Last week, much time, effort and discussion, in our department and across the university, was focused on study spaces for students. Spaces within the library building and elsewhere on campus .
The library at Heriot Watt University Ednburgh Campus is popular, it is well used and is at capacity much of the time. There are 4 floors - the main entrance floor, which is floor 1, is general purpose. There is the Service Desk, individual study spaces, group study tables, study booths, bench tables and seats, soft seating and also the cafe. As we don't have a foyer area then there is also a tendency for groups to congregate and it is also a thoroughfare to other floors. The ground floor is silent study and journals and dictionaries and is the most clearly defined space. The second floor is the book floor with quiet study spaces around the perimeter, some individual study rooms, group study rooms and two quiet PC labs. The third floor is mainly group study tables but not exclusively as they are big tables on rows and can be used by individuals, small or large groups. There is also a large PC lab.
Looking at it objectively , it is a good mix and we all, including students, make the best of it.
It has a really good atmosphere but there is not enough space and it is not very modern (definitely 70s). Students want and need more study space. We have more seats than study tables which is ok from a social learning perspective but these should be extra to the quota not instead of.
We manage and monitor the space well and always find spaces where and when needed.
Last week students via the student union began a campaign for more places to study and the university have responded by opening up the conference centre and some teaching rooms. We've been advertising and promoting these additional spaces so hopefully this will ease the situation. What we need, of course, is a new library.....
Tuesday, 31 March 2015
Monday, 23 March 2015
Semester 2 More than half way...
Semester 2 - Week 10 or, in more general terms, Mid March or '2 months done 2 months to go' :)
Semesters as opposed to terms mean that it feels like a long haul between January and end of May - and it is a long time to keep going for 19 weeks. But then the summer. However, before anyone mentions that it is quiet in libraries and universities over the summer, it isn't - it is just a different rhythm and a different focus.
So, back to week 10. We're increasingly busy in the library building - we seem to have become the 'destination of choice' on campus and consistently have an occupancy of over 550 from 12 noon until late afternoon. If we count every single study space we possibly have, we have just 613 so there is a high demand for spaces. The noise levels have also been creeping up and our main floor which has the Service Desk , group spaces, study pods, individual study spaces, social learning seats and a cafe, has become a noisy hub of activity. We will continue like this until after Easter and then will re-introduce the 'Making the Most of the Space' initiative when we monitor the library learning space. The aims of the monitoring are to reduce noise levels in the library and also reduce the practice of students reserving spaces by leaving unattended items.
Our online booking system for individual and group study rooms is still in place and going well. Students have embraced the opportunity to book the rooms online in advance and the prime slots fill up quickly. We have a few improvements that we can make to the procedure and also we need to monitor how students are using the system - with the group rooms there is potential to book for more than the maximum 3 hours and we are relying on students being fair.
Collecting and collating statistics is ongoing. We are now in a situation where we are collecting most of the data that we need and can present it to those who need it. But we need to make it much more relevant and timely (more time needed to be timely....)
From a staffing point of view we have been busy with PDRs (Appraisals) and hopefully these are complete now. I have spent sometime looking at the objectives to make sure that staff in the Customer Services Team feel that the objectives are relevant to them. I need to map them to the action plan more effectively in order for staff to be clearer how they can work towards their objectives in a practical way.
Semesters as opposed to terms mean that it feels like a long haul between January and end of May - and it is a long time to keep going for 19 weeks. But then the summer. However, before anyone mentions that it is quiet in libraries and universities over the summer, it isn't - it is just a different rhythm and a different focus.
So, back to week 10. We're increasingly busy in the library building - we seem to have become the 'destination of choice' on campus and consistently have an occupancy of over 550 from 12 noon until late afternoon. If we count every single study space we possibly have, we have just 613 so there is a high demand for spaces. The noise levels have also been creeping up and our main floor which has the Service Desk , group spaces, study pods, individual study spaces, social learning seats and a cafe, has become a noisy hub of activity. We will continue like this until after Easter and then will re-introduce the 'Making the Most of the Space' initiative when we monitor the library learning space. The aims of the monitoring are to reduce noise levels in the library and also reduce the practice of students reserving spaces by leaving unattended items.
