Monash University and its library: organisational chart, some facts and figures, and my presentation

Monash University was established in Melbourne in 1958. Today Monash University has seven locations, five in Australia, one in Malaysia and one in South Africa. In 2015, the number of students was 70,071 and 37% of them were international students.
The total number of staff is 14,869 (8,423 full-time equivalent). 764 staff work in Malaysia and 252 in South Africa.

The Monash University Library was established in 1960, and today it falls within the portfolio of the Provost & Senior Vice President of the university. The Library is represented in the Academic Board, the Education Committee and the Research Committee.

Under the University Librarian there are four directors:
Director, Resources
Director, Research
Director, Excellence and Engagement
Director, Education

Under the Director, Education you have some Faculty team leaders, the Manager for the Caulfield Library, the Manager for the Law Library, the Manager for Information Research Skills, the Manager for Learning Skills, the eLearning Coordinator, and the Copyright Adviser.

I wished we would have some of these positions in our library!

Under the Director, Excellence and Engagement you have the Manager for the Sir Louis Matheson Library, the Communications Manager, the Manager for Strategy and Planning, and the Operations Manager.

Under the Director, Resources you have the Information Resources Manager, the Information Systems Manager, the Rare Books Librarian, the Document Delivery Librarian, the Lending Services Librarian.

Under the Director, Research you have the Director for Monash University Publishing, the Research Data Management Coordinator, the Manager for the Monash University Research Repository, some Faculty team leaders, the Manager for Berwick and Peninsula Libraries, the Manager for the Hargrave-Andrew Library and the Manager for CL Butchers Pharmacy Library.

Here you have the organisational chart:  http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0008/594278/library-organisational-structure-aug2016.pdf 

The library has a physical collection of 3.1 million items and an electronic collection of 1.1 million items. In 2015, the library conducted 1,571 Information Research and Learning programmes (courses) with a total of 59,578 participants. There were 6,372 enquiries at the Research and Learning Service Points, 9,259 enquiries by telephone, 1,258 enquiries via email (ask.monash) and the ask.monash FAQs were accessed 14,092 times.

Most interesting is that the library tries to avoid the use of the words " services" and "support". Instead it prefers the words "collaboration" and "partnership".  And the library has really achieved being a partner of teachers and researchers and not only a service provider. 

I also gave a presentation to some of the library staff and got lots of questions again. It is so good to be able to give something back!

See the next blog post for more information about the Research Skill development Framework that is included in the university's educational plan!!!