By Doug Achterman, CCL President

In the wake of tragic fires in both Northern and Southern California and flooding and mudslides compounding an already monumental challenge, I draw comfort and inspiration from family, friends and community who step up to the most difficult circumstances, giving not only resources and time, but also sharing emotional strength and courage with those who need it the most.

I count myself lucky to work alongside so many exceptional community college librarians, folks motivated by the desire to help and support others to improve their lives. I get that some librarians sit at the reference desk and let the world come to them, helping them when they can, but many of the librarians I know and work with are active, sometimes radical, agents of change.

If you have done something to ease the suffering caused by the recent fires, I thank you.

If you have passionately embraced the core values of librarianship, count me as a kindred soul. And if you have exercised those values in pursuit of positive change on your campus and in your community, I am forever in your debt.

Community college librarians are a force, and I am so very proud to be one among many.

I am so very proud to be a community college librarian.

Library Services Platform News

If you’ve been following updates from Amy Beadle at the CCC Technology Center and from me and others on the Council of Chief Librarians, you know that the vanguard colleges have spent the past 12 weeks going through the all the steps that 107 participating colleges will be completing over the course of nearly a year, including assembling project teams, completing Alma Essential trainings, preparing data for migration, completing Primo VE training, and more. In the first week of December, representatives from each vanguard college will attend a three-day training in San Diego as they learn additional functions of Alma and Primo, including inventory, invoicing, manual cataloging, bulk catalog maintenance, and more nuanced operations related to course circulation and course reserves. As we kickoff the effort with all 107 colleges, the vanguard group will continue to test its migration data, work out integrations with other systems (e.g., student information systems, authentications, etc.) and complete certification trainings.

Many librarians and library staff have dedicated a great deal of time not only piloting migration, but reflecting on and documenting their processes, with the goal of identifying what will work best when we scale this to 107 colleges.  Deepest appreciation goes to the library faculty and staff at each of these eleven colleges:

• Allan Hancock College
• City College of San Francisco
• Cypress College
• East Los Angeles College
• Foothill College
• Long Beach City College
• Oxnard College
• Pasadena City College
• Pierce College
• Santa Rosa Junior College
• Shasta College

It’s been a year full of challenges, but also one of opportunities as we embark on the library services platform project. Wishing you all the happiest of holidays, and that you come back to work rejuvenated and full of enthusiasm for our work together.

Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

By Dan Crump

The ASCCC Fall Plenary Session was held at the Irvine Marriott from November 1-3.

In addition to a wide variety of breakout topics, the Session delegates also vote on resolutions which guide the work of the ASCCC and provide guidance to the ASCCC leadership in their work with CCC partners (e.g. Board of Governors, Chancellor’s Office, CEOs, CIOs, CSSOs, CBOs, Student Senate).  Resolutions discussed, debated, and voted upon by the delegates included such issues as the new Funding Formula, the California Online Community College, AB 705, and Guided Pathways.  The text of the resolutions can be found on the ASCCC website (asccc.org) under Events/Plenary Sessions/Fall 2018/Resolutions.  I want to give a special shout out to Chisato Uyeki, a librarian from Mt San Antonio College and a Session attendee.  She authored an amendment to a resolution (13.01)---Provide Sufficient Resources and Adequate Support for AB 705---which called for the inclusion of libraries as one of the “academic, concurrent, and student support services…to ensure that all students have the support they need to be successful after AB 705 implementation.”  Bravo!

The ASCCC will formally launch its comprehensive statewide Open Educational Resources Initiative, OERI, in the spring 2019 term. Presently, efforts are underway to increase OER awareness, gather data related to OER use at our colleges, and to identify OER use and needs for specific disciplines. OERI is in the process of identifying contacts at each of our colleges to provide us with data related to OER use and we will soon be distributing discipline-based surveys to pilot a discipline-based approach to OER needs assessment. In order to increase OER awareness more generally, a series of weekly webinars has been scheduled.

