The UOC Library shares its experiences in the CSUC Knowledge Exchange project

The team at the UOC Library has taken part in the second edition of the "Knowledge Exchange" project, coordinated by the Catalan University Service Consortium. This initiative offers professionals from various libraries the opportunity to visit the facilities of other institutions and learn about innovative projects by their colleagues, with the aim of fostering collaboration and the exchange of ideas.

Fifty sessions, both virtual and face-to-face, were scheduled during the months of February, March and the first fortnight of July, bringing together a total of 400 librarians. 

Some 99% of the participants said they would take part in future events and the programme has received a rating of 8.8.

The UOC Library contributed to the programme with two sessions: 

• Management of learning resources with third-party rights: Lis Balcells and Àgueda Mercadal made a presentation on the resources used by students of different UOC courses. Some of this material is produced by the university itself, while other material comes from publishing groups or external authors, and requires specific procedures before being uploaded to the classrooms (book chapters, articles, case studies, software, etc.). This includes applying for right of use licences through the CEDRO association, as well as subscriptions and purchases.
• OpenAthens Training: Francesc March, who was accompanied by professionals from the University of Girona (UdG) and Ramon Llull University (URL), shared his experience with OpenAthens, an authentication system that facilitates access to the Library's subscription resources and controls access using authorized profiles. Users only have to enter their Campus credentials to consult the information. In addition, OpenAthens allows librarians to monitor use of the collection, thus helping to improve resource management. 

In turn, different members of the UOC Library had the opportunity to take part in sessions of the "Knowledge Exchange" programme: they visited the facilities of La Factoria, the digital production service of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).

They also learned about the experience of Ramon Llull University (URL) with the Leganto tool for the management of recommended bibliographies, and attended a session by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) on the creation of virtual exhibitions with the open source software Omeka S. In addition, they learned how the University of Girona (UdG) and Ramon Llull University (URL) work with Mendeley and Zotero and also learned about the training programme established by the library of the University of Vic - Central University of Catalonia (UVic-UCC).

The team's opinion

Valuable sessions to present and share services and projects with other professionals from the world of libraries