Monthly Archives: January 2014

NERCOMP student management summary

From Shawn:

The NERCOMP workshop, Student Empowerment – Enhancing the Education of Students Through Practical Job Opportunities was set in a lecture-like class room similar to one of our smart class rooms. This would be the 2nd time I have gone to this workshop. Joe, Stew, David and I were the furthest traveled participants. Although we did bump into Joe Antonioli who was at a different workshop in the same conference center. Below are the links to the presenters’ power points.

The work shop consist of four lectures; Sharon and Ben from Clark University,
http://nercomp.org/corecode/uploads/event/uploaded_pdfs/From%20Proctors%20to%20Knowledgeable%20and%20Well%20Respected%20TEAM%20-%20Ben%20Gardner%20&%20Sharon%20Griffin%20Edson%20-%20Clark%20U_446.pdf
Lavette Scott-Smith From Boston College:
http://nercomp.org/corecode/uploads/event/uploaded_pdfs/Train%20the%20Brain,%20Reach%20the%20Heart,%20Lavette%20Scott-Smith,%20Boston%20College_443.pdf
Bill, Christine and Susan from Quinnipiac University:
http://prezi.com/hkpkkujc6bdc/nercomp-124/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy
Adam, Chris, Loriann, and Casey from Yale:
http://nercomp.org/corecode/uploads/event/uploaded_pdfs/Oh%20the%20Places%20They%20Will%20Go-If%20You%20Let%20Them-%20Yale%20University_461.pdf

Although, every presenter was from a technical back ground, the concepts could be used with a circulation or library student worker. Some colleges held strict rules while other were more relaxed. Everyone agreed that even though workers were students 1st we had to hold them to some form of work standard because it would had been an injustice for them when they started working in the “real” work force.
Every presentation showed how each particular school ran their operations. Everyone was slightly different. For instance Quinnipiac relied heavily on students. Two of the presenters where students in a supervisor role and there was one manager, Bill, who oversees them. Yale had many managers who were once students.
Overall the workshop was informative and it was interesting seeing how different yet similar each school operated and treated their student workers. The one concept that was apparent with every school was that we all enjoyed working with students and that certain functions of the colleges would have been very challenging to operate if it wasn’t for student workers.

Monthly circ meeting 1-22-14

Present: Janine, Kim, Nancy, Shawn, Kellam, Dan

Janine made a delicious cake to celebrate Kellam and her impending doom. leave. (sorry – impending just seems to be naturally followed by “doom”.)
Dan reminded everyone about evaluations. Keep them short and sweet. Please get them to me in the next two weeks.
Dan told everyone the reserves plan when Kellam leaves. Dan will be the mailbox guy and print reserves, Megan will be EREs. Nancy will cover in April when Dan is out. Terry will be the copyright resource.
Dan gave a quick bike update – we have the locks, no one wants bikes right now.
Dan and Janine gave a quick overview of the new laptops, including the new cleaning procedure for the PCs.
Carrel day reminder – 2nd Tuesday in Spring term at 8 am
Kim reports she has hired new students and they are shadow training, may need to hire one more for Spring.
Shawn is heading to NERCOMP conference today
Nancy has given up on Bicentennial Hall. She will always have frost on her windows.
Kellam has reserve lists ready to be pulled. Reserves may be a bit wonky for a week or so as Winter ends and Spring starts.
The compact shelving is mysteriously and shockingly working.
The stacks at Armstrong still need to be oiled.

Circ Upgrade News: New MacBook Air & Dell PC Laptops for Faculty/Staff

       Zach at the Help Desk released the latest batch of laptops for our faculty/staff borrowers on Thursday. So far we have processed (into Millennium) 17 available Dell PC, Model #E6430 laptops.  Additionally, there will be 20 MacBook Airs eventually processed into Millennium.  Armstrong will have theirs to loan out as well.  Since there is not a built-in drive on the MacBook Air models, we have ten “Superdrives” which will be barcoded  separately, and they can be checked out with a laptop (or without).  There is a space on the top shelf of the fac/staff laptop cabinet designated for the Superdrives. We are using the previous laptop cases for the new laptops, but of course the tags and labels have changed. The Middlebury loaner ID numbers are printed on the luggage tags for easy reference. As Dan mentioned in an email, we have a new (and simple) loaner reset process for the Dell PCs, found in the Wiki. Not to be too repetitive, the folder lives in the LIS folder called “clean me,” and instructions are easy and quick:
     Login to the computer as yourself.
—       Go to C:\LIS and double-click “CleanMe”
—     Accept the UAC prompt (click Yes) to get admin permissions
—    You will see a window that says “Delete inactive profiles on COMPUTER-12345? (Yes/No)”. Type “Y” for yes.
—    The program will delete normal user profiles other than yours, then say “Done. Press any key to continue…”
 —   Press any key to close the window. That’s it!

As for the MacBook Air laptops, we will maintain the same loaner/reset process as we did with the older MacBooks. I have done this and it works well. Keep in mind that you will be using the USB to Ethernet connector, instead of connecting the Ethernet cord directly to the laptop. These will be in the pockets formerly used by the VGA adapters.

All of the Dell and Mac laptops are fully charged and ready for borrowers’ log in. I am checking the laptop cabinet for any of the older laptops which get checked back in during the day so I can replace them with newer models. Feel free to place them on my desk if you think of it (as opposed to placing them inside the metal cabinet).

The older Dell and Mac laptops will be transferred over to the student pool.

Enjoy the new models!  Thank you Zach at the Help Desk, and to all others involved in getting these to Circ! I have a hunch that once the word is out, they will be checked out frequently.