the original university library was constructed in 1967 the building has needed to grow to meet demand, with increasing student numbers. This included an exten- sion in 1997, a major remodelling in 2015 and the most recent extension which opened in 2021, offering an additional 400 study spaces, supported learning area providing dedicated space for teaching and guidance from Faculty Librarian and Learning Developer teams, a collaborative research and project space and an events and exhibition area. The library provides a 21st century learning environment which reflects the ways in which students, staff and visitors want to use the space, and benefits all our university communities. Having a dedicated events and exhibition space ena- bles us to promote the work we do around partnership and collaboration, engaging with the wider Lancaster and Morecambe community as well as students and research groups. The space has offered new opportuni- ties to work with communities across the city, includ- ing refugee and asylum seeker groups, local schools and colleges and community groups such as LBH and the Sewing Café Lancaster8
.
What we’ve learned It is important to reflect on, and to share the opportunities and challenges, in our work around community engage- ment for those thinking about developing your offer. Buy-in from senior university colleagues is key, espe- cially when exploring free community membership. At Lancaster, previous membership schemes generated an annual income of approximately £2500 (based on 2018/19 membership). In addition, there may be a feel- ing that we are a university library, shouldn’t we just be open to university students, researchers, and staff. The proposed scheme was endorsed whole-heartedly at Lancaster in line with the commitment to our city and region demonstrated in both the University strategy and library vision, and it was felt that loss of income was not that significant (and moving away from multi- ple membership schemes to one meant a reduction in administration costs).
However, community access to the library build- ing may not work for other institutions – Lancaster University’s location outside of the city means that community members need to plan their visit (we are a bus-journey from the centre of Lancaster). For libraries located in city or town centres, community access may be problematic with anyone able to walk in, at any time of the day (especially with many university libraries open 24/7). At Lancaster we have put in access control to enter the building between 10pm and 6am to ensure security of the building.
It’s important to think about who the library is hop- ing to attract and to focus promotion of community schemes to targeted groups. We have worked closely with the External Stakeholder team and the Press Office at the university, ensuring that internal and external networks are used, and that there is visibility in what we are trying to do. Collaboration and part- nership with individual community groups has been key – we have given value to our ambitions to support our community by curating and creating content that might be valuable to a local community group, for example, LBH.
Finally, my key takeaway is not to assume we know what the community want or need from the partnership with the library – put in time for conversations, listen and respond to feedback, and involve colleagues at all levels of the organisation. IP
April-May 2023 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 31
Lancaster Library. References
1 Lancaster University Library (2021) The Library Towards 2025. Available at
www.lancaster.ac.uk/ library/towards-2025/
2 Lancaster University (2020) Lancaster Slavery Family Trees Community Research Project. Availa- ble at
www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/upmprojects/lancaster-slavery-family-trees-community-researh-project(0d750 01c-fb71-48eb-9765-1248e8c617a3).html
3 Lancaster Black History Group (2023) Partnering with Facing the Past projects in the city. Availa- ble at:
https://lancasterblackhistorygroup.com/2022/05/13/partnering-with-facing-the-past-projects-in-the-city/
4 Lancaster University (2023) Satterthwaite Letter Books. Available at:
https://digitalcollections.lancaster.
ac.uk/collections/satterthwaite/1
5 Lancaster University (2021) Principles of open research at Lancaster University. Available at: www.
lancaster.ac.uk/library/open-research/principles-of-open-research/
6 Lancaster University (2021) Strategic plan 2021-2026. Available at:
www.lancaster.ac.uk/strategic-plan- ning-and-governance/strategic-plan/
7 Lancaster University (2022) Open Access and Free Resources. Available at:
https://lancaster.libguides. com/OpenAccessResources
8 Sewing Café (2023) Sewing Café Lancaster. Available at
https://sewingcafelancaster.com/
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
