M25 Director Services Task & Finish Group Minutes

The following are the Minutes of the Meeting held on 21 January, 2008 at University of Greenwich

Present: Emma Bull, Genein Cox-De Sousa, Rosemary Lynch, Julia Munro, Ann Murphy, Pete Ryan

Apologies: Robert Hall, Joanna Newman

The Member Services Task and Finish Group has become a Working group of the M25

1. Action points from meeting of 5 November 2007
- Agreed terms of reference circulated to M25 directors substituting “expertise” for “experience” in relation to the proposed database.
- A survey of member interests was carried out
- A Facebook group had been set up for group communication
- Robert Hall agreed to join the group to replace Anne Poulson.

2. Member Services Questionnaire 
  
There were  25 responses received of the questionnaires sent out to 58 Directors. Responses confirmed overwhelming support for the work of the group and saw both on-line and face to face communication/discussion as equally valuable. Feedback from the questionnaire is to be presented at the M25 Member's Meeting and to be discussed with members in breakout sessions.

Nick Bevan will present an introduction prior to breakout sessions with content provided by the group. Breakout sessions will be co-chaired by a Member of the Steering Group and the Working Group. Discussion groups are to flesh out key themes and identify others. They should decide on 2 main themes to take forward and then discuss how they want them taken forward.

This meeting needs to decide on topics for discussion and which group members will co-chair which groups.

Themes for Discussion

• E-Environments and resources
  - Library role in relation to institutional strategies - e-learning (VLEs, MLEs) and e-research
  - New technologies – Web 2, social networking – staff skills agenda
  - Licensing, IDM, access
  
  
• Space and Buildings
  - Design of learning spaces, working spaces for students and staff, social learning
  - Impact of changing patterns of student use, student expectations, NSS
  - Accommodation for different communities – undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers, staff
  - Collaborative collection management, UKRR
  - Superconvergeance/convergeance
  
  
• Leadership and Management
  - Strategic position of the library within the institution
  - Recruitment, retention, succession planning, developing leadership skills at all levels.
  - Performance management
  - Cultural change
  - Working collaboratively in a competitive environment
  - Mentoring, coaching, learning sets
  - Funding, finance, budgets
  
  
• Encouraging and Capturing Innovation
  - Recognition and reward
  - Showcasing innovation and good practice – marketing and publicity
  - How to foster innovation
  - Project development and management
  
  
• Quality
  - Measuring impact – benchmarking, KPIs, NSS
  - Institutional monitoring and quality audits, SLAs
  - External quality assessment – IIPS, Charter mark  

How members want issues to be taken forward – for discussion
    
The queationnaires proved that there was an overwhelming desire for central London locations, early morning or after work

The Working Group discussed / considered the following points:

- Was it the group's responsibility to organise specific sessions or who would arrange them? Is there funding?
- A Directory of experience would allow individuals to make direct contact. Would Consortium members be prepared to put themselves forward as a person with experience in a particular area eg a profile in a directory or via Facebook?
- Could CPD 25 offer training? 
- Would members attend small informal sessions to discuss topics?
- If the group arranged informal sessions around the themes identified, would members view these as a one off event, would we need to repeat them or allow members to move them forward themselves?
- Should events be arranged around transport hubs?
- Could the Group make use of institutional space volunteered by members?
- Do themes lend themselves to a particular kind of treatment?
- Which approach does the Group try first? – CPD25, a briefing session, one off arranged session with theme, join a group with changing themes, one to one advice using a directory or some other means of accessing members with relevant experience, on-line group discussion, small group visits, facilitated discussion followed by a drink/food?

Actions
RL to brief Nick Bevan for introductory session and brief Steering Group on main and sub-themes.
    
Breakout sessions – working group co-chairs
    New Technologies – Genein Cox
    Space and Buildings – Ann Murphy
    Leadership and Management – Pete Ryan
    Capturing Innovation – Emma Bull
    Quality – Robert Hall

All group members were to ensure that they got comittments from Directors, and agreement on highest priority themes and preferred ways forward.

3. Facebook
All members had joined Genein’s facebook group but had not been making use of it. Genein gave a demonstration.

Action
Group to consider whether Facebook is the most useful way of communication at the next meeting.

4. Dates and locations for further meeting
   17th March 2pm at Queen Mary
   Possibly week beginning 21st May at LSE

Ann Murphy 14.03.08