Reading strategies
What are “reading strategies”?
The main focus of Reading Strategies is to determine effective ways of ensuring that students get access to essential information materials.
Reading Strategies encourages academic staff to:
- Make it clear to students what is expected of them in each module in terms of purchasing books and wider reading.
- Consider carefully what information materials they are referring students to.
- Liaise with Library Services to ensure recommended materials are available and accessible and that students are supported with opportunities to develop information literacy.
Why “reading strategies”?
There are a number of drivers behind the need for a Reading Strategies approach, including:
- Responses from student satisfaction surveys indicating dissatisfaction with access to books that have been recommended by their lecturers.
- Student expectations about what they get for the money they pay for their studies.
- Supporting our Collections Strategy, including the “development of broad and deep collections rather than narrow collections of multiple copies”.
- Wise spending of Library budgets.
It is the joint responsibility of both the academic staff and the library to provide clarity to students about the reading that is expected of them. The following aims to provide guidance on how this can be achieved.
Applying Reading Strategies
1. Reading Strategies statement
The University requires that every module specification contains a Reading Strategies statement that explains what is expected of a student in terms of what reading materials they should purchase for themselves, what they may find on Blackboard or online, and what support is provided to help them with using the library and finding sources for further reading. Take a look at our example Reading Strategies Statements for some ideas, but bear in mind the text will vary depending on the subject, level and number of students on the module.
2. Essential reading
When considering the reading students are required to do, there are a variety of ways that academic staff can provide access to these materials. The main routes for providing access include – student book purchases, linking to electronic materials, digitising print materials, providing photocopies, using different library loan types
Student book purchases
If there is a textbook that covers the module content well you may want to suggest a student buys their own copy. This expectation should be made explicit to the students to avoid mismatched expectations with regard to accessing limited library materials. You should consider:
- The cost to the student – they are not going to be thrilled if you require them to purchase a book that costs more than, for instance, £50.
- The second-hand retail value – can last years students sell their books to this years students? Or has a new edition been published that renders it of little value?
- Use throughout the course – it should contain information of relevance to the majority of the module, and not just to one element of it. Ideally, it should support other aspects of their year of study, or possibly have relevance to the entire programme.
- Whether other module leads are also requiring students to purchase a book, and the cumulative costs involved.
Most academic publishers are open to the suggestion of custom textbooks, so if a book doesn’t quite cover what you need, you may want to consider approaching the publisher to see if they can customise it (e.g. select chapters from more than one book). Obviously, the publisher would be looking for a minimum order in this situation.
Linking to electronic journal articles, ebooks and other online resources
UWE Library Services subscribes to a wide range of full-text online materials, including electronic journals, electronic books and databases. You may want to create web links to these materials from your module or programme’s Blackboard pages.
Where an essential text is available as an electronic book (eBook), this will automatically be purchased instead of a print copy being added to the Short Loan collection.
We would encourage programme and module leaders to consider recommending a book that is available as an eBook rather than a book that is not, where the content covered is similar.
Digitising journal articles / book chapters.
Chapters of books or individual articles that are not already available online can be digitised and added to your Blackboard pages.
Certain conditions must be met under the terms of our copyright licence, therefore we recommend digitisation requests are processed by the Library, so that we can ensure legal compliance. To request, complete the online form.
Providing photocopies of articles / book chapters.
Our Copyright licence, and many of our licences for online materials, allow you to make printed study packs (1 copy per student plus one for the lecturer). This covers most material, but not everything on the Library shelves.
If you would like to do this, please contact your Subject Librarian including details of the articles and chapters you would like to include, and Library Services can advise on the whether material you intend to use is covered by the licence.
Variety of loan categories, i.e. reference, 4-hour (short loan), 1-week and 4-weeks.
The Library makes use of a number of different loan periods for its printed stock, depending on how the material will be used.
Short Loan items are available for a 4 hour loan period, and allow more students to access an item. It can be used where the following criteria are met:
- The item is not available as an eBook
- Multiple chapters are of relevance, but it didn’t fit the criteria for a student purchase
- It is rare or difficult to obtain elsewhere (e.g. reports from non-mainstream publishers, out-of-print but relevant material)
In addition to the above criteria, the item should also be in high demand. This may be a peak due to a piece of work a group of students have been asked to do, or it may be in high demand throughout the academic year.
If an item is not borrowed from the Short Loan collection 5 or more times in an academic year, it will be moved to the main collection and made available on a longer loan period.
Alternative loan periods (which are inter-filed on the main shelves) should also be considered: reference only, 1-week, 4-weeks.
To ask for an item to be added to the Short Loan collection, please provide your Subject Librarian with:
- Details of the book/item
- Why you feel it needs to be in Short Loan
- Module it is supporting
- Approx number of students
- Temporary move to Short Loan (e.g. for the period of a specific project) or Permanent (in demand all year round)
3 Library Skills Teaching
Subject Librarians aim to support students’ information seeking skills (as per the Library Services Information Literacy Policy) in a number of different ways.
Research has shown that this is most effective when it is:
- Relevant and timely to a particular piece of academic work
- Embedded in the curriculum and, preferably, assessed
- Supported, encouraged and attended by the academic staff
Therefore, we encourage all programme/module leaders to contact us to discuss how library and information literacy skills can be embedded into your teaching schedule at all levels.
We can offer:
- Face-to-face and hands-on classes
- Customised eLearning Units to support specific modules or assignments
- Guidance on how to make the most of iSkillZone and Study Skills tools.
Contacts
Contact your Subject Librarian for assistance in developing and agreeing a reading strategy and a plan for library skills teaching.
Page last updated 9 November 2011