Students! Help!

Right now, most of us are really itching for student workers to help in our departments.

Hiring students seems like it would be pretty easy, since there's no shortage of them going from department to department asking about jobs. So what's the hold up? Why does it take so long to get new students hired?

Here's why:

Job Postings or Job Fair
This is how student supervisors find students to hire. Jobs are posted to NYU CareerNet. Student supervisors can also accept resumes and applications at NYU-hosted job fairs. Whether you post a job or go to a job fair, you usually receive 50+ applications (in a day at the fair or after 3-5 days of an active job posting).

Serious about Hiring Students
Since we want to hire students who will
a) work well
b) work when we need them to work
c) not call out sick all the time, and
d) hopefully stick around for more than a semester
it takes some time to fish through the 50-100 resumes and find the good ones.

Interviews
It's not unreasonable to want to meet the students you might hire, so you've got to interview them. Scheduling student interviews is a nightmare, especially at the beginning of the semester. They are moving into dorms or apartments and figuring out their class schedules and extra-curricular activities. Even if you're ahead of the game and post your job listing in early August, you usually can't schedule the bulk of your interviews until late August/early September because the majority of students do not live in NYC for the summer. So, there's this race to try and schedule them before school starts, which almost always ends up spilling into the first or second week of classes. Students apply to multiple jobs, have multiple interviews; sometimes your interviewees cancel because they accept another job, other times they have to reschedule for some reason or another. Pretty soon, your list of 20 potential student employees drops to 7 and then you have to go through more resumes! (You get the picture.)

The Wasserman Walk
And then there's the Wasserman form. Students who seek an on-campus job must fill out the correct form and take it to the Wasserman Center for Career Development (during their business hours) to be signed. This verifies that they can hold an on-campus student position. Part of this form requires them to verify their citizenship or visa status (I-9 verification); for this, they need multiple forms of ID. Sometimes they even need their birth certificate, which they have to have their parents mail to them. (I mean, what undergrad brings their birth certificate to college? I would have never thought to pack that.) The form has to be complete and signed by Wasserman before a student supervisor can accept the form and hire the student. If a student brings you an incomplete form, you have to send them back to Wasserman and then the student has to bring the form back to you. Faxing and scanning don't help with this process; a lot of footwork on the part of the student is required.

Wait Three Days
Once a student supervisor has a completed Wasserman form and wants to hire, they fill out some more forms and take all the paperwork (or have the student take the paperwork) to the Human Resources office on the 11th floor. Human Resources needs at least three days to file paperwork and get students into the MyTime system before they can start working. During this time, though, you can confirm work schedules and schedule training for new students.

* * *

As you can see, there are many chances for the process to be delayed. Compound this process by the number of student hires you need to make and you realize that it could easily take two or more weeks before your department has enough students. (Not to mention the time it takes to train them all!)

Streamlining the Process
There are a few things that I've done to streamline the process:

1) Before I even look at resumes, I send out a pre-screening questionnaire via email to all applicants. This narrows my prospective candidate pool by at least half. I narrow it down further by going through resumes until I have 1.5 students for every 1 position available (so I'll interview 9 students for 6 positions).

2) I send out a list of available interview times via email to all candidates and have them sign up for a time. This works better than emailing students individually. It's first come, first serve and if they aren't available for any of the times on the list, then I say "sorry, no interview."

3) I tell the students that they must have a completed Wasserman form before they come to the interview. That way, if I choose to hire them, I can go ahead and submit their paperwork.

Even with this streamlined process, it still takes a while. For example, I sent out the pre-screening questionnaire on September 4, conducted interviews September 8-13, and my first student hire is starting September 21.

Unfortunately, the steps of the process that take the longest (Wasserman form, HR's "wait three days") are things that cannot be changed. I've streamlined what is within my power to control.

* * *

The other Access Services Supervisors and myself face this student hiring process every year (and sometimes every semester). No matter how early you start, how prepared you are, or how eager you are to hire, there are a number of other factors that delay the process more than we would like.

I recall that one of our potential working group topics is to address student hiring and student shortages during crucial periods of the semester. It is still on our radar and something that Access Services is planning to organize.

But in the mean time, does anyone have suggestions/comments/questions/feedback about the student hiring process?

