Research and learning support at Macquarie

I was supposed to meet the Library Services Coordinator  for the IL Support & Development Team but because of an incident in her family she didn't work that day.

But I had very good meetings with two of the Discipline Group teams.

In the morning I met the Medicine, and Human & Health Sciences group team that supports two faculties. In this team there are two clinical librarians (helping with literature searches, conducting teaching and collection development and being included in discussions about clinical cases and project work), two research librarians (responsible for research consultations, training at all levels, Open Access support, bibliometric analyses) and one service librarian (working on the desk and on the LibGuides).
The team has also developed a game for information literacy and it uses Slack as its communication platform. See below for the various services.

In the afternoon I met the manager and one of the research librarians (she is also a teacher librarian) of the Science and Engineering group team. The group has similar tasks as the other team (but not working on clinical cases of course),  and as the other team it provides support through membership on faculty research sub-committees and committees for standards & quality and learning & teaching. That means in these committees the librarians inform researchers and teachers how they can support the units/programmes and the research.

In terms of research support the library offers research consultations for:

• Advanced database searching including search/subject alerts
• Identifying useful methodology
• Evaluating sources, literature reviews and systematic reviews
• Digital literacies
• Bibliographic and referencing management including EndNote and Mendeley
• Strategic publishing: journal/book/article impact
• Researcher impact measures: metrics and altmetrics
• Copyright and IP advice
• early career researcher support (targeted research support and services throughout the research cycle)

Clinical research consultations are provided for literature searches for clinical research questions and evidence-based practice questions.

There is also a guide for Open Access at Macquarie, see here: http://libguides.mq.edu.au/Open_Access
Research Data Management is a relatively new area for the library, however they have developed a nice toolkit:  http://www.research.mq.edu.au/current_research_staff/data_management/managing_research_data/research_toolkit 


In terms of assignment and study support, the library offers "walk in assignment research support" for all students. Also virtual research support (learning support) is provided for all students via phone, email or chat.
There are many subject and research guides (LibGuides). Here you have an overview:  http://libguides.mq.edu.au/home


In addition, Macquarie University Library provides an online research and information literacy support tool, that is called InfoWise. Students and staff can self enrol and get support anywhere anytime.  http://www.mq.edu.au/about/campus-services-and-facilities/library/research/infowise

There is another online tool that is called StudyWise. This tool was specifically designed to help students to manage studies, strengthen study techniques, write effective assignments, and improve English language proficiency.

For the second time here I have heard the term "Library Carpentry". I got to know that Library Carpentry is software skills training aimed at the needs and requirements of library professionals. The training usually takes place in face-to-face workshops where one or more of the modules are taught. Modules are also made available online (CC BY, published via GitHub Pages) for self-directed study or for adaption and reuse by library professionals. So Library Carpentry is made by librarians for librarians. Cool!

Thanks to colleagues from Macquarie University Library for very interesting talks!!!