Mixed media for your holiday pleasure

First up, there is a wonderful shout out to the Fales Library, and in particular Lisa Darms, in the latest issue of Coilhouse Magazine.

An interview with music icon Kathleen Hanna features some discussion of Fales' new Riot Grrrl archive as an important resource, and how that collection got its start.


[photo from Coilhouse]

It's always nice to see NYU Libraries represented positively in the media, especially in such cool and unexpected places!


Next up, David W. Boles of WordPunk offers up a positively glowing review of WiFi Speeds at Bobst Library:


[Photo from WordPunk]

Boles concludes that NYU, and Bobst in particular, "supports technology and its students and faculty in wonderful and robust ways in every event and arena". Yay for us!


Last but by no means least, check out this Holiday Song from OCLC Research, created by Dennis Massie who used to work right here in Bobst! Thanks to Rob P. in ILL for the link. Music starts around the 0:55 mark:



"May your mission align precisely / with your parent institution's / and may happy holidays be yours and mine."


Happy Holidays, everyone! See you in 2012!

Using e-readers for on-demand delivery

There's an interesting article in College & Research Libraries News about how the University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) is using the Amazon Kindle for Interlibrary Loans.


Once you have consciously trained your brain to “be aware,” you cannot
turn it off. You will instinctually notice “new” or “different” things and ask
yourself “How can we use this in the library?” or “How does this impact our
services?” Be the person who thinks of a new or different way to apply
emerging trends and technology to new or current services.


It was this line of thought that led them to explore using the very popular E-Reader.


Since we were pioneers in loaning ereaders, we had to invent the wheel.
Without the right mindset—“I know this is possible, we just have to figure
out the way”—we might have quit at the first hurdle. Not the least of which
was national publicity concerning the legality of loaning the Kindle. Was it a
violation of Amazon’s ambiguous terms of service?

----

In the beginning, about 90 percent of patrons chose the traditional
hardcover, even though they would have to wait. Reasons given for not
using the Kindle included:

“I don’t want to learn a new technology; I already know how to
use a book.”

“I need to be able to photocopy pages.”

“There is no approved citation style for e-books.”

“I want it on my own e-reader.”

All of the above issues have been resolved, even photocopying. (Yes, I
actually tried making a photocopy of a page on the Kindle, and it worked).

Fascinating stuff! Of course different libraries have different capabilities and concerns - legal and otherwise - but wouldn't it be interesting to imagine how this would shake down around here?

Knowledge Exchange: The Results Are In!

We've tallied up the scores from the post-assessment questionnaire for Knowledge Exchange and here's how we compare:

Before Knowledge Exchange

The questionnaire was taken by 34 staff and supervisors from Access Services.

Circulation, 6.12 familiarity rating, 47.6% correct

Delivery Services, 3.97 familiarity rating, 16.5% correct

Interlibrary Loan, 4.21 familiarity rating, 44.1% correct

Library Privileges, 5.79 familiarity rating, 84.7% correct

Reserves, 5.38 familiarity rating, 63.5% correct

Stacks, 5.81 familiarity rating, 67.6% correct

Fun Facts:

• The question most people answered correctly was “What is the shortest length of time someone can rent a locker for?”
• The question most people did not answer correctly was “What type of items can be requested through Delivery Services?”

After Knowledge Exchange

The questionnaire was taken by 36 staff and supervisors from Access Services.

Circulation, 6.97 familiarity rating, 43.8% correct

Delivery Services, 5.5 familiarity rating, 30.4% correct

Interlibrary Loan, 5.86 familiarity rating, 37.3% correct

Library Privileges, 7.2 familiarity rating, 83.3% correct

Reserves, 6.7 familiarity rating, 71.1% correct

Stacks, 6.8 familiarity rating, 31.2% correct

Fun Facts:

• The question most people answered correctly was a tie between two questions:

"Yes or No, Can a NYU student who has forgotten their ID come into the library?"
"What is the shortest length of time for which someone can rent a locker?"

• The question most people did not answer correctly was:

"What is the fine limit that will cause a patron to have a University Registration hold?"

Conclusions

Familiarity went up across the board. This shows people are more aware of what goes on in Access Services departments.

Familiarity Rating Chart




Delivery Services had the biggest gains in correct answers and Reserves also had a small increase. The percentages of correct answers for other departments curiously went down. This may have been due to the large number of post-assessments that were left blank (no answer was given for many questions).


