TechTips Blog
So a few weeks ago, I began distributing tech tips every Friday afternoon to our library staff via our internal mailing list. My goal in doing this is to share some of the more helpful web services and tools that I come across on a regular basis. Recently my director asked me to approach our VP for IS (we’re part of our campus IS group) to see if this would be something of value to the rest of IS. She gave approval and also thinks this is a good idea to try. She also suggested using a blog for archival purposes. Working with our Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology, I now have another blog installed on their WordPress MU platform. I will continue to distribute tips via email, but will simultaneously post them to the blog for wider distribution and archiving. Your comments and feedback are welcomed! I may also aggregate them here for further coverage.
Library 100 Book Finding Tutorial
Our library recently produced this video to show during our Library 100 freshmen orientation sessions. It’s pretty funny and shows the talents of two previous Access and Delivery student employees! Nick Vogel in our Media Resource Center filmed and edited the video.
Interlibrary Loan, Visualized…
A few months ago a subscriber to ILL-L posted a message about using a paper map in his office to help both library colleagues and customers better understand ILL service by marking the institutions where they borrow from and loan to. I thought this was a great idea and asked the staff in the UR ILL office if they could try something similar, which they did. However, when Google rolled out the new My Maps service as part of Google Maps, I instantly thought about transitioning our paper map to an online version, something we could easily share with the entire UR community to help interlibrary loan service to be better understood, both from a borrowing point of view as well as lending, since both are ILL’s core mission.
Yesterday I met with our ILL staff and showed them the initial map I created. We then reviewed what content to include and how to add it. We decided to include all borrowed and loaned items since January of 2007. Most of the data is now entered, but there’s some that’s still outstanding, but I’m very impressed with the results. Here’s a link to the map (we’re also working on an embedded version that we’ll host locally):
UR Interlibrary Loan - Borrowing and Lending
Let us know what you think!
You got SpiderCard in my Printing Credits…
Yes, just as popular as those delicious peanut butter cups, printing credits are heavily consumed by most UR students! Thanks to staff in UR’s networking group, they will soon be able to purchase printing credits online using funds from their SpiderCard, which has been a long requested feature. It will be a very easy process as a student will only need to login to their account on BannerWeb, where they will see the option to add printing credits. In case their SpiderCard balance is too low, they have the option to add funds to their Spidercard account from a credit/debit card, or electronic check before making the purchase.
Up until now students have only been able to purchase printing credits at Boatwright Library’s Main Service Desk, which over the past few years has grown to be one of the busiest services (in conjunction with laptop circulation) the library offers. Last fall semester alone, we collected over $13,000, just from printing! For the foreseeable future we’ll continue to allow students to make cash purchases, but will probably cap it at a low amount for those emergency printing situations. This is an exciting new service, both for library staff and our students!
Scholar Rediscovers Interlibrary Loan Service
An article appeared on the website of the Chronicle of Higher Education last week written by a Fulbright scholar studying at University College Cork in Ireland. While conducting research, she discovered that European libraries and their American counterparts treat interlibrary loan (ILL) service very differently. ILL can sometimes be a costly service, especially to libraries with limited budgets. As the writer points out later in the article, many, if not the majority of academic libraries in the United States often subsidize the cost of ILL service while many international libraries pass the cost along to those requesting items.
ILL is often a scholar’s best friend as it provides access to materials worldwide, and expands a library’s local collection exponentially. ILL service is one of the aspects I appreciate most about my job as the Head of Access and Delivery Services as the users are often very appreciative of being able to access materials at other institutions that would not be available otherwise. The link below goes directly to the article! Enjoy!
http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/03/2007031401c/careers.html
They're Back…
Yes, the semester has started and the students have descended… A & D’s priority these next two weeks is to continue to assist with completion of the B1 and B2 renovations and train and hire new student employees. Reserves staff will continue to focus on processing the many submissions received at this time of year. The majority of my time these next two weeks will be spent at the Main Service Desk allowing A & D staff the time necessary to complete their start of semester projects as well as train our new part-time employee in all things circulation. If you need me, call the Main Service Desk at x8876!
This week
Things I’m working on this week include
- Finalizing the A & D Associate hire with HR
- Cleaning my office and filing some paperwork
- Revamping the Circulation Manual
- Adjusting some Access Reports queries for Voyager
- Tweaking the UR Libraries website
Special Borrower Cards
I’m currently working with the OneCard office and their local vendor to redesign and select new Special Borrower cards that offer magnetic swipes, which will allow us to circulate materials to these users in the same way we do UR affiliated users. More to come soon…
Current Projects
Here are a few of the things I’m currently working on:
- A & D Associate hiring process
- Finalizing the A & D fall daily and Saturday schedule
- Reviewing and revising the Circulation Manual and Main Service Desk Manual
- Doing some office cleanup and filing
- Working on a Facebook and MySpace entry for UR Libraries
- Meeting with staff to prepare for Fall 2006!
Interviews
We are interviewing for the Access and Delivery Associate (Part-Time) position this week and will hopefully have a decision very soon with the incumbent starting mid-August.
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About
Professional and personal ideas, thoughts, and comments from your favorite tech-brarian. Actually, that's probably not a valid term, but hey, I'm not sweating the small stuff!
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