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Subject: Self Service Student Appointments with a Subject Librarian
Hello LIS-LINK friends & colleagues . .
. many thanks for your feedback & interest in this topic . . .
-----Original Message-----
Subject: Self Service Student Appointments with a Subject Librarian
Hello -
We are trialling an automated appointment system (whereby the student chooses a time/day when their Subject Librarian is available, to coincide with their own needs) as
an alternative to a face-to-face, on-demand, desk enquiry service.
Are there any other Uni subject librarians out there who already use such a system? If so, could you give me a quick appraisal of how this works for you?
I will summarise & share all responses.
Many Thanks,
Pat.
The responses
(nameless to protect the innocent!)
ß
It sounds like a really scary development and I can see why you are trying to make really difficult choices... do you have enquiry desks still? We do and are also lucky
enough to have an open door policy which helps us keep our enquiry stats reflecting something near reality but we are still aware we are under counting. I can see before long many services will be demanding we prove our worth in very similar ways (whilst making
it hard to prove it because we are so stretched!!) in solidarity!
Dear all - this could be interesting . . .
I'd be really interested in any responses you get. We no longer have an enquiry desk service; we have an 'open door' so students can come in as and when they need help.
We also offer an appointment, but those are booked with the Librarian over the phone or by email (rather than an electronic system).
We have trailed one system and looked at another.
The first we looked at SimplyBookMe – a free product, which was easy to set up and configure. It didn’t embed particularly well with our VLE though
The system that we are using as part of a trial is LibCal, which is a paid for product but is free when used by up to 3 members of staff, as I am based at a small library
this system was fine.
A paper comparing the two is attached.
At the moment it’s not working that well, students are used to going to the library counter or emailing in order to get a tutorial so not that many have used it. If we
decide to run with the system I think we’d need to ask students at the desk to use the system rather than have the library advisors create appointments on outlook.
If you look at the paper you can see how LibCal integrates with the VLE, our study skills advisor has used this feature successfully by posting an announcement to a specific
course and offering tutorials through there – it allows you to embed a calendar with appointments with anywhere you’d like.
If you have any questions just ask
(I can forward the above Librarian’s contact details – Pat)
Conclusions
Either system would be an effective tool which would enable students to book appointments with the Learning Enhancement & Support Team at xxxxxxxxxxx. The two systems are easy to use from the point of view
of the students booking their own appointments and member of staff managing their appointment times.
LibCal has several advantages over SimplyBook.me as the system is more flexible in its integration with myXXX. SimplyBook.me is accessed through a website, this website can be added to an item or module in
myUCA but it looks quite large and takes up a huge amount of screen space. LibCal provides small embedded widgets that can be added to announcements, modules or items on myXXX. This approach doesn’t affect the way the student uses myXXX, it adds tutorial bookings
or workshops to the point of need. You can add links to SimplyBook.me to relevant areas on myXXX but you have to navigate away to the website to view them. When providing links to specific services or members of staff on SimplyBook.me the information appears
out of context as you will find yourself on section 3 of 4 which can be confusing.
Both systems are able to add appointments to Outlook calendars, LibCal has an advantage as it saves a step in this process. LibCal also allows you to view a feed of your booked and free appointments within
Outlook.
LibCal has a facility for offering workshops, which can be either drop in or require students to register first. These workshops are displayed in a simple calendar which can be added anywhere. SimplyBook.me
can be configured to offer workshops, but this requires more time to set up and can cause confusion as they appear with the tutorial bookings on the website.
There is a large difference in price between the two systems. LibCal requires a twelve month subscription, and costs considerably more, it is provided by an established company. SimplyBook.me is cheaper, but
is provided by an Internet start-up, which means the system is not as future proof and could go out of business or be bought out.
The free version of LibCal is able to provide a self-service tutorial booking service for three members of staff. If this is enough to meet the needs of the Learning Enhancement & Support Team at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
during the remainder of the academic year then it would be the best choice to use for the trial.
