What is happening in the library? An Interview with the OCA Librarian.
If you are anything like me you spend way too long in libraries, even online ones! The OCA Library had a facelift this month and I was delighted to see the inclusion of zines. I immediately sought out our librarian, Richard Cleverley to find out more. Richard kindly agreed to an interview with me.
Hello Richard. Many of us know you from the library, but for anyone not familiar with the library can you tell us a bit about what support is available?
As part of the Open University Group, all of our undergraduate courses are OU accredited, which means learners on a degree pathway have access to the whole OU collection, and also are eligible for the SCONUL Access Scheme, which allows our distance learners to register for access to a local university library to use their spaces and collections.
For Foundation & Short Course learners it's a bit different. As these programmes are what we call non-accredited pathways, you don't have access to OU services, but that's where the OCA library's in-house collections and resources are there to help, including our in-house ebook collections.
The OCA library is also home to the academic study skills support offering for all learners. Whether you're preparing for your first assignment, need to brush up on Harvard Referencing, or want self-paced elearning activities to better understand how to do research, we're here to help! We also offer bookable 1-2-1 appointment slots which can be used for Library Support, Academic Study Skills or Research Support.
What is happening in the library at the moment? Are there any projects or new services we can look out for?
There's a couple of new and exciting initiatives in place this year! As part of the OCA Library's commitment to diverse voices and non-traditional formats, we are expanding our offering to include a digital zine library. We are purchasing a collection of zines spanning a wide range of topics and simultaneously running a mail-in-campaign to digitally publish OCA zine works!
October also sees the launch of our brand new OCA Library Catalogue, a new platform to manage our in-house digital holdings, including our Foundation & Short Course eBook Collections, our upcoming Zine Library and with scope for more to come! It's been designed specifically for OCA learners and we will be showing off some of the niftier features in our upcoming Foundation & Short Course Student Induction session!
I know you do monthly induction sessions, where can we find out more about them?
That's right! On every enrolling month, that is! Information, meeting details & recordings of all sessions can be found in the OCA Library Announcements Forum, and are shared through the induction calendar too. We also hope to expand this to include regular sessions focusing on other areas such as our previous Harvard Referencing and Reflective Writing webinars.
What would you like to see in the library in the future?
Student voice! During my time at OCA my favourite bits of feedback have been when learners get in touch, whether they're recommending a book or seeking support. Much of our upcoming work is about placing our learners at the heart of the service. Between the in-house ebook collections and my close links with the OU Content Licencing team, it's always worth reaching out if there's a specific book you want for your studies, not everything can be provided as an ebook, but if it can we generally will find a way to sort it for you. Ultimately it helps build a collection around what our students are actually reading.
Your role crosses with academic study skills, is that an area that OCA is looking to expand?
As a matter of fact, yes! This year we are looking to make our study skills more dynamic, more thematic and easier to chunk across the areas that matter to you as a learner. We're hoping to move away from large overarching guides to small activities that help build skills in key areas, think "How to reference an image" rather than a large referencing guide.
Building foundational study skills is a great way to equip learners with the soft skills that help us succeed in, not just our studies, but whatever comes next. I often say that my entire career has ended up being built on the soft skills I developed in my degree and, so, it's an area I'm particularly passionate about.
If a student has an assignment coming up, and does not know how to begin, where is a good starting point?
It all very much depends on the assignment! OCA's learning model has a lot of different types of assignments across the curriculum, from creative prompts, showcases of your work, written pieces, presentations... the list goes on!
But if you are undertaking a piece of academic writing (an essay, a critical review) I always recommend starting with the basics of how to plan it, how to use your word count and how to reference. The Academic Writing Guide covers a lot of the basics for you!
What resources do you recommend for someone new to higher education?
For all our areas of study, there are a few foundational skills to work on as you're getting started and lots of resources to support those areas. Learning logs are, by nature, reflective work, so getting some basics of reflective writing can be a big help. I love Barbara Bassot's works and the one below helped me when I first tackled reflective writing in my masters:
For starting to explore the idea of how to write about art as a theoretical subject and critique contemporary arts, the inimitable Gilda Williams' book below is a great starting point!
Lastly, and this is something I highlight in all my webinars, it's great if you're working with visual arts to start browsing image libraries to increase you visual language and understanding of different arts. VADS offers a beautiful, easy to access, free to use database of British Art & Design. Another great jumping off point is Google Arts & Culture, where you can explore visually rather than relying on text based searching.
What is the best part about being a librarian?
I suppose the reason I enjoy it is to do with just how varied each day can be. As a polymath, I love the opportunity to use a combination of different types of knowledge and thinking approaches in my work. Librarianship leverages my technical knowledge, my creative thinking and my people skills. No two projects or tasks are often the same and every day takes new approaches and solutions.
Thank you Richard, we appreciate all your fantastic work.
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