The Academic Senate tracks important pieces of legislation that fall within academic and professional matters as well as bills that may be of interest to faculty. Of the bills that were still viable, September 30 was the last day for the governor to sign or veto them.  Several bills that the ASCCC supported were vetoed by the governor or failed to pass the legislature, including AB310 (Medina) on Part Time Office Hours, AB1935 (Irwin) and SB1009 (Wilk) on Student Tutoring, and SB968 (Pan) on Mental Health Counselors.  The governor did sign bills to expand credit for prior learning (AB1786 , Cervantes and SB1071, Roth) and extending the pilot baccalaureate program (SB1406, Hill), as well as requiring colleges to publish and evaluate their placement policies (AB1805 Irwin).  Detailed information about the content and status of bills may be accessed at the California Legislative Information website. Also, information on advocacy as well as tools to track legislation may be found on the Faculty Association for California Community Colleges (FACCC) website. Additional ASCCC legislative updates and additional information may be found on the Legislative Update page as well as the Legislative and Advocacy Committee webpage.  The new legislative cycle will begin officially in the new year.

CCL-EAR Chair's Report

Library Consortium Director's Report

LSP Update

Conferences and Webinars

Recapturing Reference: Making Research Relevant for Today’s Student
A Professional Development Opportunity Hosted by CARLDIG-South
Friday, December 7, 2018
Loyola Marymount University
Los Angeles, CA

More info: https://www.regonline.com/carldigsfallprogramrecapturereference

The Active Learning Leaders Conference at Palomar College
Saturday, January 19, 2019
Palomar College, Rancho Bernardo Center
San Marcos, CA

More info: https://www2.palomar.edu/pages/activelearning/

SCIL Works
Hosted by Southern California Instruction Librarians (SCIL)
Friday, February 8, 2019
California State University Dominguez Hills
Carson, CA

More inf: http://www.carl-acrl.org/ig/scil/

Scalar Workshop with Curtis Fletcher, Associate Director, Ahmanson Lab, Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study, USC Libraries
February 26, 10AM-1:00PM
The University Library, CSU Dominguez Hills
Carson, CA 90747
Space is limited, and so if you are interested in attending, please contact Dana Ospina (dospina@csudh.edu or 310-243-2581)

Archive

SCORE webinar on open educational resources (OER) and their intersections with scholarly communication
November 15, 2018 
archived version on SCORE's YouTube Channel: youtu.be/sq0zN9fYDkQ

Presenters have also shared their slides:

CSU Channel Islands: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ueYf3_5HCI2SiUueiPM-w1fGgr5hF3sEjfgi5UeN0tI/edit?usp=sharing
Berkeley City College: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/18C1amlutP4PYeuIBYFfq-6VKprnLY_erkn1LxWpxYXc/edit?usp=sharing

CLA 2018 Conference
November 9-11, 2018

More info: https://conference.cla-net.org/2018/conference-archives

MiraCosta History & Heritage Month Online Displays

By Steven Deineh, MiraCosta College

During the fall 2018 semester, the MiraCosta Library had very successful collaborations with the campus Social Justice and Equity Center. Librarians created online digital displays of library collections for 5 different History & Heritage Months. Displays highlighting notable individuals, books & eBooks, and streaming films include: Latinx Chicanx Heritage Month, LGBTQIA+ History Month, Pilipinx American History Month, disABILITIES Awareness Month, and Native American Alaskan Heritage Month. The librarians working on these displays included Lalitha Nataraj, Judy Opdahl, Virginia Velati Tirona, Bobbie Xuereb, Steven Deineh, and Lauren McFall.

By Mario Valente, MiraCosta College

The MiraCosta College Library was also pleased to showcase two exhibits for November commemorating Veterans Day and National Gratitude Month:

• The Veterans Day Exhibit highlights books and DVDs related to Veterans. Special thanks to MCC's Veterans Center for loaning us the American flags to make this exhibit visually compelling.
• Composed of captivating quotations and information on the benefits of practicing gratitude, the National Gratitude Month Exhibit located on the library's first floor invites viewers to take pause and engage in the power of gratitude. It's a "Pay-It-Forward" themed exhibit showcasing the benefits of being grateful and incorporating more of that quality in our lives, especially during this month of Thanksgiving.

