I am the Audiovisual LIbrarian at Christchurch Polytechnic, Learning
Resource Centre. We have a community of about 20,000 students,
- mostly part-time - and 2,000 staff. We teach vocational courses
(trades) through to degrees in Nursing, Broadcasting, Japanese and
more being added each year. This is a fairly new direction.
I manage a collection of about 1500 videos.
We are a self-renewing style of library so our collection is aimed
at supporting the teaching being done now. Our cataloguing
system is Library of Congress. We practice participatory
management which allows us a wide range of experiences. We
are heavy computer users and offer a wide range of databases to
our students, multimedia, access to Reuters etc. We are
currently planning building extensions to include more computer
access for students - internet, tv, databases etc with 24 hr drop-in
computer suites (we currently have two suites available seven days
a week when the LRC is open). We have satelite branches and the
Polytechnic is branching out into distance education - all challenges
for the library.
I would love to hear from someone in a similar institution to compare
audiovisual services, computing services and library services and
technology generally. In the future I also have to recommend a
management system for our media arts slide collection - any tips
on that would be gratefully received. I'd love to visit Library of
Congress. I leave New Zealand on Friday 17th May so replies by
return mail would be most appreciated.
Lynley Aldridge
Audiovisual Librarian
Learning Resource Centre
Christchurch Polytechnic
P O Box 22095
Christchurch
New Zealand email - aldridgel@lib.chchp.ac.nz
fax - 64 3 3745346