Opening Date Given!

Well, you've probably all heard the news, we're opening Wednesday, August 2nd at 1pm in the afternoon. This means the first shift will be... Sonia Tergas! She'll be first, but will have a short first shift from 1-2pm with Aimee Barrett coming on next and then Richard Saltzburg.

Now that we know the opening date it's time to double check your schedule and make sure you have all your shifts covered. If you still need a trade, take a look at the schedule here and see if another person needs a trade when you could take their shift. Or you can email/call folks from the list here. If you absolutely cannot find a trade, email me (even if you have before) and you and I will work out a trade. Since I have shifts every day, we should be able to work out something pretty easily.

Speaking of trades and schedules, I've gotten a little feedback on the two calendar options and no one seems to care much. So I plan to use the Yahoo Calendar option. I'll link it to the Information Point page so you can just click to it. Let me know if any ideas for the calendar or the Information Point site.

If you have questions, this is the time to get them answered! You can comment on this blog or email me directly.

Have a great weekend!

Calendars Calendars Everywhere...

Well on advice from Naomi I consulted with a few people to see how they manage their trades and current desk schedules online. It seems everyone has a different method. Several depend on using Dreamweaver, which I don't have or know how to use...yet, but I have two methods now that you can choose from.

First, the PDF version that I have up now here.
This can be updated in my Outlook calendar and then changed to a pdf and uploaded. Not an incredibly difficult or easy method. I'm not sure how you all feel having to download a pdf file though everytime you want to see your schedule.

Second, I can export my Outlook calendar into a Yahoo calendar online. You can view this here.
This might be a little faster and easier since I won't have to modify the link. AND you can actually bookmark the calendar itself. (Using the PDF version, you couldn't bookmark the PDF file since the name changes each time I update it.)

Let me know if you have any preferences! Also, while you're checking out the calendar, if you see anyone with "Trade Needed" next to their shift and you are available for trading, please contact that person to make a trade. If they're unavailable, contact me. Otherwise I'm going to have a LOT of shifts coming up!

And by the way, a little bird whispered a rumor that we might be opening next week! Stay tuned!

Trades Galore

Well I've been receiving a lot of notices from folks heading out on vacation over the next few weeks. To help everyone make trades, I've included notes next to names on the Weekly Schedules indicating that a trade is needed. Take a look at the Weekly Shedules here. They're in pdf format. As you find trades, let me know and I'll adjust the schedule to indicate the trade.

I still have no word yet on an opening date. I'll keep you posted!

Customer Service Training

Recently we all began receiving emails from Trudi about attending one of the mandatory 4 hour Customer Service training sessions. Since we all have to attend one of these sessions, I think we'll skip having the one hour Customer Service session we had planned for our Information Point training. I don't know about you guys, but I have a feeling that the 4 hour session will be enough training for us. ;) We may offer a more specific Customer Service training session next year some time that would really focus on the Information Point, but for right now we'll all just attend one of these sessions and call it good.

I thought I'd probably have a mutiny on my hands if I insisted everyone attend the one hour training on top of the 4 hour one. :) We wouldn't want that.

I still haven't heard any rumors about an opening date. Since we haven't heard today I'm assuming we're not opening next week before Thursday at the earliest.

Check out the Useful Links page on the Information Point site. I've added the floor plans, computing information, and the daily statistics sheets. The next big project is to work on the current schedules. Whew! There have already been a lot of trades! If I haven't answered you specifically I do have your emails flagged and will let you know as soon as I have the trades set up and the schedules viewable. It looks like they'll be in PDF format, with each week being a separate page within the PDF. If you have other ideas let me know. I'm using an Outlook 2003 calendar to keep track of the trades, but I haven't found a way to share a calendar online yet.

We're linked

We now have a link to the Information Point webpage. To find the page you go to "Staff Web" then click on the header "Public Services" then click on "Activities" in the menu on the left. We're the third item under "Circulation Training." Thanks to Shaun for linking us up.

Opening canceled!

