We are pleased to announce that as of yesterday we have four new team members in the casual pool:

Benjamin Mehrtens-Carey

Mikaela Marshall

Shanelle Dyer

Utku Yalcin

After a whirlwind two days of training last week, with tours of each library, they will be starting buddy shifts this week.

Welcome to Benjamin, Mikaela, Shanelle and Utku.

Library borrowers with lost books often assume that when they return a lost book after receiving a finance invoice that the debt is all cleared. In fact, if a lost book progresses to a finance invoice an additional non-cancellable $20 administration fee is included in the invoice. This fee does not show on Horizon and does not block borrowing, but still needs to be paid – even if the book is returned.

To make this clearer for our users, we have changed our process as follows:

• Customer Service Staff (specifically those who manage the lost book process in each library) will email people who have returned a lost book, advising them that their invoice has been adjusted and an admin fee will still be outstanding.
• The form that is sent to Finance to adjust a finance invoice has been reworded and renamed to make clear the invoice is being adjusted, not cancelled.

The template for staff to email borrowers and new adjust invoice form, as well as details about the lost book process, are on the wiki. Please let me know if you have any questions.

I’m sure most of you will be aware that CPIT (formerly known as Christchurch Polytechnic) has rebranded itself as Ara Institute of Canterbury.

This has some implications for ULANZ/CTA registration:

New email formats: All Ara staff and students have email addresses with the following formats:

Staff:             firstname.lastname@ara.ac.nz
Students:   username@arastudent.ac.nz

Currently, Ara is autoforwarding from the old email addresses to these new ones so we don’t need to retrospectively change contact emails for Ara students and staff already registered with us. However, all new registrations must use the new address format.

Wiki and web pages have been updated to reflect this change, as has the ULANZ/CTA registration webform. Please let me know if you have any questions.

We have received an email invite from CCL to the following event:

The staff at the University of Canterbury Library is cordially invited to a presentation on the new Central Library. Please forward to your staff across your library network.

Wednesday 11th May 2:15-3:00

 at Shirley Library,  36 Marshland Road, Shirley

More information about this knowledge centre, its features and its programmes will be presented by Carolyn Robertson, Libraries and Information Manager, Christchurch City Libraries.

More info on the new Central Library http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/central-library/<UrlBlockedError.aspx>

 All welcome.

There will be a training session (run by myself) for new library assistants on accessing and navigating RAS. This is the IT software that enables us to troubleshooting internet access, password changes and printing issues. If you would like a refresher, feel free to come along. It is in the Den on Thursday 5 May from 9-10am.

I am offering a training session on subscription membership process, including ULANZ/CTA registrations and subscription membership, to new staff on Tuesday 26 April from 3-4pm in Room L207 at the Education Library.

Anyone who would like a refresher is welcome to attend.

Very occasionally you might encounter someone at the desk who is unable to issue books because their account has been unapproved. You will discover this from the following checkout message:
“Borrower is unapproved. The borrower record must be updated before checkout may continue.” (nb. You will be able to renew books on the borrower’s account, but not issue any further books. )

If a borrower persistently fails to return high demand, requested, or lost items, even after having spoken to staff, I do occasionally take the drastic step of unapproving their record altogether. I will always email the borrower to let them know and add a note to the record advising what the borrower needs to do to have their borrowing reapproved.

Please do not delete these notes – this will not re-enable borrowing and confuses staff trying to figure out why the record is unapproved. Sandra, Jack and myself have the ability to reapprove records – so if I’m not around, please refer to Sandra and Jack in the first instance.

Please remember to log off Asklive when you finish work for the day.

We had a couple of questions come through outside our opening hours this weekend, likely due to several staff appearing to be logged on outside of their working hours.

We can’t actually quite figure out the logistics how this would work (since presumably everyone shuts down their computer), but it is good practice to always remember to log off at the end of the day.

Discussion Rooms 212D & E are closed until further notice.

Damage to the Level 3 balcony causes significant waterfall through the ceiling almost every time it rains. We are awaiting FM to fix this leak who have advised that it will be expensive and difficult.

The rooms haven’t been bookable for a few months due to the leak but have been available for casual use, dependent on whether it’s raining or not. This is too much work for staff to manage, and the carpet is now significantly water damaged, so the decision has been made to close the rooms until they are fixed.

I am very pleased to welcome Lisa Davies to the Central team.

Lisa starts today as a library assistant and will be with us until the end of the academic year. (This position provides cover for Rosie Sykes’ position).

Lisa will be touring the different libraries and departments over the next week or so – make sure to say hello!