2016 was quite a year for Information Services.

Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from last year:

1. Study spaces – over 200 new study spaces have been added across our campuses, including the Learning Commons in Edinburgh, 2 new silent study rooms in Malaysia, and a new study area in Dubai.
2. New library management system – Discovery – bringing our collections from Dubai, Malaysia and Scotland into one system.
3. Added new electronic resources to the collection, including:
   1. Oxford’s dictionaries in Arabic, Chinese, French, German and Spanish
   2. 200 Years of the Times
4. Staffed services increased (Edinburgh) – library service desk and IT Helpdesk are now staffed from 8:30 am,  and the Learning Commons from 11 am – 4 pm (weekdays).
5. Vision was upgraded to give a cleaner, more modern user interface
6. We purchased Arkivum – an expandable storage and archiving facility for research data, as part of our research data management support.
7. New books – Over 2,500 new books added to the library collection across all campuses.
8. Effective Learning – expanded the team with two new Effective Learning Advisors, Allyson Noble in Dubai and Stella Galimpin in Malaysia
9. Teaching spaces (Edinburgh) – upgraded 22 teaching rooms and created a new teaching space in Edwin Chadwick (EC207)
10. Internet and Network –  increased the speed and capacity of our network improving our communications between campuses and partner institutions.
11. The student education programme has been reviewed and expanded:

• Induction quiz rolled out to all campuses
• Power Hour program reviewed and updated, and rolled out to all campuses.

12. Power – significantly increased the number of power sockets for recharging personal devices
13. Book borrowing – Simplified our policies and introduced auto-renewal of library items
14. Short term loans – Made it easier to collect at the Edinburgh campus by adding them to the self-service facility
15. WiFi printing services – introduced at Malaysia
16. Publications – Assisted researchers to make over 1000 of their publications and datasets Open Access, increasing public engagement with HWU research.

We also said goodbye and thank you to 2 long serving members of staff – Peter Sandison at SBC and Elaine Gillespie, Edinburgh campus

Please keep talking to us and let us know how we can improve our services. We’re always listening.