Library Gazette

Today was the final competition for the 2008 WFU Staff Summer Olympics. The challenge was a relay: Prentice and Mary Beth formed a human wheelbarrow (Prentice started out holding up Mary Beth as she walked on her hands, but they switched off midway). Then, when they arrive at the pie table, Prentice had to eat a whole apple pie (no hands allowed). Next, Susan bobbed for an apple. Erik finished up the relay by throwing on/carrying a variety of pool accessories (inner tube, noodle, kick board, etc.) back to the finish line. It was a noble effort by all, particularly Prentice who had eaten lunch prior to showing up for the “mystery” event. Weight Watchers Erik, Mary Beth and Susan all refused to eat a whole pie!

However, the effort was enough to secure the ZSR Zephyrs 2nd Place in the team category for the entire summer - especially since we were one of only 4 teams who turned in all the participants’ lifestyle points (librarians always follow the rules of the game!). And Erik nabbed 1st Place in the Individual Male competition (lifestyle points + individual competition points).

Overall, it has been a fun-filled summer with the Wednesday competitions being a nice mid-week highlight. And it’s always a great way to interact with fellow WFU staffers in other campus departments.

Way to go, Zephyrs!

Zephyrs’ Croquet Team

The 2008 WFU Summer Olympics is drawing to a close next week. But there are still competitions and lifestyle points to be accumulated!

This week, croquet was the contest, a first for the Olympics series. None of the Zephyrs were ringers for this sport, one that dates back to the middle ages. The goal was use a mallet to put your ball through wickets with the least number of strokes.

The team had fun and quickly excelled as they learned the best techniques. Maybe we’ve found a new game for next year’s Employee Recognition Event?

During the past several weeks since the Research, Instruction and Technology Services Team was formed, efforts have been underway to establish its structure.

Initial organizational structure was announced last week. Two team sub-units have been established to facilitate daily operations. Roz Tedford has been appointed Assistant Head of Research and Instruction Services and Erik Mitchell has been named Assistant Head of Technology Services. Two “bridge” positions were identified that already span functions of  both units: Giz Womack (Technology Training Manager) and Lauren Pressley (Instructional Design Librarian). To assist with team integration, Giz and Lauren have switched “home” units - Giz will be with Research & Instruction and Lauren with Technology. Other functional changes may take place as the team identifies ways to improve its effectiveness.

Part of the integration process includes physically placing people in office locations where they will be close to their unit colleagues. To accomplish this to some extent, we have moved some of us to new offices.  Giz has moved to the 4th floor Reference Office Suite. Susan, Erik and Lauren did the “Big Move”, a circular office switch! Susan is now in 457A (Lauren’s old office), Erik is in Susan’s old office (258B), and Lauren has moved into Erik’s old location (302A). Stay tuned for an open house to show off the new offices, but in the meantime, please come visit!

Susan’s New Office

Erik’s New Office

Lauren’s New Office

Giz’s New Office

The process of developing a job description for the open team position (the one vacated by Mary Horton) will commence this month with a projected search to begin in early fall. We will revise the position into one on the Technology side so that we can address our need for the additional programming skills required for us to migrate to more open source systems. But we will look for a person who also can contribute to the library instruction programs.

The largest project for RITS during the next academic year is the consolidation of our Government Documents and Microtext Departments. This project will require the talents of many people within the RITS team, as well as from other Library Teams (Resource and Access Services). Mary Scanlon will lead the task force that is being formed to manage this project. Details on this important initiative will be shared as we proceed.

During the last week in June, several ZSR staff members attended the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in Anaheim, CA. Our reflections on our experiences at this conference can be read on the ZSR Professional Development Blog.

Prentice: Top Scorer for The Competition

The Zephyrs have been working hard and having fun during the WFU Staff Summer Olympics. But the Wednesday “competition” success has been elusive until this week. Each Wednesday, there is a contest between all the teams in a different sport.This week was the basketball shoot. Over the years, sometimes we’ve done OK at basketball, but we wouldn’t make the real Olympic team, if you get the drift.