Well we all just received the news that we will NOT be opening on Tuesday the 18th. They still anticipate the opening to be in July, but it won't be next week.

What does this mean for us? Well since we don't know exactly when we will be opening it will be important to still make sure that you are either available for your upcoming shifts or you have arranged coverage for your shifts. That way if we're not open we're fine, and if we do open we won't be scrambling for coverage.

Other than that I think this just gives everyone some breathing room to make sure they have everything really ready for the opening, whenever it occurs. So let's hear that collective "whew!" of relief. Time is back on our side.

In other news, it has come to my attention that there is to be no drinks or food of any sort at the service desks. This includes a bottle of water or a travel mug of coffee. Circulation students and staff will be held to this and so will the Information Specialists. As far as I know this applies to all service desks, so Reference and the Computer Help Desk will be affected equally. I'm afraid this comes straight from the directors and so there is no wiggle room. Please hydrate before your shifts accordingly.

On a lighter note, the rolling cart for our handouts is here. It's all put together and I'm loading it up with handouts now. It looks great and has lots of room for handouts, along with a hanging basket on the front where we can put the blank and completed Statistics Forms.

The break, 1st floor, lockers, ADA, and late procedures

During various meetings yesterday I confirmed a few items.
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PG 2640 - That's where the break in the collection between the first and second floor is. Some of the PG 2640 books are on 1st floor, and some are on the 2nd floor. So if someone does need a book that is PG 2640 they're going to have to check both places. This break will be put on the maps when they are updated. But the maps we have now still indicate PC1 as the break (which we now all know is wrong. Right?)
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The first floor stacks will definitely be closed to patrons throughout Summer B. We don't know for sure how much longer they will be closed since the Starbucks construction does have an impact on the availability of at least one range of stacks down there.
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Lockers on the 6th floor will not be ready for checkout on opening day. We hope they will be ready sometime during the summer, but we don't know for sure yet.
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ADA equipment- Right now we still have the basic service that we will retreive books for patrons with disabilities upon request. All the regular computers have software to help with audio and visual disabilities. LeiLani will get me a list of the software and I'll get that together on a webpage. As for the specialist equipment in the ADA carrels, they are not ready yet, but they're coming along.

To answer a question that came up on Monday, the TV/VCR/DVD combo units that will be in the black booths on the 2nd floor are not yet in. While the booths will not be ADA compliant, we will have the TV/VCR/DVD units in the ADA carrels.
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What to do if your shift is over and your replacement hasn't shown up yet? Here is the plan:

1st- Check the current schedule and try to call/email the person who is supposed to be there.

2nd- Call/email Angela to cover the shift.

3rd- Call 273-2525 (the circulation main number), let a Circulation staff member know that the Information Point is going to be unmonitored. (You can also tell the circulation staff member at the desk, not a student, but the staff member.) AND put up the sign we will have that says something like "This Information Point is temporarily closed. Please visit the 3rd Floor Reference Desk."

But hopefully we'll never have that problem! :)

Microforms

A question came up today about Microforms.

The Microforms that were at ALF are now packed up for moving. However they will not be moving over to West until sometime during the fall semester, probably in August. Therefore any microforms that are listed in the OPAC as being available at ALF are actually NOT available at all.

Patrons who need access to microforms will be referred to Interlibrary Loan. If they need help getting the citation for ILL they can be referred to the 3rd floor Reference Desk.

Our new Updates blog

Well here it is, the Information Point blog. Here I'll post all those daily news items and updates to collections and services. You can leave comments if you'd like.

First updates:

1. The training page is completely up to date. We have Matthew Daley's Aleph training up for viewing, as well as a link to instructions on using ID Checker and a link to the Circulation Manual.

2. The one page floorplan maps are here. These are the black and white handouts of each floor. They are not labeled as being 1st floor, 2nd floor, etc. But Barbara Hood will have the next prints labeled for us. I'll have these in the rolling cart in labeled hanging files for you.

3. The rolling cart came in, but it was damaged so they sent it back. Hopefully the replacement will arrive before the opening.

Have a great day!
~Angela