Reexamining Library Overdue Fines and Fees

By Jeffrey Sabol, Long Beach City College

Long Beach City College began thinking about and examining our overdue fines policies because of the new capabilities of the Statewide Library Services Project (LSP) project.  The new Statewide LSP or Alma allows for fines and fees to be exported to the cashier’s office at the end of each day. There are more complicated integrations utilizing different Application Programing Interfaces (APIs) that allow for the fines to be paid at the cashier’s office while also keeping those fines in Alma which allows for the fines and fees to be reduced or waived while also utilizing the fine amount to block a student from checking out books.  It was in a meeting discussing this topic that I was asked to collect data about the different overdue fees charged at other California Community College libraries.  I posted a question to the CC Librarians listserv (cclibrarians-all@cclccc.org) perhaps one of the most useful and knowledgeable places to gather almost any data, best practices and experiences about issues affecting our college libraries.  Another reason that the library’s fines and fee are being reexamined at Long Beach City College is due to the economic situation affecting our students.   Long Beach’s demographics are similar to Los Angeles’s where “one in every 5 of the Los Angeles Community College District's 230,000 students is homeless, and nearly two-thirds can't afford to eat properly, according to a new survey commissioned by the system's board of trustees.” ^1 2 The third reason for reexamining our fines and fees policy was to eliminate the inherent problems and confrontations that occurred between students and the library circulation staff. If the fines and fees are paid at the cashier’s office and there is a formal appeals process in place then virtually all  contentious interactions with students regarding fines would be eliminated, freeing up the staff to focus on one of the core missions of the library, namely the checking in and out of books and course reserve materials. (Long Beach City College Library’s circulation of course reserves makes up around 85% or circulating materials.)

Colleges that responded to my question³ reported a variety of fines from the most severe at $.10 a minute to $5 an hour for the first two hours to not collecting overdue fines at all.  Colleges that included a rational about the fines and fees they did or did not collect universally wanted to ensure that the materials were returned on time so that they were available for other students.  While the underlying motivation is the same across the libraries that responded there were different mechanisms in place to achieve this goal.  The first and perhaps the most obvious would be the increase in overdue fines until the students’ monetary threshold was reached to ensure the timely return of course reserve materials.

College of the Desert expressed this thought as their justification of raising fines for course reserve textbooks. “Originally our textbook reserves circulated for 2 hours, in house use only, with fines of $1.00 per hour and a maximum accrual of $40.00. However, similar to other comments on this string, our students routinely began keeping the textbook beyond the 2 hours and happily paying the overdue fine. Several students commented the $1.00 per hour was worth being able to keep the book longer. Since we generally have only 1 copy of each textbook, this was unfair to other students which prompted the fine change. Since the fine change, we no longer have students abusing the privilege since the fines accrue rapidly. Having notice of the fines posted at our service desk and verbally informing every student with every checkout ensures our textbooks are returned on time.”  This is a great result, the students return the course reserve textbooks on time and students are no longer monopolizing the textbook to the detriment of other students.

Another common theme was to only have course reserve textbooks check out for 2 hours, effectively making them library use only. Several colleges who have this policy charge no fines at all while still having the course reserve textbooks available to other students and returned on time. This is a very appealing option that would not only eliminate overdue fines but also ensures that the library does not have to deal with the plethora of possible circumstances that would prevent a student from returning an overnight course reserve textbook the following day. These can range from not having transportation to campus, lack of childcare, having to work overtime or additional hours at her or his job, caring for a parent or relative or being hospitalized themselves, which are all situations that affect many community college students.

