questionable  Library responds to continual institutional change  More change expected  Typically merger – restructure – new build  Libs become more responsive  Mergers change / improve IT  Some institutions very stable  Merging into larger org beneficial but problems of distance from parent org  Increasing numbers of younger lower-level student while still increasing HE provision  Merger sometimes = takeover  Challenge to retain identity  Ofsted/IQER force change  Landbased merged into general FE  Building into general curriculum  Redundancies  Management by non- librarian  IGER/Aberystwyth merger – libraries merge too  Uncertainty  Groups with more landbased colleges = more clout

10. Managing change  Take training when offered  Can manage or be managed but not sure I want to  Depends whether change forced on you or you have been participant on the journey  No training – expected to get on with it. Fewer staff = more responsibilities  Become the norm  Staff resistance hardest  Way of life supported through staff development  No such thing as stability  Little acknowledgement that support is needed  Having the time to manage change is main problem