Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal June 2006 Volume 4(3)

Aiming Higher

From a distance

A recent newspaper article identified the local library supporting a community of European workers new to the Highlands. Polish workers are visiting their local public library, initially to use email to establish communication with their families and friends in Poland, but now the trend is changing. The new library users are requesting material to read in their native language and the response in the national newspaper stated that the library would provide daily newspapers to meet this demand.

This demand for material in languages other than English was replicated in a recent CILIPS Council meeting when it was revealed that Dundee too was addressing this new issue of a migrant community making use of the local library services. Another SCURL member institution, Glasgow City Libraries, revealed that the Gorbals Library and Learning Centre has 50 PCs available which were in use by the new residents from Russia and Poland. It is heartening to note that this issue is being addressed by CILIPS Council and its members.

The Open University in Scotland, a SCURL member institution, recently announced an initiative aimed at encouraging more refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland to attend university. ‘Diverse Routes to Higher Education’ aims to improve access to higher education for ethnic minorities who have chosen to settle in Scotland. The project pack contains information, in 14 languages, on accessing higher education, financial support, credit transfer facilities, English language courses and local resources tailored to the specific needs of people in different areas in Scotland. The pack was developed in collaboration with Scotland’s education institutions and organisations within the Wider Access Regional Forums. The initiative is funded by the Scottish Funding Council, which has observer status on SCURL.

The Inter Library Loan services of the National Library of Scotland has collated information on languages other than English held in libraries and this could prove invaluable to support libraries borrowing material for their new users. The University of Glasgow Language Centre has a collection of 10,000 items in more than 60 languages available for their members to access. Their website provides more information on the Centre.

Turning the tables, Scotland in general, and SCURL member institutions in particular, have demonstrated their business acumen to the knowledge economy abroad. The School of Science and Technology at Bell College in Hamilton has received specific interest in one of their science courses from China, and a new cohort of Chinese students will arrive for the 2006-2007 academic term.

Paisley University Business School has received media interest for their Executive MBA course, delivered one Saturday per month, which has been developed as a flexible learning programme and specifically designed for those students already engaged in employment.

Similarly, the Graduate School of Business at Strathclyde University has developed a course which has accreditation with a kitemark indicating the international nature of the degree. This course will attract students from overseas thus bringing an international dimension to the School. In both examples, library provision and access to e-resources are sought to underpin the needs of the students.

The www2006 international symposium, held in Edinburgh in May, revealed that Scotland was a “world leader” in delivering distance and e-education. This area was perceived as an expanding market as distance and online learning has benefited from a growth rate of 21% over the past decade. Frost and Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, estimated this growth to have a value of £1.54bn in 2005.3 Jose Marie Griffiths spoke at the Celtic Connections Conference in Cardiff in May on demonstrating the economic value of providing library services to local business, and of the time saved to industry by using the local public library. The speaker reflected on the “halo effect” where members of the public visit the local library and then purchase goods in local retailers adjacent to the library.

An initiative called Institute for System Level Integration is a collaboration between SCURL members Edinburgh, Glasgow, Heriot-Watt and Strathclyde Universities, created in 1998. It is a centre of excellence in postgraduate education and research, into system level collaboration and has links with both the Scottish research community and the Eastern entrepreneurs in Shanghai and Singapore. Training for Japanese systems designers has been developed and delivered from these central Scotland universities.

Scotland’s e-learning and distance learning opportunities and the welcome extended to new European residents and asylum seekers ensure that our library services must have financial resources to support our new users with diverse learning opportunities. Financial resources must be assured.

Jill Evans is Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL) Service Development Manager.

Information Scotland Vol. 4(3) June 2006

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.