Hi there

Some time ago I asked the LIS-LINKers about student economy staffing 
there follows a collation of the replies I got
LIS-LINK Question
Do you use student economy worker to extend your LRC/library’s opening 
hours/at all?

Newbold College

We use student assistants to help us with staffing out of normal working
hours and at the weekends during the semesters.  This year we have 7
assistants and that includes the cleaner. This means we can stay open during
the week and on Sundays until 22.00. It's still not enough!  We also stay
open for a couple of weeks until 23.00 during the exam period and although
the students ask for that it isn't used a huge amount. 

Using students works quite well on the whole but involves a lot of mentoring
and training. The turnover is quite high too so it can become quite labour
intensive with the training. Part of the training means that the staff know
what to do in an emergency and they have dealt well with the minor ones that
have occurred here.  They always have access to staff telephone numbers too.
As we are a residential college there is always someone on site anyway. 

The student workforce are supervised and managed by me and are all given
regular feedback through email, chats or group meetings although the latter
is very difficult to coordinate with all their timetables. I communicate
with them several times a week to ensure all of them are kept up to date
with any items of communication and to try and develop a strong team
identity. 

The tasks that our student staff are expected to do include:

running the issue desk and assisting with self check, which we are in the
process or introducing, 
selling small items from the desk
assisting with reference queries and catalogue queries - any library based
queries
shelving and shelf reading
keeping the building tidy
covering books
closing up at the end of the session and leaving the building secure and
tidy for the next day

The list is not exhaustive but includes their main tasks.

Apart form the Librarian and myself we just have one other full time senior
member of staff who is our Issue Desk manager who is paid on a different
scale. The students get £6.50 per hour.

We haven't experienced any problems with the confidentiality of patron
records. We are very strict about that and deal with this issue in training.
However, because we are such a small institution and everyone knows each
other students do put pressure on our assistants to overrule our policies.
They don't but they do get quite a bit of rudeness at times. We try to show
them how to deal with this in role play exercises and always give them the
option of blaming us. Our team are actually very loyal to us which is nice.


University of Kent

We employ an external security company (3 staff) from 8.30pm until 12.30am 
Monday to Friday and 9am until 1pm on Saturday and Sunday. Our own staff 
work until 10pm in the week and come on duty at midday at the weekend so 
there is an overlap (the security firm won't work a shift of less than 4 hours). 
We also have extended opening until 3am 7 days per week for 11 weeks before 
and during the exam period and all the additional hours, including full days over 
the Easter weekend, are provided by the security firm.

In an emergency we would expect the security staff to phone the campus 
security team. We would expect them to sound the fire alarm if necessary but 
not to call the emergency services.

Security staff are expected to work on the reception desk controlling the 
entrance/exit and respond to the exit gate alarm when required. They also 
patrol the building to ensure that regulations are adhered to and that 
customers and stock are safe and secure. We do not expect them to 
undertake any enquiry work, fix broken equipment etc.

There is a hand over from our staff to the security team nightly in the week 
and from the security staff to our team at the weekend and the security staff 
keep a log of any incidents so that they can be followed up by our own staff.

We expect the security staff to wear their company uniform and a library ID 
badge and we inform our students that the security staff have the same rights 
as our own staff when it comes to enforcing the regulations for the building.
They might help with very basic IT enquiries - e.g. not corrupted disk
but clearing a printer jam. They are not expected to answer IT queries
but some are very experienced and would probably help if they knew they
could.


Warwick

We employ 3 casual temp staff each evening and a Supervisor.  The
Supervisors are on fixed term contracts.  They are responsible for
maintaining an environment conducive to study, carry out evacuation
procedures as best they can cover 5 floors and 2 extension floors!
They pick up books from tables, clear rubbish, tidy furniture, ensure
Automated Return book bins are not full,  they work 21.15- 00.30.
Staffed services finish at 21.30. and we close at midnight.  In term 3
we were open until 02:00.   and they worked until 02:30.  

We pay them the Stewards on 1 B which is £7.26 per hour, which is the same 
as our casual Library Resources Assistants -(formerly called Student 
Assistants).  We now employ them all through Unitemps.

The Steward Supervisors are paid on Scale 2 £14,491-£15,759 and although 
they are not Security staff, we paid for them to take Level 2 National 
Certificate for Door Supervisors. We understand this may become a 
requirement in future as the whole campus is designated as Licensed Premises


Wolverhampton (?)

