Monthly Archives: August 2011

iPads

We now have four iPads ready for circulation to faculty and staff at the Davis Family Library circ desk. Right now, only LIS staff have been informed of this, so hopefully only they will be asking to take them out. However, they are available to all faculty and staff for two week loans. They are housed in the file cabinet to the left of the phone. Please treat them as any other piece of equipment and leave them on the red cart for circ staff to check in.

Reminder to all Circulation student staff members

This is a brief reminder to preferably let me, or if necessary, another supervisor know when a piece of equipment is loaned out by you, when that particular item does not have all of its components at checkout time. There have been cases in which a patron has claimed that all of the items within a laptop, camcorder or a camera were not included when checked out. We want to avoid these situations so there is no question about components missing. Today I had this scenario, since a patron said a laptop did not have its mouse when he checked it out by a student. I need to know when this occurs. The best procedure is for you to place that laptop or media item on my desk with a note that the mouse (or whatever the case may be) is missing, and to get another laptop case with all of its pieces intact. Even if a patron says they do not need a particular part inside a case at checkout time, they need to receive the complete case with all of its parts. It is important so we can keep track of responsibility for media.  Thank you very much for your attention to this issue. Details matter.

Exterior door alarms

Facilities Services and the Office of Public Safety activated the “local” alarms on the exterior doors. The alarms will sound when the doors are in card reader control (aka “locked”) but they haven’t shut all the way. There will be a local alarm sounding from an enunciator in the ceiling right above the doors. This is only for the exterior set of front doors, not the interior set.
So, if you notice such an alarm, make sure all the doors are pulled shut and it should stop.

Where’s a Librarian?

We don’t have “Librarian on Duty” hours during intersession because we receive so few questions. But we’re still around! The go/askus page tells you how to find us:

  • During regular hours, the best thing to do is to call x5496. That number rings in all librarian offices, and one of us should be available to help on the phone or in person.
  • At any hour, you also can use to the go/askalibrarian form, which sends an email to all librarians.

Please encourage all researchers to use the phone and form, too!

Reminder to student circ staff for equipment loan periods

This is to remind everyone that we need to keep with the established loan periods associated with each media item that we loan out. Frequently, patrons ask for extended time periods. When asked this question, you can explain to the patron that a one-day or one-week loan period (which ever the case) is our practice so other borrowers have an opportunity to borrow the same equipment. If you find it is sometimes difficult to refuse these requests, please feel free to defer these requests to a supervisor. We have limited supplies of our items, particularly VGA adapters, digital cameras and LCD projectors. When loan periods are extended, it makes it hard to circulate these items as often as we would intend.  Thank you. You have each done such great jobs at the desk all summer long!