A research student recently complained that she got overdue fines because the Library had failed to send her ‘pre-ovedue’ texts and wanted her fines waived. The Library sends texts to our cell phone users in 4 different scenarios, but pre-ovedue is not one of them.
To remind us all in these changing times, the Library web page ‘How we contact you’ has been updated. It covers all forms of library communication.
For more technical information on text notification in particular see E-text notification in Camelot Team Portal for Lending.
Helen
Maybe we could have a link to information about Library Elf somewhere on this page? Then students can choose if they want to sign up and receive pre overdue notices via Lib Elf.
I understand with Library Elf you need to give them your password.
Library Elf has come up in discussion before, but it was decided that we couldn’t promote it, since it goes against the University’s Computer Use policy (i.e. students have to supply their username and password to sign up).
Thank you alert staff who have spotted mistake "Recalls – items on 60 day loan that have been requested by another borrower" Library IT will correct this to ‘Recalls – standard loans issued for 7 days or more that have been requested by another borrower.’
They also now charge institutions for use of it. One of our students said they thought it was the CIA checking on what we are reading – even though it is Canadian. There is only so much we can do to remind them but at the point they join the library or borrow it is important to make clear their entitlements and obligations – Maybe this should be linked to the emails we send out &/or printed on receipts?
"Recalls – items on 60 day loan that have been requested by another borrower." needs to be updated.
Could the page be simplified into a table format with columns: for the kind of message; a description of when this happens; and the method(s) of contact? At the moment it’s not easily scannable — all the information’s there but you have to look in several places to make sure you’ve actually got it.
eg if you want to know how we send out pre-overdue notices, their existence is mentioned in "We will contact you if you have", then in "Methods of contact" we say we send emails, or sometimes texts, or sometimes post or sometimes phone, and then in "Text messages" pre-overdues aren’t mentioned so the deduction to be drawn is that we probably send them by email.
Perhaps an abbreviated table could also be posted to Library News (with a link to the full page) to bring it more actively to users’ attention? It strikes me as the kind of thing that people don’t know that they don’t know, so they’re unlikely to go looking for it.
Deborah
Looks good, although I think the self-help bit should go at the top 🙂 Anne