HSL Access Notees - April 24th

Hello,

 

 

Hours

Effective May 1^st, Health Sciences Library will be closed on Sundays - this weekend will see our final Sunday hours at Health Sciences Library!

 

Notification of this change has been posted, and webpage hours adjusted.

If staff have any templates or messages that include our library hours, please update to reflect the Sunday closure.

Sunday staff have been asked to notify Sunday clients in the library this weekend.  Staff are asked to please forward any client comments or concerns to susan or myself.  Thanks.

 

Sunday – Thanks

Many thanks to Kathleen and Jenna who have provided our Sunday coverage over the past months!

 

Knowledge Resource Service Site contacts

With many recent changes, Knowledge Resource Service staff lists and email lists are being updated,  however if staff are trying to contact the Knowledge Resource Service sites, using the general phone number or generic emails may be the best option.

 

 MCCQE

 The Medical Council of Canada exams begin next week.  This means that the Computer Commons will be booked for full days (8am -6pm) over the next few weeks.  They will also be using 1459, 1453, and 1454 on select days for accommodation.  Wilma Dodge is the UME contact coordinating the exams and she has library and commons keys.  She and team will be in the library early each day for set up. Wilma may also need to use the courtesy phone to troubleshoot any system issues.  There will also be an extra table and chairs posted outside the 1460A door for the exam team.

The Commons will be available during evenings and Saturdays.

This will cause limited access to some software programs such as SPSS during daytime hours.

 

LibAnswers

 Great discussion about questions types at our service meeting this week.  I have contacted RFDL with our questions, but have not received a firm response yet.

Watch for more info as it becomes available.  Please let me know if there are additional questions that need clarification.

 

Term Loans

The term loan due date will be reset to September 15^th effective Tuesday, May 5^th.  This is also the date the reminder notices will be sent to patrons to renew their books by May 15^th.

 

New transit Bins

We will be seeing new transit bins from Collections with new books and journals items arriving at Health Sciences Library.

These will be with red & blue bins to hopefully distinguish them from other deliveries.

 

HSL Access Notes - April 17th

Hello Everyone,

A few notes for the week…..

Hours at Health Sciences Library

We have posted information about our closure on Sundays effective May 1^st.

Please pass along any client concerns or comments to Susan or myself.

Best Wishes to our Student Assistants

Many thanks to our student assistants, Mary, Kathleen, Jessica, Amy, Krystal, Jenna, Robin, and Anna, who have provided so much service and work on countless projects over the fall and winter terms.

We couldn’t do it without you!

Congratulations on completion of another term, and very best wishes with finals.

Summer Schedules

Our summer student scheduling will begin May 1^st.

Evening student shifts will be 6:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. and Saturday student shifts will be 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.

ProQuest for Word and RefWorks

Glenn was in this week and updated the public computers in the service area (including our back up workstation at the desk), with ProQuest for Word to support the new RefWorks platform.

Bad Debt

We have received the following information from Lucille Wallace at TFDL regarding “Bad Debt Client Accounts”

1.        Accounts that had been billed prior to April 1, 2011 and were still outstanding as of June 2, 2014, were put through SIRSI as a Bill Paid with the payment type Bad Debt; these payments were processed from March 20-26, 2015.  This initiative was set by LCR Accounts to reduce the receivables showing as owed to LCR for the fiscal year end.  There were 800+ accounts cleared, $169,086.41 was cleared, have not yet documented the number of books to be cleared off patron records.  These items will be cleared off once year end is complete, plan to start the week of April 6^th.

2.        The accounts that had been submitted as either a Registrar’s Withhold or Collection Agency account will not have these accounts released as paid; as far as the Registrar or Collection Agency know, these accounts are still owing and need to be collected.

3.       The patron status will remain at or be set to Barred; a Note will be on the patron record advising that the account was written off but still needs to be collected.  The amount written off and any details for the number of books that were cleared off will be included.  Details for the fines can be found under the Bills tab on the patron record, select Paid, should the patron query what they had been charged for.

4.        Any books on the patron record will be discharged, their item type set to Libonly, their location set to Missing.  I will be sending a list of those items belonging to branch libraries to the appropriate branch so that you are aware of what has been cleared off as a result of this account write off process.

5.       If a patron does settle their account due, please advise Lucille Wallace via e-mail the paperwork required to advise the Registrar or Collection Agency can be completed. 

What this means is that there may be some client records that show up as ‘barred’, that do not show any outstanding items in checkout or bill screens since they have been cleared as bad debt.  These clients still have an account to be paid.

Staff are asked to keep an eye out for clients with a ‘barred’ status.  All details of the account still owing should be listed in the Extended Notes screen.  If you accept payment, there would be no ‘fine payment’ action in Sirsi, but we would add a Note in the extended info screen with amount paid, the record would be changed from ‘barred’ to ‘OK’ and an email would need to be sent to Lucille Wallace with client and transaction details.  

Please let me know if you have any questions.

LibAnswers

We are continuing to learn a bit more about norms for entering reference questions into LibAnswers.
It has been confirmed that transactions captured by other systems do not need to be entered in LibAnswers.
Answered By: If you are at the desk, logged in through our generic account staff are still asked to select their name form the drop down list when they enter a questions. Student assistants will leave the generic Health Sciences Library in the answered by field, but will add their initials to the notes box.
Questions form AHS clients:   = Please use Community as client type, but add AHS to note field.
Pre-defined questions:  Have you used the toggle switch to see the set of pre-defined questions and save yourself some typing?  These includes questions such as: Money on card, or room booking and many more.
Clear fields:  You can clear fields in two ways.  One, click submit and clear, or, if you click submit then decide you would like to clear the fields, use the ‘clear fields’ option below the “boxes”

Any questions staff have come across that seem tricky to categorize? 

