Information Services and Resources, Dana Porter Library
Departmental Meeting
February 5 , 2010
Dana Porter Library Room 428
10:00am -11:00am
Minutes
Present: Annie Bélanger, Michael Bustamante, Helena Calogeridis, Nancy Collins, Marian Davies, Jane Forgay, Tim Ireland, Christine Jewell, Sandra Keys (recorder), Judy McTaggart, Maria Reinhard, Leeanne Romane, Carol Steele, Janet Wason, Agnes Zientarska-Kayko
- Approval of the previous Minutes from January 8, 2010
Minutes were approved with minor edit.
- Business Arising from the Minutes
- Information Desk pilot amended: the last Sunday shift of the term has been removed. Judy has removed Sandra’s name from the Sunday shift list for April 18 – Sunday shifts for the Winter term will end April 11. She has also let Mandy Wetherup know of this change.
- Noise at the Information Desk: it is on the agenda for Annie to inquire about getting staff training for dealing with problem users in the library. Annie will investigate a white noise machine at the desk. The meeting with Mark Haslett, Sharon Lamont, and Alex McCulloch on environmental issues and policies at Porter is not scheduled until end of March.
- Blackwell and YBP: Annie has raised the possibility of whether librarians can choose either Coutts or YBP for Canadian titles with Susan and Jennifer. It sounds as if it will be an all or nothing at this point. Annie is pursuing training for OASIS, the Coutts collection manager tool.
- Performance Appraisals: Annie thanked everyone for their co-operation in filling out the forms and submitting them before meeting with her.
- MLIS Co-op: Annie has submitted a proposal for an MLIS Co-op for May to December 2010. The position will be for both Porter and Davis, but the co-op will continue to “reside” in Porter.
- MLIS Co-op in cataloguing: Annie mentioned that she, Betty, and Jennifer have been talking about having Christina, the cataloguing co-op, work on the desk.
- Additional Agenda
- e-Books Platform
- Archiving on Sharepoint – Deferred
- Student Endowment Projects (Annie)
Mary Stanley is soliciting ideas for student endowment projects under $10,000, with $5,000 projects being seen as having the best success. Of special interest are those dealing with student experience and accessibility. Annie will compile ideas, which should include what it is, its benefit, and a ballpark figure, and forward. Nancy noted that she could send a link to the list of projects which have been previously supported.
Action: All – send project ideas to Annie
Action: Nancy – send link to list of previously-supported projects
- Library Brag Sheet (Nancy)
Nancy circulated a copy of the Library document. This document is a marketing tool for external use, facilitated by the Office of Development. Similar broadsheets, highlighting accomplishments and faculty members, are being done by faculties, departments, institutes, etc. If interested in being involved, please let Nancy know. Also, please send comments on it to Nancy as it is still in editing phase, with just a limited run being done for Mark to present at Senate recently.
- Primo (Annie, All)
Keep using the feedback form in Primo and encourage others to use it. We need to “make them love Primo.” Consensus was that we would like Alison to speak to us about what is forthcoming in the future release at an upcoming joint meeting.
A suggestion of further training was well-received. Questions should be sent to Alison ahead of time so that it could address specific needs. Sandra noted that the Primo vs TRELLIS session that Alison and Tim had done recently was very helpful.
There is talk of having an API to get Scholars Portal into Primo.
Action: Annie – follow up for upcoming joint meeting; ask Alison
Action: All – send questions to Annie for compilation
- Desk Staffing Pilot Winter 2010: coping without a backup (Carol, All)
The issue of how to deal with lineups during the times of no back-up was raised. It was asked whether people had tips and techniques for dealing with this and/or interruptions. It is important to separate, in this discussion evening and weekend shifts from daytime, when there is always only one person. It was noted that different people have different methods of “coping” – some are more comfortable taking a quick break from the person they are serving to ask if others have just a quick question (which then begs the question of what is a short question, differentiate between “short” and “directional”). Suggestions included to find a natural “break point” or to suggest that the user find a computer to start with what has been discussed, etc., come back if need further assistance, etc.
Questions raised and discussed included:
- What is a reasonable expectation of how long a person should wait?
- What is the philosophy behind our service? We should draft a public service/customer service philosophy statement. Judy and Marian volunteered to work on this.
- Should we have a suggestion box or question/answer board?
It was noted that circulation always seems to have a couple of people at the desk.
Action: Judy and Marian to lead the drafting of a public service/customer service philosophy statement.
Action: All to send documentation, ideas, etc. to them via Sharepoint document.
- Information Desk
- Keyboard Trays
Annie outlined the background. Keyboard trays had been part of the renovation, but had never been purchased. She has followed through at different times and only recently was advised of the correct department with which to pursue this. One of the reasons to have keyboard trays is ergonomics for shorter desk staff. Various issues were noted including the extra space they took up, separating the user even more; that when two people were seated at the desk, they were backing into each other; the trays are a bit wobbly; and the keyboard and mouse cords are in the way. There was also general discussion about the shape of the desk.
Action: Annie to ask Wolf to readjust the cords.
Action: Annie to look into different options for chairs.
- Papers and Signs
Generally, there is a desire for a clean desk. A particular case in point is the sign on the top of the desk for technical assistance. It is not known who put the sign there and it was noted that it is not in a practical spot – such signs would be better placed at the printers or computers. Perhaps a sign for technical assistance could be put on the other side of the Information Desk sign during our Desk Opening hours.
Signs should also fit in with the overall scheme. Do we have guidelines for internal signage and posters or should we have? Perhaps we should consider a stamp similar to that which circulation uses to validate posters.
Nancy noted that she has a limited number of Plexiglas holders for signs at her desk.
- E-Books Platform
Annie asked for help with testing the new Scholars Portal e-book platform. Michael, technical services co-op, will be the first to test, with others following. Agnes volunteered. Janet requested that someone from the Adaptability Centre be included in the testing.
- RefWorks
Tim noted that there has been an increase in issues with Write-N-Cite to do with deleted references, which causes errors when formatting a paper and offered a couple of possibilities for helping patrons deal with this. It was suggested that these issues be documented and noted during training. It was noted that RefWorks and WNC are not magical tools – like anything else they have to be used correctly in order to function correctly.
Should a communication plan be developed so that enhancements, issues, etc. could be better disseminated to the user community? There is the RefWorks e-mail list function available.
There was also a short discussion surrounding expectations for handling RefWorks questions (tier 1 vs referral).
January 30, 2012
