Monthly Archives: June 2009

Book Sale July 7 – 12

Select Japanese collection books will be on sale from July 7-12 in the Main Library Atrium. These books are chiefly duplicates of items already in the collection and may well be of interest to individuals. The Main Circ Desk will be the sale point for this book sale, starting July 7th.

Points to Remember from Circ Training, 6/29/09

Todd asked me to take notes during the training and post them here. I’ll summarize what the presenters talked about and if you have any questions, ask me or comment below.

Maura:
Scheduling – use and refer to the Outlook calendar. If you need a sub, please post to the summer distribution list for one and alert the supervisor who normally works during that shift.
Blog – students should check the blog at the start of every shift – link located on desktops at each Circ desk
Wiki – great for finding procedures and workflows

Kellam:
Equipment – heavily used by Language Schools and sometimes also Bread Loaf during the summer.
–equipment is located at all 3 branches, and items circulate for 4 hours, 1 day, 7 days, or 14 days depending on what they are. Renewals are possible for all items (except faculty/staff laptops) as long as there is still ample supply of the item in question available for other borrowers. However, under no circumstances are loans allowed to be extended for the duration of the summer. In other years we’ve been able to do this, but due to shrinking inventory and budget cuts, we’re sorry but we can’t accommodate summer-long equipment requests anymore.
–don’t turn borrowers away if you don’t have what they need on hand. Check the other two branches to see if their equipment is available. Bring in supervisors to book equipment. Supervisors can also contact Media Services to see if their equipment inventory has what the borrower is looking for.
–when people ask about how to use equipment: direct them to go/equipment (“the greatest thing ever”–Maura) which has instruction manuals in pdf format which can be read online or printed
–remember to check all pieces of equipment at check-in and check-out (ie. read and follow the pop-up messages in every equipment record)
–equipment must be returned to the branch it came from; equipment cannot be transported in the courier bins like books, CDs, and DVDs can.
–new equipment for this summer: flip cams, Hebrew keyboards, portable P.A. systems

Rachel (with input from Kellam on BLSE)
ILL – green or pink bands; green can be taken out of the library, pink must stay in the library. In fact, when a patron returns a pink-band ILL to the desk and leaves without saying anything, it’s best to assume they’re NOT done with the item and it should go back on the hold shelf (assuming it’s due date has not passed).
–ILL can only be renewed by ILL staff intervention
–when checking one out, remember to change the due date in Millennium to what the ILL band says
–ILL can be shipped from Main to Armstrong, but between no other branches
NExpress – blue bands, usually a faster option than a recall or using ILL.
–NExpress can be renewed by a patron through My MidCat twice
–when checking one out, remember to use the due date generated by Millennium, and write it on the blue band
–NExpress can be shipped from Main to Davison (ie. Bread Loaf) and back, but between no other branches

Dan
Guests/Visitors – guests who have borrowing privileges may borrow books & government documents
Guests have access to computers (through the daily “pclab” password).
–they do NOT have privileges to borrow: equipment, movies, lockers & carrels, ILL & NExpress
–guest printing: through print card bought at Wilson Cafe, college Bookstore, or MiddXPress in McCullough. Each branch has 1-2 “guest printing computers” where guests can send print jobs. Guests then use the print release stations like students & faculty do.

Desktop Stats – to be clicked after every patron interaction which does not involve the actual circulating of materials (ie. check-ins, check-outs). Used by staff to document staff and student staff use during all hours we’re open.

Todd (with input from Kellam on BLSE)
Printing for students & faculty – all branches using print release stations – Middlebury username and password (same one used for Webmail, Banner, etc.) NOT the same one used by Bread Loaf students & faculty – they will need to activate their Midd accounts for this. Direct them to go/activate and look them up in Millennium to give them their ID #.
–copying is $.10 for b/w, $.50 for color. Color available in Main and Armstrong.
–Equitrac copy cards bought at “black box” in print rooms. Use $1 to get a card; then more money can be added onto that card.
–Faculty can use a department code (2) and their ID number to charge copies directly to their department.
–please report printer problems to supervisors/Helpdesk in a timely manner

Joseph
Emergency Procedures – please use part of your next shift to read over the Emergency Manual (there’s a copy in each branch). Ask your supervisor if you have questions about what’s in it.
–first aid kits are also available at each branch at the Circ Desk. Additional kits are available in Main at the Info Desk and in the Staff Room.

Steve
Mozio – new texting reference service, implemented at the end of spring semester. Text to # 66746 from any cell phone. Start your message with “midd” and then type your reference question. Reference librarians (or perhaps Circ or Helpdesk staff) will respond via text to your phone.

Is that it? Whew!

New portable PA systems available at Main Circ!

Main Circ is now the proud owner of two PA systems. These portable sytems are housed in briefcases and live in the storage unit with the keyboards (in between Kellam and Doreen’s desks). Please ask Kellam or Steve for a tutorial — they are really fun. Basically, you just open the case, plug in the power supply and the microphone, and then you can be heard from miles around! These items are quite valuable, and travel with three pieces, so please be very careful at check out and in that everything is accounted for. They can be found in Mill by doing a title search for “PA system.”