However, this year, this week, we took top honors - winning the overall competition thanks the the topnotch team of Prentice Armstrong, Erik Mitchell, Carolyn McCallum and Roz Tedford. They were on fire with their shooting accuracy and beat out 10 other teams.

Prentice was so on target, he was the top performer out of 44 shooters. And Erik tied for 2nd place.

It was a good week for the Zephyrs. Way to go guys!

Game Time

Today the Zephyrs fielded an inner tube water polo team. Roz, Susan, Mary Beth and Carolyn took to the pool against the Dukes of Hazardous Waste (Residence Life and Housing). We played hard and Mary Beth took a kick to the nose. Our opponents had two really big guys that were hard to deal with, but we managed to lose by just one point, 4-3. We all had great fun splashing, paddling and dumping people out of their tubes!

After a year’s hiatus (to allow other teams a chance to win), the ZSR Zephyrs have returned the the WFU Staff Summer Olympics this season!

This year’s roster is comprised of Heather Gillette, Prentice Armstrong (team veteran), Roz Tedford, Erik Mitchell (team veteran), Mary Beth Lock, Carolyn McCallum and Susan Smith (team veteran).

There will be 8 weekly competitive events, ranging from today’s Bocce Ball toss to Inner Tube Water Polo. Points are earned by winning, placing or just participating in these events, in addition to earning daily points for exercise and class participation.

We would love to have any interested ZSR’ers come out on Wednesdays and cheer us on!

Effective June 1, Research and Information Services (aka Team Info) and Information Technology (aka Tech Team) merged into a new team. As Lynn conveyed in her lib-l announcement to the staff, this merger will help optimize our ability to accomplish the library’s strategic goals.

Our first retreat took place on Monday, June 9. Over the 3 hour period, we explored many avenues for making an effective transition. Of course, one of the first orders of business was to decide on a new team name.

“Research, Instruction & Technology Services” describes the major functional responsibilities for the team. There are many intersections of these three important services that are already taking place in what team members accomplish. By highlighting them in the new team name, we hope to emphasize the areas of synergy that our new team will bring to the library’s mission.

In keeping with the library field’s affection for acronyms, we also considered how the new name would be abbreviated. So, feel free to refer to us as “RITS”!

In response to student requests, starting tomorrow, February 17, 2008, ZSR Library is moving to a open 24/5 schedule. This means that each week, the library will open at 10 am on Sunday, and stay open until 7:00 pm on Friday evenings, during the spring and fall semesters. Saturday hours will remain the same as before. Details on the new schedule are available on our library news blog. Also, read about the new hours in an Old Gold & Black article.

For the first time in ITC history, we have instituted a fine structure to encourage our student patrons to return cameras, camcorders and projectors on time. We have offered loans on digital equipment and accessories for many years, but are limited by budget on the number of items we can buy. We depend on our users to return borrowed equipment on time so that it is available for others to check out. Unfortunately, some students don’t appreciate the dilemma and often keep the equipment far over the due date.

After attempting other methods to persuade users to be timely, we have decided that it is time to use a fine system to promote on-time returns. This policy will apply to undergraduate and graduate students. Faculty and staff will not be charged fines because, traditionally, they are conscientious about meeting due dates for equipment.

The 3 day loan period with no renewal will stay in effect. When a user checks out a piece of equipment or accessory item, a customer checkout receipt will be generated that shows the due date. A hard copy notice explaining the new policy will be included with each item. A day before it is due, a courtesy reminder will be emailed to the user. Once it is overdue, the fine will accrue on a daily basis for a two week period. Overdue notices showing the accrued charge will be sent daily. After two weeks, it will be declared lost and a lost fee will incur. If the student returns the item at that time, the lost charge will be forgiven, but the fine is still owed.

The fine/lost fee schedule is:

Camera: Fine of $5.00/day overdue; $150 lost/replacement fee

Camcorder: Fine of $5.00/day overdue; $500 lost/replacement fee

Projector: Fine of $10.00/day overdue; $800 lost/replacement fee

Accessories: Fine of $1.00/day overdue; $50 lost/replacement fee
(cords and cables, power supplies, projector screens, tripods, headphones)

Proceeds from collected fines will be used to increase the equipment loaner pool.