Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Staff Survey
I've sent out the staff survey and gotten some comments back. I will post them on this blog for all the view and comment. Some of the comments may be helpful.
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6 comments:
1. At Main Library, we must be able to limit the use of the kids and teens computers to kids and teens, and adults who are working with kids and teens. I will strongly protest any move towards opening up the kids and teens computers to random adults who are not accompanied by children. Many of the adults we help here on the 3rd floor in SBN are just out of prison, or they are in transition from our many homeless shelters to more permanent housing. This is a safety issue that is very important to staff here. Please do not change the current policy and allow adults to use the kids or teens computers.
2. If you increase the session time from the current one hour to one hour and 15 minutes, or one and one half hours, this would only encourage our "all day people" to hang out here longer than they already so. We have a large population of homeless shelter people who come here only to play games on our computers. Three hours a day is enough for this crowd. Please do not increase the average session time beyond one hour.
I just took the survey, and I had a problem with #10. There was no option for saying "sometimes" but that would be my answer. I am sure that multiple-card-abusers sometimes have a big impact on things. but at other times I feel there's very little impact. It depends on how busy we are otherwise. Of course, the option of increasing your time if there is no wait would help with the times when using multiple cards does not impact us.
So - there is my more complete answer to q #10.
Please keep in mind that some branches are in locations where large numbers of sex offenders reside. We do not allow adults who aren't working with a child) or teens on our 1 juvenile computer for the safety of the children. Adults do sometimes use the teen machines during the school day & that's OK--we can see those clearly-- but after school & when school is out we try to keep teen computers for just teen use. There are 13 other computers for adult use.
What I'd love to see is at least 1 computer per location that could only be reserved to do work--type a paper, search for and apply for jobs, practice a test, do research, etc. People get livid, and understandably so, when they are bumped off doing a job application, job searching or doing word processing for a class and the next person gets on after them to "play".
Here's some suggestions to free up computers.
People should be limited to 3 sessions (TOTAL) per day to discourage division & location hopping.
Anyone sent to UNIQUE should be automatically blocked from computer use. There would need to be some temporary session unblock/override that could be used for students needing to do schoolwork.
There wasn't a place for additional comments, so I'm sending a thought to you about offering an extension of time on sessions. Would that be an automatic popup near the end of a session? Or only if people come and ask? On the one hand it would be nice to help out people taking a test, filling out applications, etc. On the other hand, some people may end up with significantly more time online than others. We have consistently said that 3 sessions is the limit, even if there are open computers, allowing immediate access to as many walk-ins as possible. But then perhaps it would encourage people to come at slower times of day... I can see both sides, and am ambivalent about that feature.
I want you to know I think it is hard to answer some of the questions 'Yes' or 'No'-as it all depends on varying circumstances. Should time be extended-yes if the person is doing a resume or job application- so I'm thinking, you know how banks have a separate line for 'Business Accounts'-have some PCs designated as 'Business PCs' so customers needing these for resumes, applications, etc-work related activities-these could be in a section set up for this & the question about should adults not be in the kids' area-I've always thought adults should NOT use PCs in the children's area because it seems most of the time these have older teens- so called "young adults-over 18 year olds @ a PC and their conversations, behavior, etc are not 'child friendly'-sounds like this would be easy to keep an eye on-not necessarily until words,etc. are heard by youngsters and just the kids observing the older ones is not too good an idea-now-how bout reversing that question? If there was an area for Business PCs also have another designated for 'Games'-that way there wouldn't be kids interacting w/each other and the games they are on in the midst of a person doing serious PC work and needing more order
I noticed that when there isn't a class, THE LOFT at SBN is open, with no Envisionware sign in or time limits, to people who are doing research or writing resumes, papers, etc. I don't think we have enough staff to police an area like this at my branch.
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