Attending: Beth Dupuis (co-chair), Salwa Ismail (co-chair), Blake Lindsey, David Wong, Fedora Gertzman, Lynne Grigsby, Michael Campos-Quinn, Nicole Brown, Susan McElrath, Shannon Monroe, Steve Mendoza, Susan Powell, Tim Converse, Neda Salem
General Updates: Welcome to Blake, new co-chair CSG (Circulation Services Group). Shannon is substituting for Patrick from ILS.
Census 2020 will be administered this spring. Intent is to get word out to people to complete the census count, especially students who are often a missed population. A group based at Law School is taking the lead in getting more people to complete this census, and has asked the Berkeley Library to participate. We agreed and David Eifler is the coordinator. For the period March 12 through May 1, Library IT will add an icon to the desktop of all standard `research only' and `full suite' public computers; the icon will be open in incognito window in a Chrome browser and lead directly to the online Census form. In addition there may be select stations that have extra privacy screens/screen covers. That group is also working with students and other volunteers on campus. This icon will appear on all public computers that Library IT manages (so in several of the affiliated libraries also). The organizing group will also provide some informational materials for us to have at select locations in our libraries; they are planning to have some documents customized for Berkeley such as FAQs for international students, undocumented students, and others in marginalized communities. They will assist us in training our staff and student library employees to know more about Census 2020. Official Census Day is April 1, 2020.
ACTION: Beth will ask David Eifler to send out an update about the plans to libstaff@ after the next library census meeting, including for the training and other logistics.
LibCal has been updating the `Room Bookings' module and now calls it `Spaces'. We plan to upgrade in Spring/March 2020. Nancy (Tran) Lewis will be the point person. There is new functionality and accessibility (ADA) improvements. Request Forms and other customizations will need to be migrated; Lisa Weber and Nancy Lewis will be coordinating this. The only module to be upgraded is the Room Bookings, and not the Workshops/Appointments/Calendaring. All the locations that use the Room Booking module currently for their instruction/training rooms and/or their study rooms (such as those in ENGI, EART, EAL, ENVI, IGS, Main Stacks, and Moffitt) will be affected. Nancy Lewis will be contacting people in each of these locations about next steps.
ACTION: Beth will confirm with Nancy Lewis about the scheduling of the first meeting.
The Public Computing Prioritization Report documented the results of a library-wide review of our public computing needs and recommended changes. ES&S, part of Library IT, is nearing the final stages of implementation of those decisions.
Public printers are being replaced in two batches. The first 13 machines will be ordered soon and then rolled out to locations with the highest usage and oldest machines; likely to be completed in March 2020. The second batch will include all other public printers and those will be rolled out by August 2020. The default printing will be b/w and color can be selected by the user at the time of printing for printers that are color enabled. NRLF public printers are being handled by Susan Swarts directly.
Public computers:
The current naming of our two main types of public computers (Research Only and Full Suite) is confusing to people, and we have the opportunity to relabel these. Members suggested also improving the labels on the machines, signage that explains what can be done on each type of machine, and a review of policies (such as adding time limits to the `Research Only' stations). Members are asked to consult with the groups they represent to gather more input that will inform our decisions. It would be advisable to break this process down into manageable chunks, such as completing the update from the recommendations of the report, then renaming the types of machines, and then looking at the policies and signage.
ACTION: Dave Wong and the ES&S team will be in touch with each of the locations to confirm the schedule for when public printer and/or public computer changes are planned for their unit/library.
ACTION: PSC members consult with the council/unit/group that they represent for input about the naming, labeling, descriptions, and policies related to our public computers. PSC will revisit this topic toward the end of the semester (likely April/May).
Last semester we agreed to gather info from our e-reference and chat logs, and to survey library staff to determine what information or resources would be useful to make more prominent in case of future campus power outages. Thanks to Nicole, here is what we collected:
Contains two sheets -- one with reference email inquiries, the other with chat inquiries for the outage periods. Data were culled from the reference email data and the QuestionPoint transcripts. Color denotes whether the question was related to the outage. Spoiler alert: most were not related!
Results of the survey we co-created for staff to record the questions they were asked (and had) during the outages.
Top outage-related questions from users were about library hours and if items due would incur fines. Some systems, like Aeon and NRLF, may be affected in different ways that relate to public services and what we hope to communicate to users. Making this information easily findable during similar emergencies, such as linked to the news item that is added to the top banner of the Library web site and referred to by Library Communications, is useful. This might be created as some type of LibGuide that remains unpublished until it is needed, or other simple statements that Communications can draw from in various situations. It was suggested that peer libraries might have some great examples for us to follow.
PSC also discussed actions we could take to better support public services library staff, such as documented practices and training for staff and student employees about steps to take once the library reopens (such as backdating returns),and training about how Millennium handles fines and notices.
In general communication to library staff is still confusing; messages from various people in the Library, UCPD, and campus officials can be different and decisions are often not finalized to make clear what staff or student employees should do.
ACTION: Circulation Services Group, Library IT, and Access Advisory Group leaders identify information that would be helpful to share with staff at an upcoming CSG meeting and be documented to incorporate with student library employee training.
ACTION: Salwa and Beth to work with Library Lead Team in determining next steps about communication to library users and library staff.
ACTION: Beth to contact peer institutions to gather examples of policies, practices, and documentation they have for similar types of emergencies.
Deferred to Feb, 2020 PSC meeting.
The next Public Services Council meeting is on February 25, 2019.