Next week sessions

·         Ben King

Want to learn more about 3D modelling for visualizing health research?  Join us on

Monday, April 20,

2:30-3:30.

Room HSC G801E (Access through the Bacs Centre)

·         Public Service meeting

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

2:00 – 3:00

HSC 1459

·         MLA Webcast:  THE DIVERSITY OF DATA MANAGEMENT: PRACTICAL APPROACHES FOR HEALTH SCIENCES LIBRARIANSHIP  12-1:30 in 1459

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

12:00 – 1:30

HSC 1459

TFDL Intern Visit

A MLIS intern Robyn Gray from Dalhousie University, who is working in TFDL Collections for a few weeks, will be visiting Health Sciences Library on Monday morning.  I will try to introduce to staff who are available.

Hello Everyone,

 

A few notes for the week…

 

Baby Showers – Potluck Lunch

Please join us to celebrate Caitlin and Christie and meet their new arrivals!

Potluck lunch at Health Sciences Library on Wednesday, April 15^th from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm

 

Farewell

Please join us in wishing Afroz all the best at a farewell coffee on Friday, April 17^th from 1:30 – 2:30

 

Health Sciences Library and LCR Support Staff Council

Many thanks to Lourdes and Kathy for coming forward to serve as Support Staff Council representative and alternate for the coming term!

Also I would like to thank Tuyet for her time and efforts to represent our team so well on council over the past years.  I have heard that her reports were always most interesting!

Thanks to all. 

Client Appreciation

I know our staff always starives for client service excellence, and it is always so nice to hear back from clients.

This week alone we have received the following comments of appreciation for our team........

• "Your help was awesome!"
• "Thanks so much for all your top-notch service...."
• "..... as always, you have been incredibly helpful."  

Thank you to all for this ongoing care and attention to our clients' needs.  It really does make a difference

 

LibAnswers

It seems that the new LibAnswers software is working well for all to record our regular reference and instruction stats.

There are still some questions about the norms for what and how questions / interactions are entered, and we will learn more about this as we go forward. 

·         Reference, Instruction and Tour statistics are entered in separate datasets.  Select the dataset on the ‘Add Transaction’ tool bar.

·         Have you tried using the pre-defined questions?

·         Most of the questions we respond to at the service desk fall under ‘directional’:  questions about using the library or our services.

·         This would include how to print, how to book rooms, hours, registering for workshops, etc.

·         Questions that require working on a client’s Sirsi record would be noted as ‘circulation’ type of question.

·         If a transaction will be recorded by another of our systems, we would not record it in LibAnswers.  For example a fine payment is recorded in Sirsi, so would not be entered in LibAnswers (whether in person or by phone).

·         Staff can record questions that come directly to them at their personal desk/email/phone if they fall into the guidelines.

·         Questions coming in through our Health Sciences Library generic email or IM accounts should be recorded as Health Sciences Library service desk, or DDS

 

Examples:

Client asks to checkout a reserve item or charge-all :  Entered in Sirsi – not recorded in LibAnswers

Client comes in and asks if a certain book is on our reserve shelf, but is not found:  No transaction is Sirsi – recorded in LibAnswers as directional

Client comes to pick up hold, for checkout:  Entered in Sirsi – not recorded in LibAnswers

Client comes to pick up hold, for checkout, but it is not on shelf:   Follow up required - Entered in LibAnswers as “Circulation’

How do I print? :  Entered as directional

Troubleshooting with print job problem:  Entered as technology

 

HDL Transfer Final Numbers
How many items did we transfer to HDL in 2014?

We transferred:

26 822 issues

4 633 bound volumes

31 455 barcoded items!

 In all we processed 1174 titles (1149 of those titles were ultimately transferred to HDL)

Amazing numbers!

Health Sciences Library Journal Shelf List

As part of the comprehensive Health Sciences Library journal transfer project to HDL, a thorough review of our journal holdings was also completed.  Our student assistants and many staff contributed to this project, and student assistants are continuing with the shifting to update our stacks.  A very positive outcome is that we now have an accurate and current Health Sciences Library journal shelf list.  This is stored in our R drive at: Health Sciences Library>UCLASS > Collections and Information> Description of Collections > Case Files .Onshelf Journal List 2015. 

 

Consult Office

We are through our first week of our drop-in consultation service.  Any feedback?

While librarians are not in the consultation office during the mornings, one is always ‘on-call’ for drop-in clients.  This means our level of drop-in service for the client has not really changed.

 

Toronto notes

The 2015 edition of the ever-popular Toronto notes has hit the shelves at Health Sciences Library.  We have two circulating copies and one copy on reserve for 2 hour use in the library only.  The large text also comes with the companion handbook and ‘notes’ booklet.

 

MCCQE

 The Medical Council of Canada and Family Medicine Exams will be coming up at the end of the month.  The Commons will be booked for exams 0800 – 1700 weekdays from April 27^th through May 6^th as well as May 11^th and 12^th.  MCCQE will also be using 1459, 1453 and 1454 on a few of the days for special accommodation.