Minutes of March 23, 2010 Meeting
- Present:
- Pat Bellanca, Kristi Conover, Krista Dandurand, Carolyn Foote, Dorothy Grauer, Maria Kostic Meghan Lord, Rebecca Luo, Holly Muller, Mary Anne Nesbit, Roselyn Riley , Will Torres, Drue Williamson, Paul Young
- Excused:
- Ray Balter, Eugene McElroy
- Guests:
- Nita Mukherjee
The Resource Sharing Group met in Sakai chat.
The entire agenda for this meeting was devoted to the discussion of paging books for hold from the home campus /
library. The group is working on a proposal in which we would allow users to place holds on books that are located
on the same campus as their pickup location. Currently, these requests are canceled manually. Members came up with
a number of pros and cons to paging books from the home location. A consolidated list of pros, cons, and other
considerations can be found below.
Pros
- Many public libraries offer this service, and it is quite popular with patrons.
- Manually canceling holds is time consuming. It wouldn't take much longer to pull these books from the stacks and place them on hold
- Free article delivery was met with resistance from staff at first, but we've now proven that the workload can be managed.
- This would help to keep the library relevant to users who are most comfortable doing work on a computer. Because the library is competing with Google and other online sources, we need to make it as easy as possible for users to get the books they need.
Cons
- Users would not have to learn Library of Congress, and browsing the stacks, a useful research tool, may become a thing of the past.
- Our hold shelves may not have enough space for an increased number of requests.
- Some users may unfairly monopolize a segment of the collection because it is too easy to place holds.
- This could be a slippery slope, causing users to demand that books be sent directly to their offices or dorm rooms.
- Users may not understand that placing a hold does not mean that the book will be instantly available, leading to anger and frustration.
Other considerations
- Place a cap on the number of books that a patron can have on hold at any time to avoid collection monopolization and to ensure that hold shelves will not be overwhelmed.
- Create text to be placed on the screen where users initiate holds. This text can explain that placing a hold does not guarantee that a book will be available.
- Do a short trial period of home location paging to see if we can keep up with the workload.
At the end of the discussion, the New Brunswick Libraries came out in favor of paging books from the home location
while the Camden and Newark Libraries were opposed to the idea.
Information Sharing
Alcohol Studies - No news to report.
Alexander- No news to report.
Annex- A squirrel broke in, made a nest and had babies. All squirrels have since been relocated.
Art- Busy, no other news to report.
Camden- All books have finally been shifted, and they are making good use of the new compact shelving.
Chang- No news to report.
Dana- No news to report
Kilmer- New energy efficient lights have been installed.
LSM- RELAIS training should take place in April or May. RELAIS will completely replace the old PALCI system by the
end of August.