Our online booking system for individual and group study rooms is still in place and going well. Students have embraced the opportunity to book the rooms online in advance and the prime slots fill up quickly. We have a few improvements that we can make to the procedure and also we need to monitor how students are using the system - with the group rooms there is potential to book for more than the maximum 3 hours and we are relying on students being fair.
Collecting and collating statistics is ongoing. We are now in a situation where we are collecting most of the data that we need and can present it to those who need it. But we need to make it much more relevant and timely (more time needed to be timely....)
From a staffing point of view we have been busy with PDRs (Appraisals) and hopefully these are complete now. I have spent sometime looking at the objectives to make sure that staff in the Customer Services Team feel that the objectives are relevant to them. I need to map them to the action plan more effectively in order for staff to be clearer how they can work towards their objectives in a practical way.
Friday, 23 January 2015
Online booking for study rooms #libraries
In our library building at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Campus we have 21 individual study rooms, 2 group study rooms and 5 group study tables. These are bookable and, in the past, have been booked by a student coming to the library service desk and exchanging their ID card for a study room key. The rooms were distributed on a first come, first served basis and could be kept for as many hours as required in that particular day. The keys were 'issued' via the library management system.
During the last academic year the numbers of students requesting to use the rooms has increased dramatically not least because the number of students using the library building has increased and space is at a premium. There was a general acceptance by students and staff that we needed a fairer system and one that offered more flexibility.
From September 2014 it was proposed that booking times for the rooms were introduced so that the day was divided into 4 time slots 9.00 - 12.00, 12.00 - 15.00, 15.00 - 18.00 and 18.00 onwards. This was introduced and although offered more choice and fairer access, it was difficult to administer and took a lot of staff resource. It involved a paper-based system in conjunction with issuing the keys on the LMS. Also it was still limited to booking face to face at the time at the library service desk.
So we decided to go for an online system from January 2015 and chose LibCal by Springshare.
http://springshare.com/libcal
We already use libguides as do many libraries and we had a trial of three 'rooms' to test the system to see if it would work for us. I set up three rooms and asked staff to experiment booking rooms and cancelling rooms and generally having a look at how it would work for us. Just before we went live there was an update from v1 to v2 so we updated to v2.
The system is easy to use and relatively easy to set up. From a student point of view they follow a link from our Information Services website http://www.hw.ac.uk/is/library-essentials/study-spaces/edinburgh.htm or enter the website address from the handout. The different rooms appear in a grid with available time slots in green. Time slots are available to book 3 days in advance. They click on a vacant slot and then enter their details in the form below i.e. name, HW email address and HW ID number. This generates an email to them asking them to confirm the booking, which generates another email informing them that the booking is confirmed. If they don't confirm the booking, it disappears after 15 minutes. Students then come along to the Service desk at the start of their booked slot and swap their ID card for a key.
From a staff point of view, the screen shows all the time slots of the day and they appear in pink if booked and green if available. When you hover the mouse over the time slot, you can see the name of the student and their email address and ID number. So when a student comes to the Service Desk, staff check their details, change the time slot to 'showed up' and give out the key in exchange for the ID card. If a student doesn't turn up within 15 minutes of the start time of the booking, we can cancel it and reallocate to another student.
The advantages so far are that the system provides more flexibility for students. They can book up to 3 days in advance, can book online and can book for a time slot that suits them. They can book up to 3 hours per day and so far this is not exceeding demand so everyone who has requested a room has been able to get one.
The advantages for staff are that they are not having to book rooms on behalf of students and there is no paper work involved. It has required quite a bit of training for staff but most are now confident using the system. Some students would like to continue having staff book the rooms for them but this is not practical nor preferable. We can collect usage stats from the system so there doesn't seem to be a need to record the issuing of keys in the library management system. The only downside with that is it doesn't count as a loan on a students record so if they go off with the key, it won't automatically become overdue and send them a reminder. We will have to send a separate email but this doesn't happen very often.
The changes that we might make in the near future are to miss out the confirmation email so that the room is booked and automatically confirmed. Feedback at the weekend from staff was that students weren't wanting to go online to the booking screen and then into a different place i.e. emails to get the confirmation email and reply to that etc. I'm not sure if this is a real problem as I think it's just part of the process of students getting used to booking online in advance. But if we took out the confirmation email, it would be one less step.
I might also change the set up of rooms into different groups to make the display on the screen easier to read but that's not urgent. It would also be useful to have a dedicated PC / monitor of some sort in the library so students could make last minute bookings there and then.
