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Brighton Business School
Academic Health 2006/7
Information Adviser’s Report
1. Staffing
Library support for the Brighton Business School was provided by the library team of Pauline Coverdale (Information Adviser), Liz Davey and Julie Charles (Assistant Information Advisers, job-share) and Jenny Perkins (Assistant Information Adviser). In August 2007 Jenny Perkins left to become Media Librarian within Information Services and Katherine Sainsbury transferred from being Assistant Information Adviser to the School of Computing, Mathematics and Information Sciences to take Jenny’s role with the Business School within the team.
The School of Mathematics, Computing and Information Sciences (CMIS) joined with the Business School and School of Architecture and Interior Architecture to become another of the Information Adviser’s responsibilities. Because of the increasing demands on the IA in attending CMIS Boards and validation events the AIAs have attended BBS Boards and provided other services such as library inductions and user education sessions for BBS students.
The group email account has been used increasingly by staff and students for contacting the team with enquiries and for sending in reading lists. As a reminder the email address is:
(display name: AldrichBBS)
2. Staff development
In July 2007 Pauline Coverdale attended the BBSLG (British Business School Librarians) conference hosted by the University of Northampton Business School. Julie Charles and Liz Davey went to the Online Exhibition in December 2006 to increase their knowledge of developments in online resources and attended sessions there on advances in business information.
3. Library induction and user education
All new students on the Moulsecoomb site received guides to the library and computing services offered by Information Services and to Studentcentral, Drop-in tours were offered again at regular advertised times for new students to join on a voluntary basis although the number of students who took up the offer continues to be fairly low. The online library quiz was introduced this year for all new undergraduates to complete as part of the Personal Academic Skills modules on Studentcentral. The quiz gave students experience of using the library catalogue and the online resources to find material. Apart from initial problems with access due to the time taken to enrol all new students on their modules, the quiz was considered a success, particularly as the module leaders were able to see which students had completed the quiz. Julie and Liz also ran a session on law resources for FdA Business students as part of the module run by Roger Saunders on Management Safety Issues.
New postgraduate students received a more detailed induction session consisting of a talk on relevant online resources, with Jenny Perkins and Julie Charles running the session for new PG/MA law students because of the IA being unavailable. Induction and information literacy sessions for the new Certificate in Policing Studies students were provided again by Fabienne Michaud and Jane Palmer, the Information Advisers at Falmer and Queenwood Libraries respectively. A follow-up session on research methods was given to the MScIFCM students as part of their dissertation workshops week in February 2007. Changing the time of the session to the afternoon so that it combined with a Business School session encouraged greater attendance by the students. Pauline also ran a literature searching session as part of the Introducing the Business Research Methods module (MNM56) for the Professional Masters Programme in Personnel and Development with Penny Simpson.
4. AMBA accreditation visit
In April Pauline welcomed members of the AMBA accreditation panel and members of the MBA course team to the Aldrich Library, to explain library provision for MBA students, and to give a demonstration of the online resources and services provided.
5. Budget and library stock
5.1 Books
Book selection continues to be carried out from module reading lists and suggestions from academics and so it is important that academic staff send us their updated reading lists regularly to ensure that the book stock is relevant to the courses. During the year £25,543 (£25,330 in 2006/7) was spent on books from the site budget allocation for Business School resources. In total, 895 (989 in 2006/7) books were added at an average cost of £28 per book.
As part of a new policy of providing Schools with more information on library expenditure we set up a system of recording book orders by subject area according to module code or the subject group of the academic. This has enabled us to provide the Business School with a more detailed breakdown of expenditure on textbooks in subject areas over the academic year, see below:
Expenditure by subject group 2006/7
Business systems management £2,953
Economics £1,234
Finance £2,072
Financial accounting £3,196
Human resource management £3,126
Law £2,461
Management/management development £1,630
Management accounting £356
Management strategy/public sector (combined) £2,640
Marketing £2,873
Ordered pre subject order codes £3,002
Total £25,543
The difference in the amounts spent can be explained by a number of factors: the enthusiasm of the subject groups, the number of students on modules, reading lists received and the need to build up stock in new subject areas. Some subject areas do not require constant updating or have fewer students and therefore the amount spent is comparatively small.
5.2 Top-up money
Textbooks
Information Services received money from the Top-up funds for the purchase of extra copies of textbooks. This was in response to the results of our student survey where “more copies of core texts” was considered a high priority by the students. £8,500 was allocated for business and 312 extra titles were purchased. We used the ‘most used’ and ‘reserved’ data from our library system, suggestions from lecturers and reading lists to select those titles.