Thanks for the response Pat, we are looking to bring in something similar but linked within a bigger system that allows us to manage appointments, information, a knowledgebase
and an enquiry management system.
Hi Pat would be very interested in this. What are you using to provide this?
Thanks,
Hi xxxx - of the 4 responses I've had back so far, only 1 library is using such a system.
We are sharing a system called 'Spectrasoft', together with our Uni's Career Service, Advice Shops, Counselling Service, etc.etc. . . . . Apparently the software was
originally developed for the medical profession. . . .
At the University of xxxxxxx we don’t use an online appointment system - our Enquiry Service hand out business cards. However, some of our subject librarians have started to use EventBrite to
manage appointments with students. We have ten subject librarians,
Hi Pat, This sounds very interesting. What system are you trialling? Some of the student support services here use something called Timecenter for a similar
purpose, though we haven't yet taken that step with liaison librarians.
Hi Pat, We recently introduced an online form where students can offer a time suitable to them: This replaced an old subscription to a product called Wallchart. We haven't
had any negative feedback on it but not much positive either!
I would be very interested to know what you are implementing and how it is going.
(I can provide contact details – if you’d like to look at this on-line form – Pat).
You might want to look at the Book A Librarian service at xxxxxxxxxxx University Library. You can see the Student Facing side here:
(I can provide contact details – Pat).
Speaking as one of the team who helped to create and run this - it's been successful - though the nature of the queries tends to fluctuate depending on where we are in
the academic year. For example, most of the queries I'm getting at the moment are regarding referencing - this has a lot to do with the fact that the UL is both author and authority on referencing for the University as a whole.
Hello Pat,
We started using an online booking system to book 1-2-1 appointments in December 2013. What follows is a purely personal opinion, please don't quote me!
The system we use is connect2 by Lorensbergs. ..................The biggest drawback is that it does not communicate with Outlook ..............so essentially I now have
two diaries to maintain, as I have to input into the system all the times that I am not available. If I had a regular pattern of work, or had designated office hours as academics do, this might not be too bad, but we do not work in that way. The person who
trained us on the system suggested that we might consider changing that! I am required to keep it up-to-date for at least three weeks in advance.
We have a link to the booking system on our student facing web pages, we announced it on Facebook and Twitter and I have a link in my email signature. I have had a total
of two bookings made through the system in the six months since we started using it, both of which were at times when I was technically free, but were not ones that I would have offered for preference. All other appointments have been made at the enquiry
desk, or by email as usual. It seems a huge amount of work for the sake of two people. Inevitably there will come a time when I forget to keep the booking system up-to-date and that is when another student will book an appointment!
I think it is fair to say that I hate it and I feel that it creates work rather than making life easier. I actually dislike the students being able to pick a time when
they can see me, I would much rather be able to control my own time. I hope we will be reviewing usage soon and I really hope we will be allowed to stop using it as it is incredibly time consuming and my students at least do not use it. Although to be fair,
I gather my colleague who deals with nursing gets quite a few appointments booked through it.
If the system you are using works with Outlook, please could you let me know what it is?
Hi Pat,
I think it was seen as providing added benefit for the students, an extra way for them to get in touch. There are currently 11 subject librarians here, three of whom
are part-time. 2 of us will be retiring soon and I doubt if they will be replaced. We used to operate 3 enquiry desks, one on each subject floor, staffed by us, assistant subject librarians and senior library assistants. HR came and did a shadowing exercise,
after which we were reduced to one desk because our time was too expensive to spend showing people where the books and the toilets are. We now employ P.G. students as 'rovers' on the floors without an enquiry point. The SLs were not happy about the desks
being taken away, because we felt we were losing valuable contact time with the students. We also felt that a staff presence on the floors helped to control noise levels and sadly have been proved right in this, although that is another issue. We had a whole
session on other ways that we could reach out to the students. I think Facebook, Twitter and the booking system were all part of this, although asked round the office and the general feeling was that it was just foisted on us! Online chat, Skype etc. have
also been mentioned, although we are not using those as yet.
