This has been a difficult year for the Library at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals with 2 members of staff (including the Manager) on long term sick leave since June 2019. However, it has not diminished our attempts to continually improve the service for our patrons. A number of initiatives and developments have taken place and led to an improved service and experience for the users of the Library.
The Pop-Up Library Service for staff at St Anne’s PCC
This is an expansion of our existing Outreach Services provided by Laura Sims and has proved very popular with the staff based at St Anne’s.
Summer Reading Challenge
Following the success of our 2018 Winter Reading challenge we decided to run a Summer Reading challenge, we had over 30 people sign up to take part. The reading challenges have proven to be popular and are also a great way of promoting the Library. Our winner was very happy with her certificate and prize. See below
Ebsco Discovery
Earlier in the year we set up and launched our Ebsco Discovery service to allow our users’ easy access to our resources.
How did We Do Today?
A further new initiative for collecting user feedback within the Library, which came out of a meeting with Gill Young regarding the Quality and Improvement Outcomes Framework, was the board below. This is working really well and helps us to get an idea of what people come to the Library for and what they think of it. It has also increased the number of suggestions forms that we receive which is great for learning more about what are users want and need. The statistics are collected weekly and the board cleared for the next week. We may look at using this technique for other surveys in the future as it is so quick and easy for people to take part.
Self-Service comes to the Library
In the summer of 2019, the BTH Library took delivery of its new Self-Service Kiosk from bibliotheca +3M. This latest procurement by the Library is a welcome addition to the continuing innovations and will allow borrowers to Issue, Renew and Return their books 24/7. This new development also meant that the entire Library’s book collection became RFID enabled and a new security entrance/exit gate was installed. The software that runs the Self-Service System and enables it to interact with the Library’s Management System – Heritage was installed by 2CQR.
This latest innovation has proved extremely popular with the users’ especially “out of hours” usage and since a PR and directional campaign, has seen over 90% of all circulation tasks done through the new self-service kiosk. Pictured below is Mr Tony Halford (Senior Technical Service Engineer) 2CQR with Library staff Michael Reid and Sue Beames, testing the new system prior to launch!
Michael Reid
Clinical/Management Librarian
Blackpool Hospitals NHS FT