% Correct Answers Chart

Leave a comment: What do you think of the results?

Questions and Correct Answers

Circulation

How many days does a patron have to return a recalled item before being charged a fine?
Fourteen (or two weeks)

What is the fine limit that will block a patron from borrowing materials?
$5.00

What is the fine limit that will cause a patron to have a University Registration hold?
$60.00
(A University Registration hold is a block on a patron's account that prevents them from registering for classes and from graduating)

How many searches are conducted for a Claim Returned book?
Five

How many days after a Quick Search is placed will the Circulation Department conduct a check of the stacks for the missing item?
The following day (or one day)

Delivery Services

Who can request materials to be paged and/or scanned?
NYU Faculty
NYU Abu Dhabi Staff
NYU Abu Dhabi Students
NYU Abu Dhabi Faculty
NEW! Since the post-assessment, NYU PhDs and NYU TAs have been granted privileges
Also, any NYU patron abroad (regardless of status) can request scans of NYU Bobst material if they use the Delivery Services options on the ILL request forms on the web.

To which libraries can paged materials be physically delivered?
Bobst
Courant
ISAW (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
IFA (Institute of Fine Arts)
Jack Brause (formerly Real Estate Institute)
Abu Dhabi

What types of items can be requested through Delivery Services?
Regularly circulating Bobst books
Regularly circulating Bobst Offsite books
Regularly circulating Courant books
Media from the Avery Fisher Center
Book chapter/journal article scans

On average, how long does it take to ship items to Abu Dhabi?
Three days

To which libraries can Bobst and Courant items be returned?
Bobst
Courant
ISAW (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World)
IFA (Institute of Fine Arts)
Jack Brause (formerly Real Estate Institute)
Abu Dhabi

Interlibrary Loan

What is the maximum number of times an Interlibrary Loan item can be renewed?
Unless the item indicates NO RENEWALS, a patron can request a renewal online one time. They must contact the ILL office for subsequent renewals. All renewals are granted at the discretion of the lending library.

True or False, Interlibrary Loan books can be renewed through the patron's BobCat account.
False, patrons must go through their ILL account to renew ILL books.

From the list below, please select the patron types that can use the ILL service at Bobst Library:

a. NYU Employee Family
b. NYU Polytech Students & Faculty
c. NYU Medical or Dental Students & Faculty
d. New School Students & Faculty
e. NYU Law Students & Faculty
f. NYU Abu Dhabi Students & Faculty

NYU Polytech, NYU Medical, NYU Dental, and NYU Law all have ILL services through their home libraries, not Bobst.

True or False, All Interlibrary Loan items are available for patrons to pick up at the Circulation Desk.
False. "Library use only" items are kept at Avery Fisher Center, Reserves, and Fales.

Which of the following is NOT a method that patrons can use to request Interlibrary Loan items?

a. Through the library's website
b. At the Circulation desk
c. Through the BobCat catalog
d. Through the Arch
(The Arch is what the "Articles & Databases" section of the website is called.)

Patrons cannot request Interlibrary Loan items at the Circulation Desk. Thttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhey can pick up ILL items there, but they cannot make requests there.

Library Privileges

Yes or No, Can a NYU student who has forgotten their ID come into the library?
Yes

Yes or No, Can anyone purchase a membership to the library?
Yes, unless they are on the "PNG" (persona non grata) list

Yes or No, Can the general public gain access to Bobst with a referral from the New York Public Library?
Yes, with a METRO Title Referral Card

What is the only kind of personal storage available in the library to undergraduates?
Lockers

What is the shortest length of time for which someone can rent a locker?
One semester

Reserves

Which of the following is the correct list of current loan periods for materials held on reserve?

a. 2-hour, 4-hour, 1-day
b. 2-hour, 4-hour, 3-day
c. 2-hour, 1-day, 3-day
d. 4-hour, 1-day, 2-day

True or False, Patrons can email scanned microfilms and fiche to themselves directly from the scanning machines.
True

True or False, The Reserved Department is responsible for the processing and re-shelving of the Leisure Reading collection located on Lower Level 2?
True

True or False, The Reserves Department loans out white board markers to patrons.
True

