Who are you and what is your role?
We are Nino, Saskia, Sven, Rebecca and Gemma, and together we form the University Library team for FSS. Together, we keep the library collection up to date. That collection consists of databases, books and journals; most of which are now available online. In addition, all first-year students get to know us during the information skills practical. Researchers from the faculty can come to us to draw up a search strategy for a literature review, or they can attend one of our workshops. Nino is also secretary for the faculty library committee, where we work with colleagues from the faculty to look at the role of the library in the faculty.
What makes your job enjoyable?
Our working day is all about helping colleagues and students, but what we do varies from day to day: from keeping the UB guides up to date to teaching and giving workshops and doing research to determine a good literature strategy. It’s always nice when we can help students or researchers. Because we work for the entire faculty, we also encounter many different research topics, from which we always learn something ourselves.
What are you proud of as a team?
Almost everyone on campus often interacts with the library without even realising it. Even if you google an article on campus, you will find it through our licences. In addition, all first-year students see us. Every year, it takes a lot of hard work to give almost all of them a practical course in the first five weeks of the academic year, but it’s also great that we can teach them proper basic skills in searching for literature, especially in this age of misinformation.
What is a fun fact about your team?
We have many years of experience in our small team. Gemma recently celebrated her 40th anniversary and Saskia has also been working here for 25 years. The balance between young colleagues and colleagues who have been in the field for a long time is very nice, as we can learn a lot from each other. Not only in terms of professional knowledge: we go for a lunch walk through Brakkestein Park every day. Sven is a birdwatcher and teaches us that not every bird we hear is a blackbird.
What is at the top of your bucket list?
We all have a travel goal. Sven wants to visit a rainforest, because there are some different birds to spot there compared to the ones we have here. Saskia would like to travel through Australia in a camper van. Rebecca’s from Canada and would like to get to know here country better by travelling from east to west by train. Nino is staying a bit closer to home: “Although I don’t enjoy driving, I just bought a car. I’m an avid tennis player, and this will make it a bit easier for me to get to the tennis courts for matches. A new era is dawning for Gemma; she will be enjoying her early retirement as of April. She will have plenty of time to write her memoirs, in which Radboud University will of course be mentioned at length ;-)
Where can we find you?
On Mondays and Wednesdays, you can find us in MM 04.389, near the study area. On the remaining days we work in the central library. We are also available to answer your questions via the ‘Ask your librarian’ button. And, of course, you can always email (infosw [at] ubn.ru.nl) or call (024 - 36 12599) us.