We use 'Support and Security Resources Assistants' - 2 per site. They
patrol, check ID cards, note incidents and deal with Health and Safety
and security incidents - with the back up of site security staff. They
can answer straight forward questions.
Yes - they are on the same scale (as library assistants/information assistants) 
UW3

We have a librarian on the end of a phone line and also answering an
on-line chat service until 10.30 at night Mon- Thurs.  The SSRAs can
show students how to use the automatic service machines, top up
photocopiers and printers. Now we have on-line fines payment they will
be trained to tell students how they can pay their fines on-line.

They will do some shelving, tidy trolleys, can be left other tasks to
do. They take headcounts at regular intervals.  We use them Mon-Thurs
7.45 pm - 12.00, sun evenings 5.30- 9 and summer vacation evenings
5-8.00 Mon- Thurs. and Sat afternoons 1.30 - 5.30.

Initially we tried a contract with Group 4 but found it easier to employ
our own staff in the end - easier to supervise and train. Last year we
tried opening on the Christmas concessionary days with them on duty -
used 3 at the main site and then at Easter as that was so successful we
opened on the Bank Holidays and Easter Tuesday at both the W'ton and
Walsall sites, 3 and 2 respectively. We went for more staffing e.g. 3
then as it would have been difficult at the Christmas time to arrange
extra staffing if 1 of just 2 were ill. Staffing with 3 gave us more
peace of mind. 
They might help with very basic IT enquiries - e.g. not corrupted disk
but clearing a printer jam. They are not expected to answer IT queries
but some are very experienced and would probably help if they knew they
could.

 No - they can't get into customer records - they do not use the LMS
system - only the automated service machines are available for loan,
return and renewal in the SSRA staffed hours. They would not be able to
create an ID card for example. The LMS is closed down at the help desks.

Brighton

The extension of opening hours to include Sunday afternoons during term-time
at my particular site library of the University of Brighton has been staffed
by recruiting  2 x 12hpw professional staff and 2 x 12hpw resource
assistants. These two sets of pairings work alternate Sundays and Wednesdays
afternoons plus one other day during the week. We have also recruited a
caretaker-cum-security person to work alongside them. If any one member of
staff is off sick on a Sunday we do not open. These extra hours were in
response to student demand and are paid for from top-up fees. We trialled
the opening for a year before making it permanent this year. The library is
an isolated building I a not very salubrious part of Brighton and the rest
of the site is closed on Sundays - hence the need for security presence.

I can imagine this case may not match your own - and you may be talking
about late/all night opening, but so far we have had no demand for late
night opening (we close at 8pm Monday-Thursday and at 6.pm on Friday)


City of Westminster

With us, during periods of high sickness levels of library staff, we had teaching 
staff coming to cover the learning centre with one other member of library 
staff. This does not really work well as they are absolutely no help to the 
library staff member, as they are unaware of  knowledge of the library or the 
policies we operate. Initially we would tell them where photocopy cards are 
kept and shown them how to operate the till. 
 
With regards to extended opening hours, we have trialled openning till 7 on 
tues and thurs every week. At the same time we keep half hour head count to 
show the management how the centre is being used and the head count is 
divided into silent study and IT suite. It has failed tremendously as none of our 
16 year olds wants to hang around the library or use the IT facilities anymore 
than they have to. 
Anyway hope this helps. Getting a resource bank of staff, possibly temp has 
been in the pipeline for years. But with current financial constraints it seems 
highly unlikely.

Sussex

As it's you thought would respond in person! We're continuing piloting 
24/5 opening this year - started Monday. Did the same from January last 
year and was very popular even if footfall wasn't huge. (We open at 8.45 
on Mondays and stay open until 7.30 Saturday - hence 24/5).

I've attached a doc which covers some of your questions but cos i can't 
help myself here goes.

We use a security firm to cover - our staff work exactly the same hours 
as they did before. One reason being we wanted to have a clear 
delineation between serviced and non serviced hours - but also they're 
cheaper & provide sick/annual leave cover.

We have 2 guards on duty at all times - one on the entrance (we've got 
turnstile entry) and one patrolling. We have the same staff each night 
although there is a team of 3 - for cover. We were adamant that they had 
to be the same ones so that we didn't have to keep training different 
bods so they were recruited for this work.