Again, asking round the office, one of my colleagues stopped keeping the booking system up-to-date with her availability in January and has only ever had a couple of appointments
booked this way. Another colleague has only had one. Dave, the nursing and midwifery person gets about 90% of all his appointments booked this way. One of the business librarians uses the system when someone emails her for an appointment, rather than exchanging
a series of emails listing available times, etc. I can see the point of that. However she did say that sometimes they never bother booking the appointment and she wonders whether they get fed up with filling out the rather detailed form and give up.
Hi Pat,
I think it was seen as providing added benefit for the students, an extra way for them to get in touch. There are currently 11 subject librarians here, three of whom
are part-time. 2 of us will be retiring soon and I doubt if they will be replaced. We used to operate 3 enquiry desks, one on each subject floor, staffed by us, assistant subject librarians and senior library assistants. HR came and did a shadowing exercise,
after which we were reduced to one desk because our time was too expensive to spend showing people where the books and the toilets are. We now employ P.G. students as 'rovers' on the floors without an enquiry point. The SLs were not happy about the desks
being taken away, because we felt we were losing valuable contact time with the students. We also felt that a staff presence on the floors helped to control noise levels and sadly have been proved right in this, although that is another issue. We had a whole
session on other ways that we could reach out to the students. I think Facebook, Twitter and the booking system were all part of this, although I asked round the office and the general feeling was that it was just foisted on us! Online chat, Skype etc. have
also been mentioned, although we are not using those as yet.
Again, asking round the office, one of my colleagues stopped keeping the booking system up-to-date with her availability in January and has only ever had a couple of appointments
booked this way. Another colleague has only had one. Xxxxx the nursing and midwifery person gets about 90% of all his appointments booked this way. One of the business librarians uses the system when someone emails her for an appointment, rather than exchanging
a series of emails listing available times, etc. I can see the point of that. However she did say that sometimes they never bother booking the appointment and she wonders whether they get fed up with filling out the rather detailed form and give up.
Thanks, Pat. 'simplybookme' is free, but only for a limited number of appointments per week. Our Academic Success Programme use it.
The system we use at XXX is called Spectrasoft - it's been used here for some time by student-services, counselling and other support services.
It's difficult for students to book an appt with us (they have to do this themselves) & we aren't notified when students DO book up - so we have to keep logging into the
system to check - using long double passwords. We can't let the system run in the background - because this causes technical problems! There are only 8 subject librarians at XXX looking after 5 campuses - so - instead of meeting students face to face at an
enquiry desk we now CHAT to them on-line (has its own problems) or they have to arrange an appt. with us. As you will have guessed, we meet fewer students these days.
We were about to look into this too.
The one system we had looked at (and we were just going to do this for one subject support team in Health & Medicine) was
http://simplybook.me/
However, management now want to look at a wider booking system for all teams. Would be interested to hear any responses to your query.
We (at xxxxxx Campus) schedule the appointments (since Sept 2013) in advance on our Google Calendars (we have Google Apps here), then we publish the dates to a form which is hosted on each liaison's
web page - there is a link to the relevant one on each subject page.
The student (etc) can then book a slot (the info goes into each librarian's own Google Form) and then we confirm it by sending the student an invitation via Calendar.
Occasionally people seem to have an issue with the form (they have to sign in first). However it saves time and is very convenient for all parties. It cuts down the no. of e-mails from students
as well on the whole! Plus we get a record of who's attended (I just a put a strike-through through the relevant entry on the form if someone doesn't attend).
Despite a good amount of embedded training the demand for 1:2:1s (esp in health, and esp among P/g students, does not seem to lessen any)...
Here are some papers I found on the subject . . .
haven’t read them all through in detail yet . . .
http://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/A_Chow_Information_2012.pdf
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ985740.pdf
Pat Duxbury
Care Sciences Information Librarian
Library Services /
Gwasanaethau Llyfrgell
Glyntaff Learning Resources Centre
University of South Wales / Prifysgol De Cymru
Pontypridd, CF37 4BN
http://glyntafflibrary.blogs.southwales.ac.uk/
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