Weekend Reference Service

Question/Comment:

Lack of professional refrence service on the weekend. A time when I need such service.

Response:

Thank you for sharing your concern.

Staffing models are of ongoing interest; we regularly examine public services statistics. We agree that having reference service on the weekend is important and for that reason employ graduate assistants from UW-Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies. In this way we are building the professionals of the future while supplying a stronger reference presence than otherwise possible. Data show that the number of reference questions on weekends does not balance well against the absence of professional librarians on a week day, when their presence is required by a large number of questions, calls, database searches, faculty/clinical consultations, teaching duties, and campus obligations.

We hope you will leave your contact information so that we may help you with your information need. You can use our online “Ask a Librarian” form to request help from a reference librarian, or send an email to askebling@library.wisc.edu.

Door Alarms

Suggestion/Comment

When sitting on the third floor, twice some kind of alarm has gone off and a staff member has to come turn it off. This is annoying.

On another note, thanks for the hyacinth plant, it smells great.

Response

What you heard was one of our emergency exit alarms. Madison city ordinances require us to have a certain number of fire exits, and these have alarms on them to deter theft and control access to the library. In addition, these same alarms would alert us if there was an actual fire. As irritating as the alarms are, they really are there to protect you. The alarms shouldn’t sound for very long – we have a panel at the service desk that alerts staff to any activity with the doors.

Glad you like our hyacinth; we’ve been getting a lot of compliments about it lately.

Squeaky Hinges

Suggestion/Comment

Silence squeaky door hinges – 3rd floor bathroom area.

Response

Not sure which doors you are talking about, so I went up and applied some WD-40 to the worst offenders I could find. Hopefully it will make a difference.

In then future, try to bring issues of this nature directly to our Service desk staff. That way, they can be handled more promptly.

New 3-Hole Punches

Suggestion/Comment

Many of your 3 hole punches don’t release the paper afterwards, even if it’s just a few sheets – especially those near the med school printers on both the 2nd and 3rd floors.

Response

Thanks for informing us that our punches were getting dull – I imagine they get a lot of use. I have ordered two replacement punches and will place them in the copy centers once they come in. In the future, don’t hesitate to contact us about defective or missing equipment. You can use the suggestion notebook, contact us via phone or email,  or simply go to the front desk.

Defective Sink

Suggestion/Comment

The men’s bathroom does not have an operational sink. This is a very frequent and very annoying problem for me at Ebling. I am a frequent visitor here, and I cannot wash my hands in a Health Sciences library.

Response

The men’s room sink has been a perennial problem for us since we moved into this facility. If you encounter problems with it in the future, please let our service desk staff know – we have multiple means of getting it working again. Also note that we have some hand sanitizer on the sink in the restroom for when it cannot be coaxed back into operation.

In terms of long-term solutions, it has become clear that a full-scale replacment is likely necessary. Due to budget concerns it is hard to promise anything, but this will be a topic of discussion at the next facilities meeting.

Duplex Printing

Suggestion/Comment

Double-sided printing capability (for others not in the medical school) would be helpful. It would save you paper and save space in my binder. Color would be nice too.

Response

We have been getting more calls for double-sided printing lately. To the extent that it matters, our current public printers can print double-sided, but doing so takes so much time and trouble it is usually not worth it.

Duplex printing is a “must-have” option for future printer purchases, so expect to see it available in the future.

Color printing is available now on the InfoCommons machines. When you go print a color document, choose the printer named “Tektronix Phaser 780″. Then go up to the service desk with your copy card and say that you have a color item to print. Color printing costs 50 cents a page and takes about 5 minutes.

It’s Cold!

Suggestion/Comment

The quiet area in the first floor is cold. It is very difficult to study wearing jackets!

Response

We get frequent comments about temperature during the spring and the fall. It takes our maintenance people some time to switch over our heating and cooling system. They actually do it on a building-by-building basis and we are in line behind more sensitive facilities on this campus. Maintenance will get to us before the weather gets too chilly.

In the meantime, one tactic I have seen work is moving to another part of the building; temperature seems to vary a lot between floors and areas of the library. Also, don’t hesitate to make use of our many blankets and afghans scattered about both floors. If you have difficulty finding one, we have some available at the service desk.

Dirty Computers

Any chance the computers get regular cleaning?  The monitors are often full of fingerprints, and the keyboards and mice (?) usually have some hefty crud on them…eeew!  Especially during cold and flu season!

I know there are a lot of computers, so for staff to do them all would be a bit overwhelming, but maybe leaving cleaning supplies out for us to use, the way the folks at the gym leave out stuff to clean off equipment, would suffice.

Response

We do try to clean the computers and monitors on a monthly basis. But they are used a lot, so the dirt piles on fast. If you spot a really filthy computer, let us know; we have cleaning supplies and can clean it up for you.

Installing Plug-ins

Suggestion/Comment

“Can we please install the Flip4mac plugin so many other programs can work on the computers? Thanks.”

Response

The flip4mac program is not a free program so it cannot be installed without purchasing a license for each Mac. What programs, “…so many other programs can work on the computers?” are you trying to use? Maybe there is another solution to make them work on the Macs.

Loud Book Carts

Suggestion/Comment

“I was upstairs in what I thought was a quiet study area and a library worker came through TWICE pushing a wheel-rattling cart. Kind of ironic that it’s the Library making noise.”

Response

Ironic? Yes. Is it something we wish we could change? Yes. Is it possible to change? Not easily and not without putting in new carpeting throughout the Library. Unfortunately, the folks who selected the carpeting for Ebling (not librarians, by the way) went with a “relief” style that gave the carpeting a fabulous look but created a library cart obstacle course. It is very difficult for us to move any of our carts over this wavy carpeting without making some amount of noise. We have not been able to find a cart that could absorb the bumps without making any noise. And it’s not really feasible for us to move the hundreds of books we need to do so on a daily basis by hand. We apologize if our noise causes any distraction, and hope you will consider this an acceptable trade-off for making sure that journal and book volumes are returned to their spots on the shelves in the fastest possible manner.