Happy new academic year to everyone working and studying in higher education! Here in Sheffield we have been busy planning for the new academic session by bringing together the priorities we set in our summer appraisals and team and departmental objectives. For the Library Learning Services Unit we  are keeping our information and digital literacy offer fresh and agile by responding to the University’s Learning and Teaching priorities. Taking a programme level approach to student learning sits at the heart of this, with new approaches to student assessment and an emphasis on sustainability, inclusivity and employability. 

Our Library Student Associate project this year will support inclusive assessment, particularly where this involves students creatively producing knowledge. One exciting plan is to work alongside students to co-develop a digital exhibition space so that departments can showcase their creative outputs in our flagship Information Commons. 

We are also completing our project to map information and digital literacy into the academic programme and Cat and Rosa, our Project Officers, have worked with our Liaison Librarians and students to co-develop a number of case studies, showcasing the journey of this through different disciplines. This has placed us well to support a University wide project to conceptualise how the skills students develop at University transfer to the workplace. It’s going to be a busy year for us! We’ll be posting about our journey on the blog so register for our updates and follow us, @UniSheffieldLib on twitter and instagram. 

Vicky Grant

Head of Library Learning Services