This might be a more interesting title than the content deserves. Delft University of Technology and TU Delft Library have last year updated their websites (and cms). The weblog “TULibrarian” that I used, has also got a facelift. There is a new url now.
However, it made me think of the things that passed my desk the last few weeks in Delft, and that changing is not always easy, but sometimes surprisingly good. There are three things that I would like to use as showcases.
- For many years we have a lot of individual Erasmus enquiries (for staff visiting our library). We tried many times to combine this in one week, so that it would save us our own staff time, but also to enrich the visiting staff experience (meeting peers from abroad, and having the same experience together is always very rewarding). This was difficult. Last year we succeeded when we joined up with our Library colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam. However this year we really had a great event. We organized it ourselves as part of the IMOTION project (a lot of people helped here!), and we had around 17 people from 9 different countries exchanging experience and learning about “open science in research libraries”. It was a lot of work, but it went great. One of the reasons it was so successful, was also due to:
- The “Datastewardship in practice” day organized in the same week by our Library Research Data Services team, with also help of many others. We had good speakers, showcases of our own Datastewards, discussions and presentations. I had the pleasure to close the event at the end of the day, and when asking many people showed hands confirming they had met new people and learned new things. As I mentioned then I was pleased that I met Danny Kingsley (thanks Marta Teperek for introducing!), and to learn about the career framework Kim Huipen from The VSNU referred to. The event was organized by our own staff, and organizing is what we are good at. The program for “surviving space” was also presented past week:
- This Summer the Netherlands Space Office, Leiden University, the European Space Agency ESA and Delft University of Technology will host the International Space University’s Space Studies Program. Around this prestigious summer school programme we also organize events, lectures, and exhibitions. Again a multicompetent team from our Library collaborates successfully.
Are these three showcases examples of change? Yes and no, I think that they are examples of patience, collaboration, and pleasure. But also proof of the change we as library are “just living”. Doers have the future. So a big applaud for everybody involved in these things. And thanks to Monique IJzinga for setting up this new weblog!