Currently in its sixth year of publication, news @ your library is the UW Library’s official online newsletter. Distributed to approximately 3,270 subscribers, it is intended for keeping UW faculty and graduate students current with the Library’s resources, services, spaces, and faces. news @ your library is one of the few online newsletters published on a monthly basis by an academic/research library in North America.
With the addition of all registered graduate students and new faculty in October 2005, news @ your library’s subscriptions increased dramatically from approximately 351 recipients to 3,140 recipients.
Current subscription stats are listed below:
- 318 subscribers are UW faculty and/or staff members (mainly faculty)
- 2,868 subscribers are UW graduate students
- 7 subscribers are UW undergraduate students
- 28 subscribers are possibly former UW faculty/staff/students (inactive/unrecognized UW accounts)
- 49 subscribers classified as “other” (alumni, community members, etc.)
(Note: there are library reps from most of the faculties/departments subscribed to news @ your library, in addition to other key members involved in administrative offices, research initiatives, etc.)
To date, a total of 205 articles have been published in 33 issues of news @ your library (75 of these articles released in 2005). The inaugural issue (Vol. 1, No. 1) of news @ your library went live on September 11, 2001. The newsletter began as a weekly publication in September 2001, then evolved to a monthly release by 2003.
As of October 2005, Rachel Caldwell is now responsible for the production, writing, and editing of news @ your library. Mary Stanley’s role with the newsletter is as Rachel’s supervisor and providing advice with content decisions. Esther Millar handles web applications and proofreading, while Rose Koebel handles subscription information, subscriber notification, and posts new issues online. In the past, Linda Hastings handled photographs and images used in news @ your library. With Linda’s absence, Marian Davies occasionally assists with graphical elements (photos, images, etc.). Library managers and liaison librarians are approached for article ideas and information, but are not required to write the articles featured.
The current format/look of news @ your library will be changed as of February 2006 (Vol. 6, No. 2). The new format/look will reflect the current UW Web Development guidelines for web applications to follow the Common Look and Feel (CLF), yet still retain a look that is unique from other Library web pages.
The content categories featured in news @ your library will remain the same after the format is revised. Categories include: News, New Resources, Updates, and Web Picks. Approximately 8 articles are featured in each issue of news @ your library: 2 News items, 2 New Resources articles, 3 Updates articles, and 1 Web Picks article. The size/word count of each article is usually contingent to its respective section. When available, photos and images are used to embellish articles.
A new issue of news @ your library is released on the third or fourth Thursday of each month.
Articles featured in news @ your library are regularly picked up by Chris Redmond for the Daily Bulletin (see http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/). These articles are either featured in part or in their entirety within the Daily Bulletin or provided as a link in the “One Click Away” section. Since January 2005, the Daily Bulletin featured news @ your library material approximately twice per month.
In addition to the Daily Bulletin, news @ your library articles are sometimes revised/reused for other Library and campus publications, such as the Student Life 101 E-Zine (see http://www.firstyearstudents.uwaterloo.ca).
With the increasing importance for all students, staff, and faculty to possess effective information literacy skills and knowledge of the resources and services available at the UW Library, the current target audience for news @ your library needs to be examined further. It might be beneficial to add undergraduate students to this distribution in the next academic year, or create an alternate online newsletter catering to this particular audience.
Another alternative to consider is the use of RSS feeds to deliver library-related news items. UW’s Media Relations provides this option for subscribers to receive current news releases (see http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/). Chris Gray in Systems is looking into how to effectively implement RSS feeds for news @ your library. If RSS is not used for news @ your library, this option should be considered for connecting users to information about the myriad of new resources and other time-sensitive announcements pertaining to the Library.
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