The Annual Library Liaison Meeting (LLT) was held on Thursday 7 November 2024 in the library’s Garden Level from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM.
Ms. Elizabeth Dsouza, director of the Library welcomed and thanked Fr. Iyad Twal, Executive Vice President, Dr. Iman Saca, Academic Vice President, and faculty representatives from the different departments who attended the meeting.
Ms. Dsouza emphasized the library’s essential role in academic success and lifelong learning, highlighting strategies to maximize library resource use and strengthen communication with the academic community. She shared updates on the library’s diverse collection, including digitized resources, and stressed the importance of promoting these services. Additionally, she underscored the need to enhance students’ information literacy through sessions, library tours, and e-resource workshops.
Ms. Vera Kousa, recapped last year’s discussions on library services and electronic resources, noting that orientation was offered to the Nursing and Midwifery faculty on Research4life, though engagement was limited. She highlighted the donation and purchase of new books.
Fr. Iyad Twal expressed appreciation for the library’s valuable services to faculty, staff, students, and visitors, commending its quality book collection, digitized resources, diverse activities, and strong academic ties. He emphasized the importance of teaching students to access reliable information and advanced facilities and noted that it is more developed than many academic libraries. Fr. Iyad also encouraged faculty to actively promote Library use among students.
Additionally, Ms. Juana Juha presented the year’s loan statistics, noting a decline in borrowed Arabic and English books, likely due to increased access to electronic resources and a fully online Fall Semester in 2024. She discussed faculty requests for e-resources, database usage concerns, and library skills sessions for students and suggested restructuring first-year orientation into focused electronic resources tours, held weekly during activity hour, to improve student engagement with library resources.
Ms. Mary/Claire Habash brought out the challenges in ordering Arabic books, such as the dealers requiring bulk orders which take a long delivery time. She also highlighted issues with the online acquisition system, where order requests often don’t reach the library due to secretary errors. As a solution, library staff suggested switching to email orders.
Moreover, Dr. Iman Saca asked faculty for direct input on their needs from the library to better support academic goals, emphasizing the importance of aligning library services with the digital shift in education. She requested that the library share its link to digitized books with all faculty, which Ms. Elizabeth confirmed would be done. Dr. Rabiha Elayan of the Faculty of Education, raised a question about outdated citation style, while Ms. Paula Handal of the Faculty of Arts clarified that citation styles are accessible online.
Ms. Vera, Coordinator of LLT, closed the meeting by thanking attendees and encouraging faculty to share the key points with their departments.
