Monday’s meeting agenda includes a post-op on the summer semester.
Please add your comments, thoughts, feedback, observations to this post.
BLSE, BLWC, BLNM, LS@MIDD, LS@MILLS, etc.
Thanks!
Dan Frostman wrote: I still can’t comment, so I will just add to the post:
Activity level seemed lower. Music does not need to be open so late (10pm).
Were ILL’s put on hold in Millennium? The two I picked up were not.
BL circ seemed to work o.k. – about the same as usual. NExpress created the only real problems.
Not recalling via the web creates problems with things not being returned by the time summer is over.
Thanks for the comments, Dan.
Weekly reports seem to indicate a smooth summer session overall – let’s keep the discussion rolling while comments are fresh in our minds.
This is the time for all of us to contribute edits and updates to checklists and procedures in the Circ wiki.
From Maura:
Studnet Employment: Since students must participate in mandatory summer board plan, is there a way meal times could be a bit more customer friendly? At times was difficult to coordinate meal hours and circ work hours/activity.
Library hours/serice desk hours: Having the help desk close at 6 Pm on Friday evenings was problematic; Having the help desk not open until 8:15 am was extremely problematic. It would be helpful to have helpdesk hours posted to agree with the operating hours of the library.
Film Screening: I think it would be helpful to have ALL films come to the help desk. Using the notations such as ” prof will bring” was very confusing b/c we never knew where the prof was bring the film – we were always on a treasure hunt to find the film.
Borrower data base: LS email addresses in Mill Circ did not match directory info – time consuming to update.
In the evenings I also found that having the Walk-in Helpdesk close early was a problem sometimes. To an extent I could troubleshoot some of the basic problems like Internet connectivity and some printer issues, but often I had to tell students to come back in the morning when the Helpdesk would be open. This wasn’t the response they were looking for.
When Maura talks about us being on “a treasure hunt” to find films I find that an apt analogy. Sometimes we found gold, other times we found nothing. And sometimes when we found nothing it didn’t matter because the Language School had already made other plans and not informed LIS. Which made the screening students frustrated, and rightly so.
If we are considering different hours for next summer, I would advocate for closing the library at 11pm every night. After 10pm the number of people in the building always dropped, and usually by 11pm we had all but one or two laptops returned. The last hour was consistently very quiet, even for checkouts and returns. This is different behavior from not only the academic year, but also from last summer, which was more active all around during late-night.
Very smooth summer at Armstrong. If not for pre-planned projects the students would not have had much to do. I’m considering, and please comment, having only one student work between the end of spring term and language school. Secondly, it takes four students to cover the summer hours, but let’s consider a shared Main/Armstrong student. We simply have more students in the summer then we need, and I’m talking all libraries! I’m not advocating cutting student hours, I’m saying let use less in the summer and use those hours to help during the academic year.
Much quieter and smoother summer at Main this year.
BLVT: all reserve items submitted prior to the semester, very few requests during the summer. Only one strong complaint at Davison concering shelving books by LC call number. No feedback on BL readings on ERes (and no complaints). It was nice to staff Davison, but we spent a lot of time and Midd $$$ commuting. I wonder if it would be a better use of our time next year to have one staff member work at Davison for the entire day.
BLNM: all went well, but would be nice to have more contact with BLNM staff prior to and following conference (book not returned to Main from BLNM).
LS: noticeably quieter. No feedback on LS readings on ERes (nor complaints), so that’s OK. Our student workers were excellent. Screenings were a bit confusing for media student due to “who’s got the fim?”. Here’s hoping next year more LS departments follow the Japanese School’s example this year of delivering to the Circ Desk well marked copies well in advance of the screening. Help Desk should open at the same time the Main Lib does (most of the activity the first hour is printing problems).
BLWC: smooth!
Notes from the meeting on 8/24:
Things have gone really well.
Some summer professor’s have really loud voices.
A few complaints about English being spoken in the libraries.
The Helpdesk printer sign is universally acclaimed. Add one at Armstrong?
Mills had a few bumps, very low requesting activity.
First two weeks of LS were very quiet – re-adjust library hours next summer?
Film screening still creates the most problems for circ.
The DVD scanning machine is dead, probably won’t be replaced. Elin is checking with Adam.
BL – Smooth
very little ILL activity – mostly NExpress
fewere BL patrons came down to the Main library
Equipment:
we need more dongles
faculty/staff laptops are “hairy”
digital voice recorders also high use
Problem: item booked by coordinator, picked up by someone else
very low iPod use
Dan will collect item stats for summer equipment
A comment on carrels and lockers. Carrels were only checked out in moderation this summer. As was expected, reservable carrels on the upper mezzanine were in use all summer. However, we did not run out of available carrels on the upper south side of the building (the 4-square carrels), and only a small handful of lower level carrels were reserved. While general carrel use was constant in the library, LS and BLSE students (and summer workers and faculty) seemed less interested in checking out carrels for the summer than previous years.
Lockers, however, continued to be in heavy rotation, and we ran out of locker keys a few different times towards the end of the summer session.
The BL office allowing Lexa to work in Davison was great.
Quick note about WC borrower data base – about 20 WC faculty not in Mill Circ at the start of the conference – had to be manually entered.