Library Services Annual Report 2021 published

Library staff continued to demonstrate resilience, community spirit and dedication in face of rapidly changing situations and helped minimise the impact of the pandemic for students and staff on their education and research.

This year, we developed new services and expanded our provision of online resources and support tools to support users wherever they were. The Student Centre and Temporary Study Spaces stayed open through two national lockdowns for students and staff who were eligible to work on campus and Library teams continued to come in to deliver our Click and Collect and Scan and Send services.

Our focus on Customer Service was recognised with the reaccreditation as part of the UK Government’s Customer Service Excellence (CSE award). We gained full compliance in all 57 categories and compliance plus in ten.

Library staff were absolutely pivotal and enabled us to excel in our response to the pandemic.

Dr Paul Ayris Pro-Vice-Provost (UCL Library Services & UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship) said:

““We are indebted to the agility and professionalism of staff in their rapid acquisition of skills, adaptation to changing circumstances, and discovery of new channels to reach and support users wherever they were”.

The year was hugely successful for the department and individual staff. We received two awards in the ‘Outstanding response to teaching or support during the pandemic’ category in the Provost's Education Awards. The Library’s EDI Committee were awarded the Sarah Guise award for Catalyst for Change and Noel Caliste, won the Staff Equality Network Member of the Year Award in the UCL EDI awards.

As we shape the next Library Services strategy we build on strong foundations. We also recognise the continuing impacts of the pandemic and are committed to driving cultural change, collectively promoting Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) values, and empowering staff to achieve their potential.

Read our Library Services Annual Report 2021.