This morning we had a meeting with staff members of the Research Office. It was great to have a whole hour and half talk with them, all around the use of Pure, Pure Portal and Research Impact, etc. Their definition of research impact is a bit different than ours. Here it is about social and economic impact and nothing to do with academic impact / bibliometrics. They have to report (REF reporting every 6 years) on the social and economic impact of their research. The Library and the Research Office collaborate on many aspects and they have an excellent relationship with each other. Yesterday I had time to walk a bit through the Campus and the Library and take some pictures. Herewith a few of the campus and it's parks, it's beautiful on a sunny day! The next few photographs is from outside and inside the Library: Entrance of library Screen indicating free PC's on all levels Brochures and pamphlets on Library services IT help desk in...

It was very interesting to read this article this morning in the Bath Chronicle. They are planting plants in the potholes! This photograph unfortunately does not show the whole article. It is a very funny way to attract attention to the problem! 

The third day at Bath University Library started off with a general staff meeting. The meeting took place in their technical services area. Kate Robinson, the University Librarian, talked through a few issues in 30 minutes. All very informal and interactive. It was interesting to hear that they also just completed a LibQUAL survey. We will attend a Library Consultative Group meeting on Friday where the results will be discussed. The rest of the morning went to the presentations we had to do. About 20-30 staff members from the Library and elsewhere attended. Stellenbosch University asked us to do a presentation about the University itself. We used a few sources for this: a presentation the International Office sent us (we could only use a few slides from this as it was actually meant for a specific meeting and not all applicable for such a presentation); a Facts and Figures slideshow we found on the SU webpage and  Alvina also included an introduction to the Faculty of Medicine an...

And it's cold today - about 8 degrees.... My warmest jacket did not do the thing today... See this article about the snow in Scotland and North England. http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/608272/uk-weather-forecast-updates-news-snow-maps "Heavy wintry showers – and even snow, hail and thunder – are likely across the UK on Tuesday and Wednesday."

Today was again quite packed with useful information sessions. We had a quick meeting with Kara, who gave us a bit of background to some of the meetings coming up during the day. She also organised for us to attend Engage: Public engagement in practice next week. (Engage is an annual event where they showcase and celebrate the varied ways that researchers engage with the community.) Our first meeting of the day was with Katie Evans, their Research Analytics librarian. This was a superb session showing us examples of bibliometric reports she delivers to Research Committees, describing how she had to build the service. Katie is very inspiring and has a lot of expertise in the field. We will definitely stay in contact in future. We got lots of ideas from her on how to improve our bibliometric/research impact services. More about this also later when we return to Stellenbosch... This afternoon's session was with Lizzie Richmond who is responsible for their Archives and Special Coll...

Something I read in my inbox today: The Realities of Research Data Management is a four-part series that explores how research universities are addressing the challenge of managing research data throughout the research lifecycle. http://www.oclc.org/research/publications/2017/oclcresearch-research-data-management.html

The discussions this afternoon about Research Data Management was very interesting and overwhelming at some points. They have a team of 3 staff members working only with research data services at the Library. They also work together with their computing services and research development section on all matters related to Research Data Services. We attended a Research Data Operational Group meeting this afternoon. Some issues they discussed were additional active data storage, an engagement plan, allocation and deallocation matters, as well as compliance monitoring. More about this later when we return to Stellenboch... For now I would rather continue to share some photographs of our first two days... Bath itself is really beautiful, we haven't seen half of it yet, but here are some first impressions: The Abbey A scene just around the corner from our flat Romantic in the evening... The space where Alvina will work and will be able to log onto a PC The me...

We arrived yesterday (Sunday 23 April) in the beautiful town of Bath and checked into our flat. It is located right in the centre of town, next to the Roman Baths and the Abbey... After a few busy days of travelling and walking in London, we tried not to walk too far on our first day in Bath, our feet were still aching from the previous day of walking "through London" :-) The University Librarian, Kate Robinson and the Head of Library Research Services, Kara Jones, met us on the first evening and took us out for dinner at a great Lebanese restaurant. They really made us feel very welcome. Thank you Kate and Kara! The University is about 5 kilometres out of town on a hill , so we need to take a bus there every day. Fortunately it is very easy to find the correct bus and after a few stops and about 15 minutes we arrived this morning well ahead of time. Kara showed us around in the Library, introduced us to some of the Library staff and showed us to a meeting room, where we ...

It is a huge privilege for me and Alvina to visit the University of Bath during the end of April and early May. I decided to record a few notes on a daily basis and share it with colleagues on the go. I am really excited about the programme they put together for us. It will include more or less the following: - We will attend a general staff meeting on the first day and do presentations on Stellenbosch University and the Library and Information Service - Sessions with the Reseach Analytics librarian to find out more about their services regarding bibliometrics, altmetrics, et.al. - Sessions with staff involved with Research Data Management - Sessions with different Subject Librarians - Marketing of research services and workshops - Discussions on ORCID and the implementation on campus - We will attend several staff meetings related to the topic of interest (Research Services) We will also be visiting the University of Bath Spa Library (another University in Bath) and the...