During the last academic year the numbers of students requesting to use the rooms has increased dramatically not least because the number of students using the library building has increased and space is at a premium. There was a general acceptance by students and staff that we needed a fairer system and one that offered more flexibility.
From September 2014 it was proposed that booking times for the rooms were introduced so that the day was divided into 4 time slots 9.00 - 12.00, 12.00 - 15.00, 15.00 - 18.00 and 18.00 onwards. This was introduced and although offered more choice and fairer access, it was difficult to administer and took a lot of staff resource. It involved a paper-based system in conjunction with issuing the keys on the LMS. Also it was still limited to booking face to face at the time at the library service desk.
So we decided to go for an online system from January 2015 and chose LibCal by Springshare.
http://springshare.com/libcal
We already use libguides as do many libraries and we had a trial of three 'rooms' to test the system to see if it would work for us. I set up three rooms and asked staff to experiment booking rooms and cancelling rooms and generally having a look at how it would work for us. Just before we went live there was an update from v1 to v2 so we updated to v2.
The system is easy to use and relatively easy to set up. From a student point of view they follow a link from our Information Services website http://www.hw.ac.uk/is/library-essentials/study-spaces/edinburgh.htm or enter the website address from the handout. The different rooms appear in a grid with available time slots in green. Time slots are available to book 3 days in advance. They click on a vacant slot and then enter their details in the form below i.e. name, HW email address and HW ID number. This generates an email to them asking them to confirm the booking, which generates another email informing them that the booking is confirmed. If they don't confirm the booking, it disappears after 15 minutes. Students then come along to the Service desk at the start of their booked slot and swap their ID card for a key.
From a staff point of view, the screen shows all the time slots of the day and they appear in pink if booked and green if available. When you hover the mouse over the time slot, you can see the name of the student and their email address and ID number. So when a student comes to the Service Desk, staff check their details, change the time slot to 'showed up' and give out the key in exchange for the ID card. If a student doesn't turn up within 15 minutes of the start time of the booking, we can cancel it and reallocate to another student.
The advantages so far are that the system provides more flexibility for students. They can book up to 3 days in advance, can book online and can book for a time slot that suits them. They can book up to 3 hours per day and so far this is not exceeding demand so everyone who has requested a room has been able to get one.
The advantages for staff are that they are not having to book rooms on behalf of students and there is no paper work involved. It has required quite a bit of training for staff but most are now confident using the system. Some students would like to continue having staff book the rooms for them but this is not practical nor preferable. We can collect usage stats from the system so there doesn't seem to be a need to record the issuing of keys in the library management system. The only downside with that is it doesn't count as a loan on a students record so if they go off with the key, it won't automatically become overdue and send them a reminder. We will have to send a separate email but this doesn't happen very often.
The changes that we might make in the near future are to miss out the confirmation email so that the room is booked and automatically confirmed. Feedback at the weekend from staff was that students weren't wanting to go online to the booking screen and then into a different place i.e. emails to get the confirmation email and reply to that etc. I'm not sure if this is a real problem as I think it's just part of the process of students getting used to booking online in advance. But if we took out the confirmation email, it would be one less step.
I might also change the set up of rooms into different groups to make the display on the screen easier to read but that's not urgent. It would also be useful to have a dedicated PC / monitor of some sort in the library so students could make last minute bookings there and then.
Thursday, 27 November 2014
Out and about #csguk2014 #altc #sconul2014
During the last couple of weeks I have been at various conferences and events. I enjoy attending events especially if they are one day. I'm not so keen on half days nor two/three day events as it is either too short to get involved or too long so an overload of information and networking. But a whole day, in a good venue with nice refreshments and lunch and lots of interesting people presenting, is very appealing. As well as finding out and learning about stuff, it's good to have an external reference point to place what you are doing in context. It helps keep everything in perspective and frames developments. For me, it is beneficial to talk to external people to share experiences and ask opinions. It's equally important to have a 'safe' work place to come back to and a place that you can feel confident working in and share what you have learnt.
