UK Regional Consortia Managers’ Meeting – Wednesday 30 January 2019
On Wednesday 30 January 2019 I represented WHELF at the UK Regional Consortia Managers’ Meeting, meeting colleagues from The Northern Collaboration (NC), White Rose (WR), Mercian Collaboration (MC), the M25 Consortium of Academic Libraries (M25) and NoWAL. Unfortunately bad weather conditions prevented the SCURL representative making the long journey down from Scotland.
The venue was the beautiful Senate House Library near Russell Square. Before the meeting we were treated to a talk from Tansy Barton, the Research Librarian who curated the exhibition Staging Magic: the Story Behind the Illusion. The exhibition displays items from one of Senate House Library’s special collections, the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature.
Agenda items:Plan S and UK SCL:
For more information see: https://www.coalition-s.org/
- Remains unclear how it will work in practice, and what would happen if an institution did not sign up or comply.
- Research funders need to buy into it for it to work c.f. Research Excellence Framework?
- May lead to move away from purchasing large online journal packages and using budgets to obtain/access e-resources?
- Is Plan S the “GDPR of 2019”
Public Sector (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018:
- https://www.gov.uk/guidance/accessibility-requirements-for-public-sector-websites-and-apps
- JISC have issued: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/accessibility
- Mercian Disability Forum https://merciancollaboration.org.uk/mercian-disability-forum
- WHELF website needs an overhaul and will be an agenda item at the May Reps’ meeting. (Gill to discuss with Steve when he takes over as WHELF Chair)
Demonstrating value for money for membership
- Annual Report/Newsletters
- SIGS (eg WHELF subgroups)
- Task and Finish Groups
- Stakeholder analysis
- How do find out what our members want?
Buddying Schemes
- NC, NoWAL and Mercian use these. Avoid term “mentoring” as this implies paper based and formal. Mercian have also used Talent Management.
- Basically way for staff to add to their CPD by visiting other libraries within their consortium and share knowledge and practices. (eg WHELF on Tour)
This took us to 3pm when I had to leave to get to Paddington station.
I appreciated the opportunity to represent WHELF and to learn how other consortia work and tackle issues such as Plan S. Thank you to Thomas Baldwin at Senate House Library for inviting WHELF and hosting the event so well.
