[Wactclc-alma] room booking?

Thu Dec 8 11:19:51 PST 2016

I received an example of a complaint that URI has experienced with Alma Booking.

I have, Chang Tao Yu, ID#100590799 student,  in my office this evening.  He has concerns about difficulties with the on-line reservation system...he has had to wait upwards to one hour to be into the system because it states ERROR...and then doesn't get a confirmation (nothing shows up).  It also never shows a (for example) "1" after placing a request so he is never sure if his requested is actually in the system.   See me and I explain.....

He is a Computer Science student (freshman) and is concerned about the amount of time spent on trying to get into this system (cumbersome?).

Traci

Traci Taylor, MLS
Systems Librarian
Bellingham Technical College
3028 Lindbergh Ave.
Bellingham,WA 98225
Email | ttaylor at btc.edu<mailto:ttaylor at btc.edu>
Phone |360.752.8488

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Guidry, Wade
Sent: Thursday, December 08, 2016 10:27 AM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: {Spam?} Re: [Wactclc-alma] room booking?

If you're starting from "0" (or a big binder), then using books in Alma / Primo would probably be a step forward :)

One step backward with Alma bookings, at least relative to Millennium, was the loss of "recurring bookings". Say, you want to book a project every Monday for an entire quarter, in Alma you need to book each Monday separately. More sophisticated bookings solutions will provide some kind of "recurring" booking. (It's possible that this has been rolled into Alma already, but if so I'm not yet aware of it).

Another "weirdness" with doing room booking in Alma might be cataloging rooms in Alma, and then relying on users to use the library catalog to do self-service booking (if you choose to allow that). It might not seem completely logical from a user perspective to book rooms through the library catalog. But, especially for students and library study rooms, it might make more sense.

And again, if you're doing everything manually now, the Alma would be a step up (and free, from an incremental cost perspective). It probably won't compete with the 25Live or LibCal in terms of feature set, if you have access to one of those already. But it would be better than nothing.

Wade Guidry - wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>
Library Consortium Services Manager
Washington Community & Technical Colleges Library Consortium (WACTCLC)
(509) 760-4474

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Thomas, Kirsti
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 5:19 PM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] room booking?

The Seattle Colleges will be interested to know more about this too. Circ staff at North are getting really tired of handwriting reservations in a big binder.

I was just looking at this documentation today:
http://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Materials/Alma_FAQs/Fulfillment/Booking%2C_Reading_Room

which claims "Alma supports submitting staff-placed booking requests, as well as requests placed by patrons from Primo. Booking requests may be placed on a genre of resources such as 'any of the laptops' or 'any of the study rooms', or on a specific resource such as 'study room number 4'. The booking request, will be placeable only for time spans on which the resource is determined to be available, i.e., the resource is not in use and is not reserved for use. This information is shown to the requester via a calendar attached to the requested resource."

We were getting excited about the possibility of allowing students to book rooms online without a lot of staff involvement. I'll be disappointed (although not, I suppose, surprised) to hear that the feature doesn't function as documented.

We'll definitely test it during our Implementation phase, which starts in February, and report back.

It will be ok!

Kirsti S. Thomas
Library Technical Services Manager
Seattle Colleges
kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu>

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Guidry, Wade
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 16:36
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] room booking?

Seems like a number of CTC schools use 25Live (https://corp.collegenet.com/products/scheduling/25live.html ) for room scheduling. That might be an option, if Highline has it.

At Puget Sound, we used Outlook on campus to book meeting rooms, but that's more of a staff facing use case.

I know at least some library media desks use Alma booking to book items like laptops and projectors, but I haven't heard that it's been used to book rooms.

For booking stuff like study rooms, I would except that you'd want something with a nice end-user facing interface for self-service activity. It does seem like LibCal (https://www.springshare.com/libcal/ ) or similar would be the best way to go.

Wade Guidry - wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>
Library Consortium Services Manager
Washington Community & Technical Colleges Library Consortium (WACTCLC)
(509) 760-4474

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Traci Taylor
Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 2:03 PM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] room booking?

Hi Gerie,

I put out a question on ALMA-L about using the booking feature available in ALMA, because we are looking into electronic booking software. Here are the two responses I received:

University of Rhode Island set up booking for study rooms earlier this semester, but just this week we've decided to turn it off and get SpringShare's LibCal instead. Booking provoked complaints from students and Circ staff. I'm not sure of the details, but you might want to reach out to Brian Gallagher, our Head of Access Services, for specific complaints. I've copied him here.

Best,
Andrée

I saw your message on the Alma-L, but I didn't see any responses.  If you are able to summarize or share the responses you have received, I would appreciate it. I have been considering the same question.

Today I am going to have a demo with R&R Resource Booking, which says they have a room reservation system. I share that info because it was a new provider to me.

Best,
Meg

We are looking at SpringShare's LibCal, and a free online resource called SuperSaaS (https://www.supersaas.com/).

I am going to try and get in touch with Brian Gallagher to see what the specific complaints are. Regardless, I think we may be leaning towards LibCal or SuperSaas. We have started an adhoc committee for researching electronic room booking - abby koehler (akoehler at btc.edu<mailto:akoehler at btc.edu>) and Sallie Davis (sdavis at btc.edu<mailto:sdavis at btc.edu>), if you want to follow-up with them.

Prior to going live, Justine did give me information on how to set this up. It wasn't a priority, so we haven't done it. I can forward that information to you, if you like.

Best Regards,

Traci

Traci Taylor, MLS
Systems Librarian
Bellingham Technical College
3028 Lindbergh Ave.
Bellingham,WA 98225
Email | ttaylor at btc.edu<mailto:ttaylor at btc.edu>
Phone |360.752.8488

[Alma_Certified_Admin_Logo resized]

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of Ventura, Gerie
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2016 1:44 PM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] room booking?

Hello all: I vaguely remember that someone in Cohort 1 is using the booking feature so that students could reserve study rooms. Is that true? Who are you? Lol

Let me know because I want to set this up and consult with you about it...   Thanks, Gerie/Highline College
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