Who am I and what is the purpose of my visit?

My name is Almuth Gastinger and since 2000 I have been working as Senior Research Librarian at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. I graduated from Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany, with a PhD in Applied Informatics. So I am a German living in Norway.

My main professional interests include international co-operation, network building and staff exchange, CPD, information literacy, Open Access, research support, and subject librarian tasks.

I was member of IFLA Information Literacy Section Standing Committee between 2007 and 2015, and I was elected as member of IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning (CPDWL) Section Standing Committee in 2015. I am also active in IFLA National Organisations and International Relations Special Interest Group. In 2010 I was appointed Norway’s representative to NATO Knowledge and Information Management Committee. I have attended many conferences, given presentations and published articles and book-chapters, in English, German and Norwegian

I will travel to Australia on 18th of October and stay for about five weeks while visiting various university libraries in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.

The aim of this study visit is to gather information and knowledge on good practices regarding organisational structures, strategies and practices for research support services, information literacy teaching and internationalisation at Australian university libraries in order to consider strategies to improve structures and services at NTNU University Library.

I hope to develop an understanding of what services to support the learning, teaching and research needs of students and staff are provided and how they are organised.

The main questions to be answered are the following:

1. What research support do researchers get from their university and library, and how is this organised? (This includes strategies, services, practical work, organisational structures, collaboration between the library and other university departments/units, etc.)
2. What strategies and practices exist concerning information literacy and digital literacy teaching and what changes have been made during the last years? (This includes content of courses, technologies and methods used, assessment of learning outcomes, how the teaching is organised and how it is integrated in the curriculum.)
3. How do Australian academic libraries deal with internationalisation? How do they support international students and staff? How do they support colleagues who want to go abroad, and how do they work on international projects?
4. Which organisational structure is appropriate for providing high quality services, and what processes and considerations led to the present structure?