UAL libraries and archives win Times Higher Education Award

Innovative work to bring the university’s extensive special collections online has landed University of the Arts London’s (UAL) libraries a Times Higher Education (THE) Award.

Last night at the THE Awards – known as the ‘Oscars of higher education’ – UAL’s Library Services won ‘Outstanding Library Team’, beating a record number of nominees.

The award recognises the ways our library team helped staff and students to interact with our collections throughout lockdown, despite the lack of physical access. Our extensive and globally significant special collections are invaluable for students in developing critical evaluation and research skills.

To emulate the sensory, tactile experience of holdings such as the Materials and Products Collections at Central Saint Martins and London College of Fashion, the team took a creative approach to digitisation.

To showcase this collection – comprising material samples, their properties, manufacturing processes, and developments – they created virtual teaching rooms and interactive online workshops with guests from the world of materials and manufacturing. The speakers discussed how to bring practical making skills online and offered personal insights into adapting and creating in the pandemic.

The team also used blogs and online guides to provide visual access and contextual discussion for digitised content, and an online zine resource to share the more than 4,000 fanzines in London College of Communication’s major Zine Collection.

The judges praised UAL’s submission for “a clarity of approach, underpinned by pedagogical practice, that has been sustainable after the end of the Covid period and would be scalable to other parts of the sector”.

James Purnell, UAL President and Vice-Chancellor, said: “The award is fitting recognition for our colleagues who have pushed beyond traditional ideas about digitisation. These innovations have improved the way we embed our special collections and objects in digital learning and will expand how we offer access to our distinctive holdings in the future."

THE editor, John Gill, said: “The response required, and delivered, in the face of a global pandemic was unique, and many of the awards submissions reflected those unprecedented circumstances. But universities’ great strength is not just that they respond to circumstances, but that they also provide a level of constancy at times of uncertainty and change.

2019-20 was not just a year of pandemic disruption, it was also a year in which incredible achievements were made in all the areas you would hope and expect: world-changing research, brilliant learning and teaching, international and industrial engagement.”