Reference Department Blog

Please include  your answers when filling out LibStats.  If you do not have time to include the answer when first input the stat, you can edit later by going into question number in the left column.  Answers are useful to others who may be trying to assist people.  Also, please review the following reminders from a previous post. 

1.  If helping with a group study reservation use SERVICES for question type

2.  If the question is related to supplies use OTHER.  Checking out markers does NOT need to be added to LibStats because markers are tracked in Voyager.

3.  When providing information about building and service hours use DIRECTIONAL

Thanks,

Jeannette

Thanks to Tripthi for solving the mystery of unanswered voicemail messages. Oh, the power of observation!

Justin Daffron will be using room 331 on Thursday, July 30th.  Please unlock the door for him using the group study room key when asked. 

Thanks.

FYI from Ursula.   Congrats to Jane for initiating this new agreement.

Effective August 1, we have entered into a new reciprocal borrowing agreement with the Garret-Evangelical/Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. This seminary is affiliated with Northwestern University but was not included as part of our agreement with them. Their library, The United Library, is located in Evanston and contains approximately 350,000 volumes. (See http://www.garrett.edu/library/) I will be updating our web page and posting to the blog on Friday, but wanted to give you all an advance notice. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you to Jane Currie for getting the ball rolling on this.

Hi — I just did a quick review of the LibStats entries since July 1 for our desk.  Thank you to everyone for their efforts to keep this stats complete and accurate.  For the most part we are doing a great job with the Question Type category, but here are some quick reminders based on common mistakes:

1.  If helping with a group study reservation use SERVICES for question type

2.  If the question is related to supplies use OTHER.  Checking out markers does NOT need to be added to LibStats because markers are tracked in Voyager.

3.  When providing information about building and service hours use DIRECTIONAL

Over all, everyone is doing a super job.

Thanks,

Jeannette

Hello everyone:
At long last I am writing on the blog; but let it not be thought that I haven’t written from lack of love or care. Rather, news is scant these days, as are opinions.
But today I have an opinion, or, shall I call it an observation? I’ve noticed the few emails to graduate student workers regarding unattended voice mail. I wondered why is it that students might be overlooking this and two things struck me as possible reasons, one of them, which I discovered today, quite likely the case for our oversight (quite literally).
At some point in the past we were told that the telephones at the IC cannot take messages, owing to which someone or the other from one or the other floor will need to pick up an incoming call. This must have changed, owing to the obvious inconvenience to patrons who may have wanted to call after the library’s closing and leave a message for one or another person. The fast changing policies vis-a-vis the voicemail-pick-up policy may have left some of us uncertain about the protocol; thus the confusion. That is one remote possibility.
The other, more likely, candidate I only discovered this morning. When I came in to work today I paid special attention to the telephone, lest I be found guilty of leaving poor patrons stranded in voice mail limbo. The screens/blinds at the IC’s second level were all up and the sunlight was playing tricks–cruel sunny and mesmerizing tricks–on the lake, on the desk, on the desktops, on the telephones. Owing to the riddled but intensive glare that was falling all over the place, I couldn’t see lights that may or may not have been shining at me from within the telephone. Eventually–and this is no exaggeration on my part–after much squinting and cupping of palms around various “lightable” spaces on the telephone, I was relieved to find no green light against the message sign.
The Eureka moment came to me: perhaps the only reason that we haven’t been picking up on past telephone messages is that the sun has been playing optical tricks on us. So there! I feel victorious in my discovery, quite like the ancient Grecian fellow. The inevitable side-effects of glass houses, my friends, is that we are not only predisposed to the proverbial/literal stone-throwers and envious/admiring glares from onlookers, but also to the positives and negatives of the sun’s dancing rays.
With this second, more viable possibility unraveled, hopefully now we will all glue our faces to the telephone in the morning and find singular ways to defy principles of optics. (I could not resist the jab; it is still morning and I haven’t had the chance to have coffee.) That way, I suggest, all will be well and, importantly, patrons wandering around in the dubious spaces of Loyola’s voice mail system will be relieved of their nomadic dilemmas.
Enough for now; but I’ll write on a regular basis. 🙂 I hope you are well and enjoying–despite the immediate context–the warmth and sunshine.
Best,
Tripthi

Here are a few updates from our recent IC Managers meeting:

1.  Please let Jeannette or Niamh know if we can help clarify the “question type” options in LibStats.

2.  If you leave the desk (especially if going out of sight), please let other staff members at the desk know when you will return and ask them to answer the phone in your absence.  Also, please answer IT phones if an IT staff member is away from the desk.

3.  Group study room 206 will be removed from the reservation system.  Instead it will be reserved through the Digital Media Lab for additional project space.

4.  If you see skateboarders on the ledge by the lake, please report to security.

5.  This year, we will not staff the Level 3 desk from 7 am – 10 am on weekday mornings, plus first three hours of weekend shifts.

6.  Extended finals hours will begin the Monday after Thanksgiving (more info to come…)

7.  If a laptop is returned and there is not IT staff member present, please note the time returned and leave on the Chair of IT staff member.  I may have some further clarification on this soon.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

Jeannette