"No Room for Books"

A few months ago, an article appeared by one Kevin Kiley on Inside Higher Ed entitled "No Room for Books". It's about the University of Denver's plans to move a whopping 4/5 of the Penrose Library’s holdings into offsite storage and change the building into an '"Academic Commons," much like we have been doing here at Bobst.

A friend sent me this article, wondering what I thought of it in light of my job as Offsite Storage Supervisor. You can read the full article here, but here's an excerpt:

The proposed change has raised the ire of some arts, humanities, and social science professors who say that, while impressive, technology hasn’t yet replaced a good old-fashioned trip through the stacks. They argue that the administration dropped the changes in their laps without consulting them and that it will harm their main mode of research.

"You would never ask a scientist to get rid of his or her laboratory," said Annabeth Headrick, an art history professor. "But that’s exactly what’s being done to us."


Although I remain sensitive to faculty concerns and appreciate a good old-fashioned browsing session as much as anyone - and I must stress that I don't know whether there is truth the the assertion that faculty at Denver were never consulted - I must admit that my first reaction to the above is basically, *Sigh*, here we go again.

At NYU, as with other large libraries utlizing offsite storage space, we've been grappling with these concerns for years, and have had little choice but to get with the times in order to keep our library alive and vibrant.

At Denver, however, the plot thickens:

Once the renovations are complete, the university will bring back some books and leave others at the storage facility. The original plans -- which did not cause alarm -- called for 80 percent of the materials to return to the renovated library, leaving behind seldom-accessed journals and those with digital replacements, government documents, and little-used books.

But the university announced to faculty members last week that the renovated library would now only hold 20 percent of its current collection, much to the surprise of professors.

20%?!!! Holy swiss cheese, Batman! I don't know what the Penrose Library's spacial situation is, but it seems shockingly drastic to me to reduce a collection by that much in one fell swoop.

As I've said before, in my very first post on this blog, "As more of our older material goes upstate to the warehouse... we will eventually reach a tipping point where we have more books Off-Site than we have here."

But to the remaining nay-sayers, we can say that this happened organically, and over enough time that most people have gotten used to it, and have reported that they are at least relatively satisfied with the new methods of research that they've developed as a result.

The Next 12 Months

The next 12 months are certain to be a time of change for all of us. I’m currently planning that July 15^th will be my final day before my one year leave-of-absence begins. I’ve been working with Lucinda and all of the Access Sups to make sure that all of my responsibilities are covered and that I’m not even missed!

Beginning in May, Sydney assumed responsibility for Aleph circulation functions, including all administration and leadership related to circulation, reserves and media booking. In this capacity she leads two new groups: a group of Aleph circ supervisors from throughout the consortium and another a group of Aleph “techy type,” administrators from Bobst, Courant, Cooper and NYU Abu Dhabi.

We have some big changes planned in Stacks to get ready for more renovation, including a shift on 9 and moving the Ns from 7 to 9. Shawn Jacobus from the Libraries’ Budget and Planning department will run point on this and be sure to get Ted or Lucinda involved when needed.

Deb returns in early August, and Jen returns in early September. I’m really grateful to Eileen, Pat and Sydney for stepping in to cover these absences. While I’ll be gone by late July and Kristina doesn’t start until September 12^th, I’m sure with everyone else’s vacations, Lucinda’s leadership and the generally slow pace of August, we’ll be in good shape to coast until Kristina Rose, our

former Access Services Librarian, begins in mid-September.

Once Kristina arrives she will be working Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 25 hours per week. She will be responsible for the overall administration and leadership of the department, and the related goal of improving our organizational climate. You may wonder how my job has been distilled into 25 hours per week. Two factors contribute to this: Sydney’s ownership of Aleph issues and a shift in focus to Access Services leadership only. OK, there’s a third important thing we all know: Kristina is awesome.

The exact projects Kristina will be working on have not yet been determined or prioritized, but are likely to include: Aleph advanced training, reserve linking improvements and publicity, an Access Services Open House, an Offsite inventory, unifying the service philosophy in Access Services and beyond, and a Bobst inventory sample to name a few. Clearly these are projects that she will not undertake alone, but will work with various supervisors, departments and groups to get the completed.