Which of the following does the Reserves Department NOT house:

a. Offsite "Library Use Only" materials
b. Interlibrary Loan "Library Use Only" materials
c. Avery Fisher Center Reserves materials
d. NYU Bookstore Course Packs

Stacks

What roles do the full-time staff play in the stacks?
Oversee assigned floor
monitor work of part-time staff
delegate tasks to part-time staff

What are the responsibilities of the stacks in general?
Shelve books
Straighten and shelf-read
Floor pick-ups
Help patrons
Shifting

Who should be notified about problems in the stacks? For example: loud disruptive staff, books out of order, patron needing help.
Ted or Pablo

What are Ted's and Pablo's responsibilities?
Ted: leads department projects, manages full-time staff
Pablo: manages part-time staff, deputy department leader

From where are stacks part-time staff recruited?
Local high schools and NYU

Offsite...right next door?

Last week I attended the 12th Interlending & Document Supply Conference, titled "Resource Sharing in the Digital Age," held in lovely Chicago, Illinois. Over three jam-packed days we learned from ILL & delivery services colleagues from all over the world, including Italy, Germany, China, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada, Turkey and the US.

On my final day in Chicago a group of us toured the Center for Research Libraries (CRL) and the University of Chicago Mansueto Library.

Stacks of newspapers at CRL

The newly constructed Mansueto Library demonstrates an interesting approach to "offsite" storage. Directly next door (and connected) to the University of Chicago Regenstein Library, Mansueto has a storage capacity of 3.5 million volumes, housed in a 50 foot tall facility, underground!

One of five aisles of storage

The ground floor of the library has the "Grand Reading Room" and Circulation Service Center on one side, and the Library's Preservation Department, complete with laboratories for conservation and digitization, on the other. This entire space is covered by a glass dome, 35 feet tall at its highest point. Mansueto is truly a striking structure.

David Bottorff, Head of Stacks for Regenstein Library, shows us the Grand Reading Room

Amazingly, in an average of five minutes after placing a request, items are delivered from the storage area to the Circulation Services Center. Check out this video to see how it's all done:

Banned Books

Hey everyone!

It's Banned Books Week so get out there and read a banned book!

Here's a list of banned books and here are the reasons why they were banned.

I'm reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

What are you reading? Comment on this post and let us know!

Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam

I recently joined the OBA, Amsterdam's Public Library. Join
really is the operative word here, because while access to the building is open to everyone, circulation privileges are only given to those who purchase an annual membership. This is pretty typical for European libraries.

While the cost is certainly reasonable (27 Euro which is about$36). Not a huge sum, but after I joined I realized my branch has about 10 English language books for preschoolers, which is the primary reason I joined. However, they do have a reasonable DVD collection which can be charged out for a modest 1 Euro per title, and most DVDs offer soundtracks in multiple languages, or at the very least (for adults anyway) subtitles.

One of the self-check machines, the only option for checking out or returning material

My local branch reminds me a lot of a branch of NYPL, mainly because it's in the same type of 1930's civic building. What is different is how automated the branch--and presumably the system--really is. There is no circulation desk. The lobby includes two service desks: one to generally assist with holds, internet log-ins, directional questions, etc. and the other to assist with memberships. Reference desks are elsewhere. In the lobby not only are there 2

self-check machines, there is also a self-service machine for paying fines an fees. Users are responsible not only for checking out their own materials, but also for checking them in! This has been challenging for me because the self checks are in Dutch (the payment machine offers an English option).

The payment kiosk, which allows you to put credit on your library account. This is useful not just for fines, but for utilizing library services for which there is a fee

My main disappointment with OBE is that their catalog does not allow limiting by language. I wish I could search generally for children's books and then limit to English, the way that our

Primo installation allows, since their discovery tool allows me to place requests for books from other branches (and I understand the main library has a much more extensive English language collection).

It will take a little time for me to decide if my library membership is worth it. Some time, a few more check-outs and a visit to the main library, which I think has a larger collection in English (as well as bilingual story hour). But, to learn about a foreign library first hand I suppose $36 is a small price to pay.

Thanks to RFID tags in all the books, these gates sound if a user attempts to leave the building with an improperly charged out book.

Note: While refining this blog post and I was able to figure out the language limit in OBE's catalog! If you select the AquaBrowser link from the English language home page, the catalog options allow a language limit. Now I have to go back and tell the librarians about this, but first I'm off to place several requests...

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?