The last option is to find another mechanism to ensure that students return their course reserve textbooks on time. As Mt. San Antonio College responded, “We do not charge any fines for anything. But students get a hold put on their accounts- so they cannot register for the next semester, or get a transcript, without meeting with one of the Deans or Library Department Chair. We found that the amount of work that went into managing fines came nowhere near making it worth the funds or change in behavior. We see very few repeat offenders. This is tracked in the Deans’ office so we know, and if we do see it, particularly for reserve items, the student could lose their borrowing privileges.” Meghan Chen from Mt. San Antonio College elaborated on their process.  “We found that meeting with a dean or the department chair gave us an opportunity to meet with students and find out about the circumstances that surround the loss or damage to library materials. In most instances, we used the opportunity to refer students to campus or community resources that may help address other basic needs. We also use the meeting to ensure students know the library welcomes their return use/visit and to thank them for helping us ensure the library is here for all students. We document all of the meetings with the students signing that they understand the policy clearly and will not repeat the negative behavior (losing/damaging materials). Our college library has seen a much higher materials return rate than when we simply relied on fines.”

Many years ago when I was employed at Loyola Law School the Director of the library, Daniel Martin, made the decision to remove all overdue fines for library materials including course reserve material and instead have students who abuse this policy meet with him. His reasons for the change were two-fold, the dislike of the “idea of having the circulation/reserve staff handle cash. It’s always messy (lost money means finger-pointing and excuses) and besides, the tracking/recording/securing/reporting requires much more staff time than it’s worth” and he always preferred use over non-use. As much as possible he wanted to remove all barriers to use.  “For book use that means getting rid of fines.  For library space use it means getting rid of the food and drink rules.  If students prefer to study at Starbucks, where they can have a coffee and pastry, rather than my super clean library-------then I have done something really wrong.” Dan went on to add,“ The overdue-book enforcement issue hasn’t proven to be too onerous.  If a student keeps a reserve study guide/exam prep book out too long on the day before a test, it hurts other students in the class by denying them access.  We consider that academic misconduct.  That’s like cheating.  It’s a big deal.  I rarely have to talk to anyone about this.” ⁴

Perhaps the last approach is the most forward thinking, using the opportunity to speak with a student about her or his overdue reserve textbook and finding out the cause of an item being overdue while also educating the student about the need to have these books available to all students as well as connecting them with other campus resources that will help them meet their basic needs and succeed academically.

I think one must begin to ask if there is data supporting any of the three possible solutions. While not much is written about the subject of overdue library fines and fees, Johnson Depriest’s study for the Colorado State Library found that “one is left to conclude that policy decisions surrounding the collection of late fees from patrons cannot be supported by hard data.”⁵ The data that we do have is that our students at California Community Colleges are experiencing huge obstacles to attaining their academic goals with an alarming rate of students who are experiencing food and housing insecurity possibly choosing between buying at textbook or paying for food, gas or other necessities. Should libraries ever place unequal barriers to information, where financially advantaged students who are able to pay the fines and fees are treated differently than those who are not able to so easily pay the overdue fees? Currently Long Beach City College has no plans to eliminate all fines and fees but in the name of use over non-use we do plan to eliminate overdue fines on all books in the main stacks. We are also examining all three approaches to reach the end goal of having these materials available to students the most effective, efficient and equitable way possible.

Works Cited

1. Goldrick-Rab, S., Richardson, J., Hernandez, A. Los Angeles Community College District Report from Fall
2016 Survey of Student Basic Needs. Wisconsin HOPE Lab. (2017) https://hope4college.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Wisconsin-HOPE-Lab-LA-CC-District-Report-Survey-Student-Needs.pdf
↩

2. Holland, Gale. "Education: Homeless and Hungry at L.A. Community Colleges; One in 5 Students in the 
District Lacks Housing and Many More Live with 'Food Insecurity,' a Survey Finds." Los Angeles Times, Jun 30 2017, ProQuest. Web. 29 Nov. 2018.
↩

3. Spreadsheet of responses to my question on the listserv: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-b2xZ7XM9p1uFj56tRtzNDXorqXnCZqbOx4ViI6BlWI/edit?usp=sharing
↩

4. Martin, Daniel. "Article for California Community College Newsletter." E-mail message to author. November 29, 2018.
↩

5. Johnson Depriest, Meg, et al. Removing Barriers to Access : Eliminating Library Fines and Fees on 
Children's Materials. Colorado State Library, 2016. http://spellproject.weebly.com/uploads/1/5/3/3/15331602/spellwhitepaperfinal.pdf

Cause for Concern: Changes in the California Community College Statewide Database Package

By Jeff Karlsen, Sacramento City College
Northwest Regional Representative, CCL-EAR Committee

The Electronic Access & Resources Committee of the Council of Chief Librarians (CCL-EAR) has been monitoring changes in the EBSCO package provided to all California community colleges. With a new contract having begun in January of this year, now seemed a good time to report: in the first 10 months of the new term, how has the package changed?

