Meeting with one of the liaison teams at UQ

When I was talking to some of the liaison librarians at UQ Library we were mainly talking about Collection Development and Teaching.

It was interesting to hear that there are different budgets for collection development, that means there is one budget for print literature, one for e-books and of course one for the subscriptions. The focus is on electronic literature but the liaison librarians also buy print books when needed.
Even more interesting was that there is a particular budget for course readings and the liaison librarians are NOT involved in this.

Regarding teaching it was most interesting to hear that the liaison librarians don't teach any generic courses anymore, only courses embedded in the curriculum. And like at QUT they do lots of consultations, face to face, via email or via the library chat. 
This chat service is available Monday to Friday from 8:00 am till 7:45 pm and on weekends from 9:00 am till 4:45pm. That means there are always some of the librarians working on Saturday or Sunday.

Liaison librarians usually meet at the teaching and learning committees that exist in all schools (institutes) or they go to the Faculty teaching and learning support meetings. 
That is something we at NTNU should do too.

Btw, the liaison team for Sciences, Engineering, IT and Architecture comprises one manager and 10 librarians. Like at QUT the liaison librarians mostly don't have a degree in the subject they support.