Electronic books
Information Services also decided to dedicate a large proportion of the Top-up funds to the purchase of electronic books. We were able to spend £1,514 on eBook versions of titles on reading lists and on key texts although because eBooks tend to be more expensive and are liable for VAT the number purchased was relatively low at 20. These eBooks are included in the library catalogue which provides a direct link to each title online, and are also listed on the Online Library under Reference shelf – Electronic books.
5.3 Journals/Electronic resources
The total amount spent on our 202 subscriptions was £61,957 (£63,005 in 2005/6), which included a final contribution of £1,250 to the Business School for Bloomberg. The total sum also included a £5,800 contribution from the Business School to support the PG Dip/MA Law programme by funding the subscriptions to 2 online legal databases, Westlaw and Halsbury’s Laws Online.
5.4 Journals survey
Over the summer of 2007 the Aldrich Library conducted a review of journal and annual subscriptions to ensure that the book fund is preserved and not eroded by ever increasing journal costs, and to free up funds to allow the purchase of different, more relevant titles. This proved fairly successful and as a result a number of titles that received no votes or that were available full text online were cancelled.
5.6 Law subscriptions
During the summer of 2007 negotiations took place between the law subject group and the library. An agreement was reached whereby a number of law subscriptions would be cancelled to enable a subscription to be taken out to the LexisNexis Butterworth’s’ online service for the forthcoming year.
5.7 Inter library loans
Despite the availability of full-text journal articles online the inter library loan service continues to be well used. Of the 146 requests for Journal articles, 141 were for articles by SED (Secure Electronic Delivery). This shows a dramatic change in the method of delivery from 2005/6 where out of a total of 123 requests 79 were by SED. The number of requests for books rose from 85 in 2005/6 to114 in 2006/7. The total spent on interlibrary loan requests in 2006/7 was £1,954, an increase on the amount in 2005/6 which was £1,656 possibly reflecting the increase in student numbers and an increase in research interests of the academic staff.
5.8 Media
Over the year we added 92 new DVD off-air recordings and 6 commercially purchased DVDs to the media collection, along with 8 CD off-air recordings.
5.9 Company reports collection
We carried out a major overhaul of the library company reports collection as many companies are reluctant to send out paper copies of their annual reports and the use of the collection has dropped over the past few years. The collection is now based on the FTSE Top 100 but includes other foreign and international companies of interest, now filed in cabinets on the top floor of the library and available for 7 day loan. We are encouraging users to use online versions of annual reports from company websites or through services such as CAROL (Company Annual Reports On-Line).
6. Studentcentral
A number of new staff members have been given individual introductions to the facilities of studentcentral by the Learning Technologies Adviser, Elizabeth Rimmington. Support for more advanced use of studentcentral has been given on request by email, by phone or by a visit and more formal support and training is also available if wanted.
Students in Postgraduate courses are now submitting the electronic copy of their handed-in work using the purpose-built Assignment feature, in line with the Undergraduate and Professional students. One Assignment was pre-configured into each module and an instructor session for staff was provided. Elizabeth Rimmington can provide further support to staff for this and any other aspect of studentcentral and other learning technologies..
Introductions to studentcentral were given to postgraduate students as in previous years but with a survey to be completed during the sessions, which led to better attendance as hoped. Elizabeth Rimmington can run sessions showing students how to submit Assignments on studentcentral later in the year on request.
7. Student survey
Information Services Survey Group carried out a survey of students conducted via Studentcentral and running from November 27th 2006 to January 2nd 2007. There were 1084 responses, 441 of which were from students based at the Moulsecoomb site. A BA hons Accounting and Finance student won one of the £10 prizes. The top priority of students based at Moulsecoomb was “more computers in libraries” above “more copies of core texts”. “More journals” and “more electronic versions of core texts” were considered more important than “longer library opening hours”. The students were also asked about their use of electronic databases and studentcentral. Of the 271 students from the Faculty of Management and Information Sciences who responded, 122 used online databases often, 106 sometimes, 10 had tried but not found them useful, 31 had not tried and 2 had never heard of them. On the use of studentcentral, 243 used it often, 23 used it sometimes and 5 had tried it but had not found it useful.
8. Revised opening hours
The Aldrich Library repeated the extension to its opening hours during the examination periods in February and March, and May and June for revision and study. The upper floors of the library, excluding the reference, issue and enquiry desk areas, were open until 2am for 7 days a week. This has proved to be very successful and will take place each year.
9. The Future
We will continue to monitor the results of the undergraduate library online quiz and revise it where necessary to ensure its effectiveness for new students.
We will further encourage Academic staff to send us their reading lists so that the book budget can be spent effectively and the library stocked with relevant titles.
We will select E-book versions of textbooks where they are available and where they can be loaded onto a platform compatible with our library management system.
Pauline Coverdale
November 2007
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