Read up on BC ELN Service Area updates, new Steering Committee members, and thriving Office team environment. |
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New BC ELN Steering Committee Members |
The BC ELN Steering Committee has some new and familiar folks joining the committee this fall! On October 1st Brenda Mathenia became the new Steering Committee Chair, and the committee also welcomed:
- Gregg Currie - Rural Colleges Representative
- Camille Callison - Teaching Universities and Technical Institutions Representative
- Ross Tyner - Urban Colleges Representative
Appreciation goes to Susan Parker, outgoing Chair, as well as outgoing members Trish Rosseel (Urban Colleges Rep, 2018-21), Julie Mitchell (UBC Rep, 2020-21), and Debbie Schachter (Teaching Universities and Technical Institutions Rep, 2019-21) for their contributions to the Steering Committee.
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How will BC ELN Navigate the Future? |
What will the future look like for BC ELN? A big question indeed, but one that partner library staff will be invited to help answer over the coming months. As the consortium’s current five-year plan winds down, BC ELN has an opportunity to envision its upcoming priorities in a new strategic plan.
As a first step, the next All Partner Meeting - held virtually over two mornings on December 2nd and 3rd - will bring together BC ELN’s 33 partner library directors, Ministry representative, and BC ELN Office staff to engage in facilitated strategic planning discussions. We are looking forward to it!
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Arca now supports subtitles! When a transcript is provided with an uploaded video or audio object, the transcription will now be displayed when played in Arca.
We knew Arca reached the big leagues of websites when it began experiencing DDoS attacks… The good news is that for over a year Arca has implemented CloudFlare to protect the service, and the Admin Centre continues to help Arca sites that use custom URLs set up this protection.
A big “behind the scenes” undertaking on the go for Arca is planning for the migration to Islandora 2.0, which will have positive ramifications for the service. The Admin Centre is now seeking proposals from different vendors for migration planning and execution.
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As you may have seen in the latest AskAway newsletter (and if you missed it, check out the fall AskAway Chat Box), the service recently wrapped up its proactive chat pilot. The pilot ran through the summer with four libraries: Alexander College, University of BC, University of Northern BC, and University of Victoria. Outcomes will be shared later in the year.
AskAway opened two weeks early this fall on September 7th (Mon-Fri) to support students and instructors during the transition to in-person learning and teaching… and students definitely “showed up”! There were over 1,400 chat sessions in those first two weeks alone.
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BC ELN partner libraries have had their say! Through the recently completed Ranking Survey, libraries voted on which three resources they’d like to see licensed consortially from a list of suggestions gathered through the Resource Forum. Stay tuned for the survey outcomes report – coming soon.
Good news for the 20 partner libraries that license Criterion on Demand through BC ELN; the vendor has made films from the Fox Studios Collection available for off-campus access on a continuing basis for all subscribers. See the Criterion on Demand renewal page for more details.
Starting this year, Library & Information Sciences and Library Information Technology programs at BC post-secondary institutions have the opportunity to join BC ELN's RDA Toolkit subscription and can benefit from the same stable pricing and consortial discounts as BC ELN partner libraries.
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As part of building infrastructure that supports ILL best practices, the Support Centre has created ILL Policy page templates for member libraries. Institutional ILL policies pull together relevant information in easy-to-scan pages for ILL staff. On the way: filters that help staff zone in on pertinent info quickly.
The Support Centre has seen a 300% increase in live individual and group webinar training on a wide variety of topics including ISO set-up, Live Shelf Status availability checks, Patron-initiated ILLs and more. Contact the support centre today to set-up an Illume training session on any topic!
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WriteAway Online Tutoring |
Supported by a decision from the WriteAway Advisory Committee, the service has maintained institutional contribution hours set in place for COVID response to help ease student transition back to on-campus learning this fall. WriteAway saw a 19% increase in submissions this September (2021) over September last year.
The Admin Centre and WriteAway coordinators have worked very hard this term to ensure a consistency in tutoring hours over the weekend (Friday to Monday) to meet student needs.
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Finding Ways to Thrive as a Team |
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Like many organizations, BC ELN (office staff) transitioned back to working onsite this September.
Though as a staff we found many ways to connect and collaborate over the past 18 months of working remotely (hello Zoom meetings and Slack channels!), after such a long time away from the office we saw this transition as an opportunity to reconnect across our silos.
During a team retreat we used a variety of tools and techniques to draw out our collective strengths and to investigate ways to work even more collaboratively as a team. We share our insights in a series of blog posts, aimed at answering the question: “How do you foster a thriving team?”
- Nourish
- Focus on Strengths
- Collaborate
- Solve Problems Together
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