What we’ve done we’ve done together: collaboration, agency and student partnership

The University of Manchester (UoM) has one of the largest and most diverse student populations in the UK. Since 2013 the UoM Library has led the way within the sector by developing and seamlessly integrating a student team into its ways of working, in order to ensure its resources and services clearly reflect the full range of student voices within the student community. This paper will reflect on how the student team has evolved and grown over the last decade and celebrate the influence the team has had over the development and delivery of awarded winning services, like My Learning Essentials, the Library’s academic skilled programme. The presentation will give a brief history of the team, and the approach we take to recruiting its members. It will give an overview of the kind of work the team gets involved with and how it works in partnership with professional Library staff. It will also highlight some of the key projects and events the team have influenced and led on behalf of the UoM Library. Finally, the presentation will provide an evaluation of the teams’ success by highlighting some of the internal and external recognition they have received, the way the team describes and evaluates their own experience, alongside an insight into what UoM student outcome data reveals about them.