Media Screenings Info for Circ

This is a brief reminder of the major points I covered during Circ student training on June 25.

1. Screenings students have messages in their Mill records saying they can take Media out of the library.
2. The Film Screenings binder (updated daily by supervisors) is located on the front desk to the right of the pillar; student Screeners will use this binder to tell you what media they need.
3. Screenings materials do NOT get checked out to borrowers on the day they’re being screened, only screening students (or in rare cases, the professor).
4. Always ask screening students if they need a Projectionist Key (located in the key drawer).
5. Professors are responsible for A) giving Reserves media to be screened beforehand, or submitting a list of media from our collection; B) reserving a room for the screening through the Scheduling Office; C) getting a screener assigned by emailing/calling Helpdesk.
6. If professors/TAs/bilinguals appear in person (or call) with a problem (most usually “We’re in room X for a screening but no one’s here with the movie”) hand the issue to the supervisor on duty.

Any questions, please ask me. Thanks!
Steve

Borrower Data Base – MMLA

FYI
Middlebury Monterey Language Academy (MMLA) faculty are in our borrower data base but do not get Midd ID’s.
If MMLA faculty need borrowing access, please create a library guest card, insert a barcode field and attach the record to the patron barcode. Please ask for photo ID, update address, email, and phone contact info. Leave as ptype 56 – summer faculty.
Thanks! Happy Friday!

LS Resources – Training Highlights

Thanks for presenting, Joy!

From Joy Pile:
The two FAQs for language school are:
Where are the dictionaries for x language?
And
Is there a list of videos in x language?.

1. Dictionaries are in both the stacks which can be borrowed, and in the reference collection. There is a hard copy of the basic LC call numbers for dictionaries in each language at both the Info Desk and at the Circ Desk. The reference collection is housed on the shelves in the middle section of the main floor, many of the circulating copies of dictionaries are in the shelves on the left hand side of the main floor.
2. There is a quick link to a MIDCAT search that pulls up a video listing in each of the language subject guides. To find the subject guides, type: go/subjectguides in the browser address line. Click on the appropriate language. The link appears on the right hand side within the information in the blue box. (Below my picture, but above the Meebo widget)
3. There is also a link for a CD search in the subject guides.
4. There are also colored paper guides for each language with basic information about locating items in the collection. There is a copy of each at Circ – but there are take away copies, as well as floor plan maps at the info desk.
5. A librarian staffs the info desk from 1-5pm every afternoon (Sunday-Saturday), evenings Sunday-Thursday. Please refer any detailed questions about finding resources to them.
6. To reach a librarian during other hours, suggest that they use MOSIO – a new question answering service using text messaging that we’ve instituted. Tell them to dial 6674, and start the question with midd and simply text it. They can even text us in the language they’re studying. We may answer in English, but among the staff we can read most of the languages taught here.
7. There are language school buttons denoting the languages you speak at the Circ desk – please feel free to use them. Maintain and share your own proficiency in a language you are studying or are a native speaker in.
8. Should you have or receive further questions, I can be reached at x5140 or by e-mail pile@middlebury.edu.

Reserves – highlights from training meeting

– Our summer students turn out to be the most knowledgeable and best trained students we have. They become the “point” student for our academic year students because they deal with such a variety of questions during the summer. Thanks for becoming so knowledgeable.
– Our language patrons need a little extra “hand holding” – they come from varied institutions, and are not familiar with our systems. Thanks for your patience and guidance.
– Media items: during LS, we receive many “personal copies” for media screening. Besides completing the purple reserves slip, please make sure there is an English title on the film case.

Shelving and LC Easy

Highlights from the training meeting:
If you have not yet taken the LC Easy tutorial, please do so on your next shift.
Be sure to take the test and print it out for your supervisor.
Low score? Or need a review?
Please go through the LC Easy tutorial again.
Shelving Tips from Rich:
Bookstacks: Please watch for stuff out of place. Correct shelf errors, untidy shelves. Books that are a half-mile from their correct location, throw on your cart & leave on holding shelves with their brothers & sisters.
Overloaded shelves: Make adjustments as necessary so the items you need to add will fit comfortably. If you can’t adjust books to fit – alert a supervisor.
Watch for stowaways: If the spine tag says “oversize”, “VT Coll”, “Ref”, “Periodicals”, “Armstrong”, “Music”, ANYTHING other than just the LC number, don’t shelve it. Watch for reserve items, ILL, NExpress books. If you think you smell a rat, you smell a rat.
The book carts: pre-sequence the stuff you are about to re-shelve. Please organize ONLY the books you expect to shelve yourself immediately, return any you’re unable to complete to holding shelves– do not leave sorted carts for “the next guy”. Likewise, please don’t take the time to sort the holding shelves, they don’t stay sorted for long, trust me; but it would be nice if you could take a second to tidy up holding shelves that have got tumblydown.
Questions about anything else, PLEASE ASK.