Key details
Date of development: October 2023
Cost: £131,000
Who funded it: Arts and Humanities Research Council – Capacity for Collections fund (AHRC CapCo)
Case study themes
Service sustainability, accessibility
Project summary
Building on a good track record of delivering collaborative projects and digital innovation, the team at Newcastle University Special Collections came up with a five-year plan to improve their research and teaching spaces, including enhanced digital engagement capabilities.
The result is a Collaborative Learning Hub which incorporates a virtual reading room and hybrid teaching for groups of up to 40 participants. Unlike the quiet space offered to individuals in a traditional reading room, the Hub allows collections to be used interactively by diverse groups with technology extending the reach of site-based research through bespoke one-to-one virtual sessions.
View of the Collaborative Hub from the main library, showing the finished glazed wall. © Newcastle University.
Challenges and opportunities
A series of Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 and 2021 meant that the university needed to deliver teaching and learning remotely. The Special Collections team saw this as an opportunity to learn more about virtual reading rooms. Conversations with other universities showed that virtual reading rooms were a big priority for many services and that developing this work would benefit from shared learning. Following the creation of a working group, the ‘New Frontiers and Access’ report, which included a virtual reading room toolkit, was published in July 2021.
In 2020, a bid to extend the digitisation suite was submitted to the AHRC’s Capability for Collections fund, targeting infrastructure improvement with the galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM) sector. Creating the bid meant the Special Collections team led on a research funding project for the first time. Although the project was considered fundable, the bid was not successful.
Despite this disappointment, the team remained positive having grown in confidence during the process. They had developed a relationship with the Research Office and found new ways to collaborate with key supportive academics. They learnt how to advocate for their project, develop relationships, and how to align Special Collections with wider research happening in the university. These skills would prove useful in the longer term when a revised bid was successful for the Collaborative Learning Hub.
Outcomes
The Hub has allowed the team to make their collections more visible, both to the university, the wider community, and external partners. Having a more prominent, modern, and fit-for-purpose space in the library has helped Special Collections develop as a service. The team’s new offering has helped them develop better links with academic staff and the research institutes within the university.
The Hub is a flexible teaching space which allows Special Collections to maintain collections care standards in larger group sessions. The way the audiovisual equipment has been installed in the room means it is possible to host sessions which can be both in-person, and wholly virtual or blended, with streaming and recording. This is achieved through ceiling mounted visualiser, microphones, and adjustable cameras offering a large scope of field.
A video recording using the visualiser takes place. © Newcastle University.
The space allows Special Collections to collaborate with regional, national and international organisations as well as its own staff and students. Collaborations have included Historic England, the Wordsworth Trust and New York Public Library, and the space is also widely used by their award winning Education Outreach team to engage young people with heritage.
What did you learn from the process?
It was difficult to get the installation of the technology right. The university’s AV Service had some experience of setting up blended spaces in other schools and services, but the use of visualisers was a new specification needed by Special Collections. A cross library and university group worked through these complexities from a multi-stakeholder perspective. By the end of the work, Estates, AV Services, and central IT were able to turn their experience into a case study of a complex project and use it to promote themselves!
There are some issues with staff confidence when using the visualisers and associated equipment. This is partly due to teething issues in the set up of technical specifications. Staff are offered refresher training to help them feel more confident in using the equipment, with cross library briefings planned, and experienced staff from the Special Collections team can offer support when needed. AV Services support of the project (as mentioned above) means that their help is available if things do go wrong.
Although the furniture in the Hub is modular (in different pieces) and easy to set up, it is possibly a little too flexible. The team were keen to be able to set up the furniture in various ways, as this hadn’t been possible before and could cause problems. For example, students crowding around large tables where not everyone can see. Looking back, a short menu of possible layouts may have been easier and saved time. Setting up the space is time consuming for the Special Collections team, however a choice of layouts now means the Library Attendant team can better assist.
A group session in the Collaborative Hub. © Newcastle University.
Experimenting on a small scale is useful. In 2020, the team installed a desktop then ceiling mounted visualiser in the reading room. This meant they could facilitate live teaching and research during lockdowns and record sessions. In line with social distancing rules at the time, the reading room could also only accommodate one researcher.
The team quickly realised the potential of a virtual reading room, developing associated processes, but also that it wouldn’t work in this setting long term where quiet lone research was co-located. They obtained a small amount of funding internally and worked with the university’s Estates, AV Services and IT teams to repurpose an underused cluster of PCs in the library with a visualiser. The space opened in December 2022.
Look for opportunities everywhere. By December 2022, the team were offering a virtual reading room experience even though the offer wasn’t perfect. By experimenting, they could prove what was needed to create a permanent offer.
Therefore, when the AHRC’s Capability for Collections fund approached them to offer the funding that was previously unsuccessful (for the extension of the digitisation suite), the team had a ready-made alternative proposition. Based on the strength and spirit around greater accessibility of the initial bid and backed by all the work that had been done since, the team secured the funding to develop the Hub.
What is one piece of advice you would give others in a similar position?
Have a flexible strategy. This is important because it means you can fit into different scenarios if plans change. You may need to act quickly when an opportunity comes up, so articulate and quantify what you need as you go. Considering who else might benefit from your strategy helps build supporters and develop your case.
It may be necessary to step out of your comfort zone and seek out other people to work with. For Special Collections, this meant developing relationships internally with academic and research support services and externally with the wider GLAM sector. If possible, find a way to develop a proof of concept or evidence so others can see that your strategy will deliver. Having a resilient, flexible strategy helps team members to develop resilience and manage change.
How will this work be developed in the future?
The first in a series of videos called ‘Connected Collections’ has been shared through the Special Collections website and on YouTube. It features a discussion and exploration of one of the earliest books in the collection by two leading academics. The video takes the knowledge of academic experts onto a social media platform which is accessible to anyone. This fosters stakeholder engagement and co-curation.
Now that Special Collections have a flexible way to deliver learning and engagement, the team are looking to improve their storage spaces. A site for a new archival standard store has been found and the costs calculated. The team are using the experience gained during the creation of the Hub to drive the project. They are speaking to possible partners to help to build the business case.