They start half an hour before our staff knock off and finish half hour 
after our guys come in - so we/they can report problems and we can nip 
any straying from procedures in the bud! This approach worked pretty 
well for us last year so fingers crossed.

They're given training by our staff on all they need to know and have a 
procedure manual & forms to report/record problems.

We have University security on campus 24/7 and these guys are told to 
call on them in the event of any problem - with punters or alarms or 
whatever.
Security staff working hours.

06.10.08-12.12.08 (10 weeks autumn term)
Monday - Thursday 21.00 - 09.00
Friday 19.30-12.30 (Saturday lunch)

12.01.09-20.03.09 (10 weeks spring term)
Monday - Thursday 21.00 - 09.00
Friday 19.30-12.30 (Saturday lunch)

23.03.09-17.04.09 (4 weeks easter vacation)
Mon-Thurs 19.30-09.00
Fri 17.30-12.30 (Saturday lunch)
CLOSED 9.04.09-14.04.09 inclusive so no cover required.

20.04.09-26.06.09 (10 weeks summer term)
Monday - Thursday 21.00 - 09.00
Friday 19.30-12.30 (Saturday lunch)
No cover required May Bank Holidays.


List of Security Guard Responsibilities for 24/5 Opening
1.	User Access
a.	Staff the reception area allowing entry only to users with valid 
university ID passes.
b.	Allow manual override to entry system only in accordance with clear 
direction.
c.	In the event of total system failure invoke documented procedures 
to enable access.
d.	Refuse to access to anyone not complying with the above & alert 
University Security if problems arise
2.	Enforcing Rules & Regulations
a.	Patrol not less than once an hour all areas open to users to ensure 
that rules & regulations are not being breached.
b.	Users who refuse to comply should be asked to leave the building & 
ID should be sought & recorded.
c.	Once each evening patrol key staff areas to ensure that users to 
check for signs of user access & to ensure areas remain properly secured.
3.	User Counts
a.	At midnight, 3am and 6am conduct a count of occupancy and 
complete the forms provided.
4.	Basic Cleaning
a.	Empty all bins in public areas at least once a night. (midway through 
session)
b.	Check User toilets at least once a night (mid way through the 
session) & replenish stock as required.
c.	Possible nightly check on/ tidy of Library Café – to be decided after 
one month.
5.	Reporting
a.	Make formal record of any security breaches for Library staff to 
manage the following day.
b.	Record any building / facilities / machinery problems for Library staff 
to manage the following day including User Id if appropriate.
c.	Hand out comments and suggestions form to users who wish to 
record a complaint or other comment.
d.	Ensure all three completed occupancy forms are left in the file
e.	Complete Accident Book where appropriate & alert Porter on 
handover.
6.	General 
a.	In the event of a fire alarm, ensure the building is fully evacuated
b.	Respond to book alarms in accordance with documented procedures.
c.	Request assistance from University Security to manage evacuation & 
reopening to ensure that Users can only access building through main entrance 
after all exits have been secured.
d.	In the event of other alarm e.g. Core a door opening, investigate as 
far as is safe and alert University Security as a priority.
e.	Record any reports of losses / thefts, or any items found & handed 
in - in accordance with procedures.
f.	Report any instances of staff areas showing signs of unauthorised 
access to University Security.
g.	Re-secure any doors etc. as appropriate.
h.	Put up warning / out of order notices as required




List of Additional Cleaning Requirements during period of 24/5 opening.

1.	Morning wipe of all desk in public area.
2.	Check all floors in public areas & clean as required.
3.	Report on soiled & damaged areas that cannot be addressed by 
cleaning staff.
4.	Anticipated increase in rubbish to be cleared from all public areas.
5.	Anticipated increase in level / time of cleaning user toilets
6.	Library Café will require full clean each morning


LSBU

Not really student economy but


Perry Library at LSBU has gone RFID over the summer with 14 extra staff doing 
the tagging of books.

Now its done staffing has been cut down as students do self-issue. THerefore 
on main entry floor where there used to be a big issue desk plus smaller linked 
enq desk there is now one desk. In evenings this is staffed by 3 people only 
and  one of whom is Counter Supervisor. Some staff who used to be on 
Counter are now roving help.




Thanks to everyone who helped

s