I attended the
Customer Services Group UK Conference #csguk2014
http://www.donlantechnologies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/customer-services-group-uk-conference.html
SCONUL Winter Conference 2014 #sconul2014
http://www.donlantechnologies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sconul-winter-conference-2014-sconul2014.html
I also attended the Association for Learning Technology Trustees meeting in London at the Institute of Education. I have been a trustee of ALT for the last four years and was on the FE Committee before that. It is a great experience and has given me knowledge not just of learning technologies but also about policy and about committees. It has given me the opportunity to meet and work with a variety of interesting and effective people.
I attended the
Customer Services Group UK Conference #csguk2014
http://www.donlantechnologies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/customer-services-group-uk-conference.html
SCONUL Winter Conference 2014 #sconul2014
http://www.donlantechnologies.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sconul-winter-conference-2014-sconul2014.html
I also attended the Association for Learning Technology Trustees meeting in London at the Institute of Education. I have been a trustee of ALT for the last four years and was on the FE Committee before that. It is a great experience and has given me knowledge not just of learning technologies but also about policy and about committees. It has given me the opportunity to meet and work with a variety of interesting and effective people.
Tuesday, 18 November 2014
Reviews and staffing
A couple of weeks ago we had an Academic-Related Review of Information Services. It involved a panel made up of external and internal people who interviewed students, academic staff and staff within the directorate about the services that we provide. It went well, I think although we have not had the report yet so will wait and see. A review is quite good really as it encourages you to focus on what you do and why and what the impact of the service is.
Last week I was 'out of the office' for a few days so am catching up this week especially as I'm out again Thursday and Friday. More staffing and recruitment matters to sort out - requesting permission to recruit for an Information Assistant and changing hours and shifts for Library Assistants.
Trying to find a solution that everyone is happy with for chairs at the Library Service Desk - the problem is that they have to be suitable for a wide variety of staff to work at the desk and this means a variety of choices.... Meeting about support that we provide for the MFDs.
Last week I was 'out of the office' for a few days so am catching up this week especially as I'm out again Thursday and Friday. More staffing and recruitment matters to sort out - requesting permission to recruit for an Information Assistant and changing hours and shifts for Library Assistants.
Trying to find a solution that everyone is happy with for chairs at the Library Service Desk - the problem is that they have to be suitable for a wide variety of staff to work at the desk and this means a variety of choices.... Meeting about support that we provide for the MFDs.
Tuesday, 4 November 2014
Tuesday - meetings, lost property and engineer visit.
This morning was the Academic and Learner Services meeting. It is a monthly meeting for staff in the Customer Services Team and in the Liaison Team. It is a summary of what is going on operationally and developments that are coming up. It's a good opportunity to keep up to date with what other colleagues are doing and to add a bit of detail to what we are doing in our team.
This afternoon had a meetng with Head of Security about lost property. We need to improve our procedures so that things don't get mislaid especially during hand over times especially as we have so many different teams and staff members. Anyhow he seems ok with my plan so we can start using that from next week.
A good thing that happened this afternoon was that the engineer from Bibliotheca came to mend one of our self service book kiosks. It had stopped reading the RFID tags so he replaced the reader inside the machine.
This afternoon had a meetng with Head of Security about lost property. We need to improve our procedures so that things don't get mislaid especially during hand over times especially as we have so many different teams and staff members. Anyhow he seems ok with my plan so we can start using that from next week.
A good thing that happened this afternoon was that the engineer from Bibliotheca came to mend one of our self service book kiosks. It had stopped reading the RFID tags so he replaced the reader inside the machine.
Monday, 3 November 2014
Monday - statistics and staff shortages
Mondays in November usually means that there is going to be a shortage somewhere. One of the admin assistants is off which means no lunch cover for telephonist so we have to cover from customer services. Actually it worked out ok as I volunteered and it was quiet so had an hour away from the hurly burly (and the steady stream of people coming to my office to ask me about stuff) and got quite a bit done. Plus read some articles about sustainable libraries.
This morning, collated stats - IT Helpdesk enquiries and Library enquiries.
Had a catch up meeting with my line manager and another colleague.
This afternoon, emails and weeding lists. Also trying to set up the online room booking system.
We had a last minute staff shortage this evening too....tomorrow's another day
This morning, collated stats - IT Helpdesk enquiries and Library enquiries.
Had a catch up meeting with my line manager and another colleague.
This afternoon, emails and weeding lists. Also trying to set up the online room booking system.
We had a last minute staff shortage this evening too....tomorrow's another day
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