Module resource lists: Using a puzzle to solve a puzzle

This presentation explores Leeds Beckett’s implementation of PTFS’s Rebus:list resource list management system, examining our organisation’s experiences in the context of more general professional themes and challenges. In particular, by exploring our institutional experience through the functionality of a specific resource list management system, we are able to focus on the evolving student experience of accessing and utilising resources; the development of pictographic approaches to digital literacy that appeal to an increasingly visually literate population; and how successful resource list management can inform content development and delivery. Playing on the name “rebus” (n. a puzzle) we look at how HE students and staff face a number of reiterable information-seeking and organisational challenges. Considered thus, research is a puzzle without visible rules. As information professionals, we examine the process of identifying, replicating and re-framing the research challenge through resource list software: an organising principle which can maintain the idea of a puzzle or game, whilst providing clearly established rules. This leads to a discussion of new conundrums, including but not limited to: Ownership and authorship – where do resource lists reside and how do we access them? Interpretation and organisation – what form should lists take to maximise content usage? Evidencing engagement– who are lists for and how are they used to inform content development and delivery? Our paper’s consideration of such issues, in turn, leads to reflection upon the potential role of resource lists beyond the Library, supporting both desirable graduate attributes and wider organisational goals.