Event Title
"You Want Us to Check Out WHAT?!" Keeping Up with Ever-Changing Expectations in a College Library
Start Date
19-5-2023 10:15 AM
End Date
19-5-2023 11:05 AM
Description
Just when we think our collection is accurate and accessible, our staff workflows set, ILS policies configured, and student workers trained, someone asks if we can check out hammocks. We currently have fake blood on our course reserves shelf, along with a set of "loose" synthetic teeth. And there's a fog machine too, with a bottle of "fog juice" and instructions for how to NOT trigger campus fire alarms.
While our library continues to circulate many print books for scholarship, each academic year sees us cataloging, circulating, supporting and tracking an extensive (and expensive!) inventory of objects and equipment. Finding the best place to stick a barcode is only the beginning!
For this presentation, staff from Centre College's Grace Doherty Library will discuss challenges of and approaches toward:
- Inheriting a vast inventory of audio/visual and computing equipment from another department and integrating it within our ILS and circulation and student staff workflows: "This book goes here and that charger goes there."
- Becoming the hub for all student technology needs: laptops (many long-term requests); chargers for all devices; adapters for all chargers; batteries; SD cards; flash drives; flash cards; markers: "Are we the campus Amazon except that we're free?"
- Cataloging non-traditional library items for best discoverability, patron accessibility and library management: "I need an iPad with Apple Pencil right now, for the year."
- Supporting patron use of equipment AND still supporting information access as a library: "I reserved the PA system. How do I use it for my event this weekend?"
"You Want Us to Check Out WHAT?!" Keeping Up with Ever-Changing Expectations in a College Library
Just when we think our collection is accurate and accessible, our staff workflows set, ILS policies configured, and student workers trained, someone asks if we can check out hammocks. We currently have fake blood on our course reserves shelf, along with a set of "loose" synthetic teeth. And there's a fog machine too, with a bottle of "fog juice" and instructions for how to NOT trigger campus fire alarms.
While our library continues to circulate many print books for scholarship, each academic year sees us cataloging, circulating, supporting and tracking an extensive (and expensive!) inventory of objects and equipment. Finding the best place to stick a barcode is only the beginning!
For this presentation, staff from Centre College's Grace Doherty Library will discuss challenges of and approaches toward:
- Inheriting a vast inventory of audio/visual and computing equipment from another department and integrating it within our ILS and circulation and student staff workflows: "This book goes here and that charger goes there."
- Becoming the hub for all student technology needs: laptops (many long-term requests); chargers for all devices; adapters for all chargers; batteries; SD cards; flash drives; flash cards; markers: "Are we the campus Amazon except that we're free?"
- Cataloging non-traditional library items for best discoverability, patron accessibility and library management: "I need an iPad with Apple Pencil right now, for the year."
- Supporting patron use of equipment AND still supporting information access as a library: "I reserved the PA system. How do I use it for my event this weekend?"