Fairfield Libraries HSC program 2012

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Fairfield City Library Service

HSC Lecture Program

Why do we run the lectures?Fairfield City Library Service has offered the HSC Lecture Program since 1995.

Our Library Manager and Council are fully supportive of the HSC lecture program and recognise the value in what we are doing. • The HSC age group is a major user group in the library.• The lectures are seen as a significant event, adding value to the community, complementing/supporting the work schools do as well as meeting council’s vision of life long learning.

The lecture program has helped create positive relationships between the Library and the 13 high schools in the LGA by supporting the information needs of Year 12 students.

HSC High Fliers Lecture Program (1)

Over the years we have built good relationships with the schools and they trust us to provide a quality program and thereby encourage their students to attend. Our lectures are offered for only $7, similar lectures presented by the same lecturers at Sydney University costing much more.

Where does the money come from?• There isn’t a separate budget for HSC so it is paid for out of the Childrens/Youth budget. We aim to cost recover and most years have recovered our expenses. The money gets paid back into the same budget before the end of financial year.

• The attendance fee the students pay covers the cost of lecturers and insurance

HSC High Fliers Lecture Program (2)

The lecture program has changed/expanded over the years in terms of:• number of students attending• venues• marketing strategies• range of subjects and workshops offered• content/format of lectures

Continuous Improvement is achieved by adjusting the process of planning, implementing and evaluating the HSC program each year.

HSC High Fliers Lecture Program (3)

Planning & Implementation

Term 1: Feb-Mar

- Contact schools- Formulate program- Book speakers, venues, equipment

Term 2: Apr-Jun

- HSC Marketing Team formed- Distribution of fliers/promotion- Lectures & workshops held

Term 3: Aug

- Evaluation/debrief

No. booked: 356

No. paid: 288

No. attended: 255

Evaluations completed 227

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No. booked: No. paid: No. attended: Evaluations completed

2008 Attendance Figures

2009 Attendance Figures

No. booked: 223

No. attended: 177

Evaluations completed 151

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No. booked: No. attended: Evaluations completed

• The evaluations were encouraging.

• Making contact with schools started off well but follow ups were not particularly successful. Library staff being on leave and off sick also had an impact.

•In 2009 3 schools did not accommodate visits, flyer drops only were made to these schools.

• Consider having members of the 2010 HSC team visit schools in their area* so they may develop a better rapport with students –when they visit the library and see a familiar face!

• The Deputy Principal from one high school suggested that maybe we attend staff meetings in 2010 and address the staff instead of or in addition to assembly visits for students.

2008-2009 HSC Lecture Evaluation

2010 Attendance Figures

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No. booked: No. attended: Evaluations completed

No. booked: 193

No. attended: 178

Evaluations completed 153

• Again evaluations were positive.

BUT

• Making contact with the schools continued to be difficult with 5 schools not organising a visit – staff could only drop off flyers.

• We needed to decide if the HSC Lectures program was still worthwhile. Given the time and effort required to plan and organise and the attendance numbers that were achieved this year.

2010 HSC Lecture Evaluation

Attendance had been dropping over the last few years, due to a variety of factors:

• Schools offering/organising lectures with the Universities

• More libraries offering HSC lectures

• Increased social media usage and various websites such as Board of Studies & Bored of Studies

• Private tuition – both 1 on 1 and coaching colleges

• These competitive factors have greatly affected our attendances, students are spoilt for choice, in fact there is information overload with perhaps too much choice.

Despite these factors we still feel there is value in running the lectures and do not want to see the program end!

Possible Explanations

• Numbers were still dropping – this was disappointing

• The barriers we faced getting into schools for visits:- Admin staff not passing on messages- messages going to the wrong staff member- time constraints – school procedures?- reluctant school staff – who’s responsible?

• We needed to give serious consideration to:• should we continue?• should we change the format?• did the attendance figures justify the time, effort and cost involved?

Time for a reality check...

1. The number of staff involved in the HSC Team was reduced to 3.5 from the original 7 people – this meant consolidating tasks and less meetings!

2. Instead of battling to get in to schools to visit Information packages were created for the Yr 12 co-ordinators.

• Packs included a cover letter, posters and enough flyers for each Yr 12 student as well as a smaller pack for the school librarian.• Packs were left with administration staff at the front desk - this process was not without issues – when we rang the schools to check that the packs had been received some teachers had not seen them. Why?

Time for some drastic changes (1)

3. The number of lectures was reduced to 3 - English, Business studies and Maths (2 unit) – this was down from the usual 5.

No. of students booked: 167 No. of students attended: 158

The attendance figures for 2011 were extremely encouraging given the drastic changes we made, suggesting that our students still value this program!

Time for some drastic changes (2)

After hearing the success stories of HSC lock-ins at last years HSC Forum, we returned to work wanting to conduct our own.

Time constraints and logistics – security, money for presenters – plus already having our regular HSC lectures planned, meant we had to shelve the idea.

We would still like to trial a lock in during 2012 – during stuvac September 2012 – and are putting together a proposal as we speak.

HSC Forum 2011 – Let’s lock them in!

Picture book resources that may be used as additional/related texts for the HSC English – Area of Study - Belonging have been relocated to a special HSC resources display at our main library.

These items are available on 1 week loan, can be reserved and transferred to branches upon request.

DVDs and other material types will be added as we develop the collection.

What’s new for 2012 (1)Once again we are trialling some new ideas:

The Library’s Facebook and Twitter accounts have now been launched to the public & the HSC team is planning to use social media to connect with our HSC students. Covert monitoring of last year’s HSC students (we searched for and read their tweets about us) tells us Twitter might just work!

The HSC High Fliers blog will be ‘retired’ as it has been evaluated as ineffective for the amount of staff time required to maintain.

Additionally, a revamp of our HSC High Fliers resources and links on the website will be released at the same time as the HSC Lecture Program for 2012.

‘Fairfield City Library Service’

@FLD_Library

What’s new for 2012 (2)

Want to find out more?

Manjit UppalOutreach Librarian - Children & Youth Ph: 02 9725 0330Email: [email protected]

www.fairfieldcity.nsw.gov.au/library

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