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Roaming at EQ

Page history last edited by Victor Lorand 7 years, 12 months ago

How to on Roaming at EQ: report for the I.S. Reboot committee,

due date: for Nov. 5th, 2015 next I.S. Reboot meet

 

1. Who:

    A. Information Services

        1. Current staff is Victor, Pat and Deirdre (1/2 I.S.; 1/2 Young Adult) FTE=2.5

       + B. Circulation+

         1. Current staff is: Amy, Alison, Jill, (at full staff, FTE=3.5)

    *C. Youth* 

        1. Current staff is Cris, Judy, Tonya, FTE=2.

     D. Young Adult services: Deirdre , FTE=.5 

 

2. Where:

    First floor: Adult and Young Adult area (2nd floor is not needed to be roamed as it only contains Geneaology(very low use, except during Genealogy meetings) and 2 Meeting rooms; Youth area is so small as to almost entirely visible to the Youth Service's desk) (Oct. 2015: Now also the Reading Garden)

 

3. How

    A. How Long- doing a trip around the entire Adult and Y.A. area taking time to do other tasks such as (just did this, 230pm, and timed it) straightening some chairs and picking up some books on tables takes less than 1 minute (50 seconds). Now having looked at every customer in these 2 areas including the Public PCs, it would not make sense to continue hovering, as these are also Quiet areas. (EQ has no study rooms) Recommended time allotment: 5 minutes/ hour or 2.5 minutes per every .5 hour to give needed eye breaks- at choice of Reference person manning the One-desk.

 

   B. When: On the One-desk I.S./Circ staff is often waved at/signalled for help on the adjacent Public PCs, Printer copier, and Brand New patrons just having entered EQ for the 1st time.  We consider this On Call- Roaming and it happens frequently when it gets busy- so is already being done!

This is the area needing the most help. I.S. & Circ.staff is able to and does ask other I.S. & Circ. staff in the adjacent REF. Office and Circ Work area to cover the One-desk on extended outings off desk= Unscheduled- as needed Roaming= Helping patrons off desk as needed.

To cover the Reading and YA Areas it makes sense to simply do the 1 minute circuit looking for patrons needing help, chairs and books needing straightening. About once every 30 minutes, fits with the idea of giving one's eyes a break from looking at a monitor.

 

Similarly, Staff & Volunteer shelvers will come to fetch I.S. staff (who were flagged down beyond the eaily visible One Desk area) for patrons struggling with their electronic devices sitting in the reading areas- wanting I.S. staff to come to them & their device(s). (Circ. and Volunteers out in the reading areas/stacks naturally act as To- be- flagged agents. This happens only a few times per day during the busy season and very infrequently in the off season.

 

Revisiting: Who,

EQ I.S. and Circ. and Youth staff have learned to cover each other in order to keep the One-desk adequately manned.

 

EQ is a small library . It doesn't have the problem of the larger and other 2 floor libraries (though EQ is technically a 2 floor library) in not having visible staff available to help. 

3pm 2nd test roam, deliberately slow walking pace, time taken- 60 seconds. (Checked paper/pencil trays )

 

Caveats:

*When by themselves, Youth Desk personnel can't leave Youth due to a door that has to be supervised- as it exits immediatley to the outside. Youth being one small room and often performing shelving and pulling holds are able to achieve the goal/purpose of roaming- to be proactive in addressing the patron's library needs. 

 

+The Circ./Fines side of the One-Desk takes the brunt of the library Entrants/Immediate Questioners- as the entrance security gates are only 17 ft from the Circ./Fines One-Desk. so it doesn't make sense to have the Circ. staff manning the One-Desk person to roam. 

     When it is not busy (Off season) roaming is not much needed. When it is busy, Eq's small Circ. staff doesn't have extra bodies to pull off of Circ duties. (Total staff of EQ is 12 including the currently vacant Mgr pos.-minus 2 Mgr.s= 10, but FTE of these 10 = 8.5)

 

This leads to the conclusion that EQ I.S. and I.S substitutes staff should perform the roving -beginning at 11am- about every half hour to one hour- at the I.S. person's discretion.

 

4. Other tasks while roaming

    A. Straightening, pencil/paper replenishing, items on tables pick-up 

    B. In previous Roaming- we  self-assigned entire blocks of time- such as 30 minutes of roaming at hopefully busy times (it was almost never the case) and if there was nothing to do/no one to help- easily determined by a one minute roam, we could shelf read and/or dust. I found that dusting and shelf reading did not make me that much more approachable nor lead to many encounters with patrons needing information...I was now basically hidden in the stacks- only visible in the row of library items I happened to be in. 

 

Other comments- for 2.5-5 minute roaming- the On-desk person can perform the roaming(I am/have been (V.L) already doing this for the past 2 years+. Only if more than 5 min. minute roaming is needed would Off-desk I.S./other staff be needed for roaming the Adult/YA areas.

 

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