And, what will I be doing? Living in Amsterdam and learning about a new culture. Mostly spending time with my family, including my European in-laws (they are great—why do people make in-law jokes?). I may also be working part-time (very, very part-time) with an international library organization, but I don’t yet have any details to share on that. I’d like to use my time to think about the strategic direction of Access Services over the next few years and possibly brush up on some skills I’ll need as we work to create the library of the future (which means I’ll have to identify those skills first…). And, I have a goal to cook more, which is something I really miss and don’t have time for now. I’d like to learn enough Dutch to handle a brief, polite conversation (like the sentence, “do you mind if we speak English?”)

which I should be able to do thanks to Mango a cool tool that we have here at NYU. And, I plan to publish the occasional blog post.

So, take care everyone. I have very mixed emotions about leaving but one thing I’m certain of: between our intelligent and motivated frontline staff, our dedicated and strong supervisors, and Kristina as our awesome interim department head, I am leaving the department in very capable hands. Tot ziens en veel geluk!

Self-Service Check Out

I read today that Albertson's, a big grocery store chain out West, is getting rid of its self check out lines. They want to encourage a human connection with their customers. The poll posted with the story indicates that readers are just about tied as to whether they love or hate self-service tills. Could this be the wave of the future--a backlash against all this technology we use? The data seems to suggest that our users really like our Quick Checks. What do you think?

Strategic Planning

Just what is a strategic plan and why is it important?

Simply put, a strategic plan is a road map that helps an organization get where it wants to be within a specified time frame. Our current strategic plan covered the years 2007-2012, and with 2012 just around the corner, it's time for an update. Creating our new plan will be a major initiative of the libraries for the coming academic year, and the plan will be launched next Fall.

The process for the creating our plan is outlined on the Strategic Planning wiki page, if you want to take a look.

The next stage of the process is the environmental scan, which is an opportunity to look at all the factors which will influence our to-be-created plan. In order to do this, process organizers will be meeting with each department and getting their impressions on a number of topics. The questions they will be asking include:

1. How did our current strategic plan play a role in your department's/committee's accomplishments?

2. Are there parts of our current strategic plan that we still need to address?

3. What changes have there been in your user groups or work groups?

4. What top five things are you seeing on the horizon for your department/ field?

5. What recommendations do you have for adjusting and adapting to changes in the next five years?

6. What are the new ideas in your department/field that should be included in the 2013-2018 Strategic Plan?

So, take a look at our current plan. In my opinion, we have actually made a sizable dent in the proposed actions, a dent we wouldn't have made if we didn't lay out the map to begin with. Give some thought to these questions, since they will be important to making our next road map a plan we can accomplish!

Service, Collaboration and Innovation

I learned this week that four individuals from Access Services were nominated for the prestigious Dean's Award. The Dean's Award was created by NYU's Division of Libraries to recognize extraordinary achievements in support of service, collaboration, and/or innovation. I'm incredibly proud that our department stands out in these areas. More information on this award is posted at http://library.nyu.edu/recognition/deans_award.html. Many thanks to everyone who took the time to make nominations.

Congratulations to Circ for catching up with the return backlog despite a couple of setbacks--scarce student assistants and a couple of Aleph failures didn't make this task any easier. Everyone rolled up their sleeves and got this done! I was also thrilled to see Reserves staff lending a hand for check-in and LP staff volunteering for exit duty so student workers could be dedicated to check-in. ILL and Stacks continue to push through the return onslaught and are making good progress--both by working hard and accepting the help of other units. Offsite has been busy getting a jump on the 9th floor and has recently begun the removal of over 170,000 low-use volumes from the 8th floor. This massive Offsite effort may offer more opportunities for collaboration for Access Services staff.

The Knowledge Exchange is really all about service, collaboration and innovation. Access Services encompasses very different units, but we are all part of the same whole. I see that as people work together to get projects done. And I think it's great!

The Zombie Guide

"Even small academic libraries can be confusing for students. Miller Library developed this graphic novel guide to our library resources in an effort to connect with students in an interesting and unique way."

Thus begins The Library of the Living Dead, from the Miller Library of McPherson College in Kansas. (They also have a pretty cool blog.)



We, too, are always looking for ways to engage with our library users, and to help them learn how to use the library. Maybe we should, ahem, take a page from the folks at McPherson!