Changes at the Education Library
We in Western Libraries are excited to introduce a new organizational model that will enhance our capacity to advance research, teaching and learning outcomes across campus and beyond. In anticipation of these upcoming changes, we want to share some important information with the members of our community about our plans.
Western Libraries' new organizational structure and integrated services model will be built around the following five core functional areas:
- The User Experience and Student Engagement team will provide a seamless experience of library collections and services across our physical and virtual spaces. The team will foster student engagement through the provision of innovative events and services as a result of collaboration and partnership.
- The Teaching and Learning team will advance the integration of information literacy and other digital literacy skills into course curriculum, provide instruction, and develop a variety of extra-curricular and co-curricular information literacy experiences.
- The Research and Scholarly Communication team will support and contribute to research on campus throughout the research cycle, including the creation, management, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge and research data.
- The Content Management, Discovery and Access team will provide ongoing access to high quality research collections across Western's disciplines.
- The Archives and Special Collections team will acquire, preserve and provide access to key unique research collections, including digital content.
In the new functional model, users will continue to benefit from existing relationships with Western Libraries staff, while having the advantage of access to a broader range of knowledge and expertise and the opportunity to build new relationships and contacts. For example, a faculty member or graduate student who has traditionally worked with a single librarian as a point of contact for collections, teaching and/or research support will now have access to a team of librarians, archivists and other staff who can provide various types of expertise. The faculty member or graduate student can still reach out to his or her traditional contact, but now this librarian can draw on the expertise of or refer the request to one of many other library colleagues who can provide a range of often specialized services.
We are now starting to transition into this new model and experiencing changes. Denise Horoky is now officially part of the Teaching and Learning Team. She will continue to provide support to the Faculty of Education, but will also have a portfolio that supports other programs on campus. It has been decided that all Teaching and Learning team members will co-locate at Taylor Library. This means that Denise will be moving her office over to Taylor Library. We will miss Denise’s daily presence but we are excited that she will be able to share her skills and years of knowledge with her new team members.
