At the start of a new year, it is always nice to think back about the achievements of the previous year, and what lies ahead in the coming year.  Not only is it good to think about what we have done, it is also important to consider the impact it has had.  In order to do this, Library & University Collections published a Impact Report for 13/14 at the end of last year.  It is great to be able to see the range of services the Library provides to the University, and how this contributes to the work of the institution.

Here are some highlights from the report, which can be viewed online as a PDF, or picked up from one of our libraries:

High  Quality Collections

• University’s rare and unique collections now discoverable online at collections.ed.ac.uk
• Satisfying over 13,000 Interlibrary loan requests
• Providing access to over 50,000 e-journals and 365,400 e-books… any time, any place
• More than 15,600 books acquired in response to user requests
• Preserving and making accessible UNESCO- awarded HIV/AIDS collections
• 2,400 new hi-resolution photographs added to collections.ed.ac.uk
• The National Student Survey showed 90% of our students felt our physical and online collections met their study needs

 Delivering Excellent Services

• Acquired more than 700 books and prepared over 5,000 journal articles for submission to REF 2014
• Helped the University achieve a 64% RCUK Open Access rate with 30,000+ full text items now held in our repositories
• HLF-funded collaboration with RNIB Scotland to improve access to archives for blind and partially sighted people
• Library opening hours extended in response to student feedback

First Rate Engagement

• Libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk: sharing our projects, services and collections
• @EdUniLibraries: building relationship networks on social media
• Engaging with students at Innovative Learning Week: seven events attended by over 100 people
• 24 interns and 70 volunteers gave us 15,000 extra hours’ work on our collections
• Rashid exhibition showcased the Library’s rarest manuscript

Attracting External Investment

• £820,000 secured from Heritage Lottery Fund for St Cecilia’s Hall redevelopment
• Five Wellcome Trust funded projects supported
• Europeana Cloud secured €37,000 in funding from EU programme
• £33,000 awarded by Jisc for the ‘Lessons in Open Access Compliance in Higher Education’ project

The coming year will be an exciting one for Library and University Collections. Many of our programmes will continue, and our exhibition schedule is already planned, including “Out of the Blue” – a celebration of the colour blue highlighting a mixture of interesting and thought provoking items from our collections. We will continue to provide access to a growing number of online collections through our showcase website collections.ed.ac.uk

We will also be undertaking some major projects, including the procurement and implementation of a new Library Management IT System. This will enable us to further enhance the student experience of Library course collections, utilising new approaches in how we provide access to e-resources. Such projects will enable us to review and streamline many of our internal processes, continually improving the library services that we offer.

Building work will begin on St Cecilia’s Hall early in the new year, embarking on a £6.5 million refit and renovation to create a world-class museum to house and display our important collection of historical musical instruments.

These are only a few of the highlights that we look forward to delivering over the coming, very exciting, year as we continue to provide high quality collections, and deliver excellent services and first-rate engagement.

Stuart Lewis
Acting Director of Library and University Collections