The picture is not encouraging. The number of titles that have either been removed or stopped (meaning new issues of periodicals are no longer added) is more than 2.5 times the number of titles that have been added. A closer look reveals that content leaving the package is more valuable than what has come in. A summary follows; for further details, please see a spreadsheet of source data.

Adds (98 titles)

Let’s start with something positive. Since January, EBSCO has reported 98 titles added to the various databases in our contract. Highly represented publishers include the mass-market behemoth Meredith, the Springer imprint Demos Medical Publishing, Reaktion Books, Time Inc., and the China-based People's Medical Publishing House (PMPH).

Of the added titles, just 58 are current periodicals, and four of those were “added” to a database, Military and Government Collection, despite already being included in Academic Search Complete. So, 54 periodicals total. Of these a few look interesting, such as a couple of behavioral science journals from Wiley, and an open-access oncology nursing publication, ONS Voice. All three of these come with a 12-month embargo.

Of the non-periodical content, some additions are of questionable value. These include ten health monographs from Demos Medical Publishing dating from 2009 and five PMPH monographs of the same or older vintage. In fact, both sets of monographs are not really adds; they were listed as drops the previous month. We also found a number of titles from Reaktion Books added to America: History and Life that are clearly out of scope, such as Drugs & the World, Warsaw, and Animal (“provides an overview of the ways in which we live with animals and assesses many of the paradoxes of our relationships with them”). Another off-base add to America was a Slavic History journal, Slovansky Prehled, which was subsequently removed from the database. Also added were oddly brief (15- to 18-month) runs of some popular Time Inc. magazines such as Martha Stewart Weddings.

Drops (250 titles)

EBSCO includes a variety of labels in reporting drops. Some titles are pulled completely; in other cases full text is removed while bibliographic records remain; in other cases full text is “stopped,” meaning that nothing is removed but new issues will not be added. For the purposes of this report we have lumped several categories together. Perhaps it is not fair to treat these together, since even if a title is not current, the content that remains can still be of high value. But our goal here is to monitor changes rather than the overall value of the package, and losing currency for a given title constitutes a distinct negative change.

In all, 250 titles fall into this combined “drop” category. Top publishers are Taylor & Francis, Hindawi, Sage, Demos Medical Publishing, Wiley-Blackwell, Routledge, PMPH, Pageant, Dove Medical, and Centaur Communications. Of these, the titles that were stopped slightly outnumber those removed.

Drops coming (soon?) (164 titles)

In some cases EBSCO announces impending drops, although it is not clear when stoppage or removal will take place. Titles reported this year that as of the October 2018 spreadsheet had not yet been dropped--in some cases, reported as far back as February--total 164. Here we find more of the big for-profit publishers: 24 titles from Taylor & Francis, 17 from Wiley-Blackwell, 10 from Sage, and 4 from Routledge. Tribune Content Company lists 91 titles, including California papers from Barstow, Stockton and Victorville, but few if any of these appear to be current; so essentially, old news will be removed.

Embargoes: removed or shortened (20 titles)

Journal embargoes are a real problem for community colleges, where we depend upon aggregators and generally don’t license “big deal” e-journal packages to fill in the gaps. So it is welcome to see embargoes removed from 19 publications from Cambridge UP, Crain (trade publications), Johns Hopkins, Oxford UP, Routledge, and Taylor & Francis. At first the list looked even longer, but it turns out that when EBSCO pulls full-text for an embargoed journal, they list it separately as having had its embargo removed.

Embargoes: added and lengthened (42 Titles)

It is great to see embargoes removed or shortened for 20 titles; and yet, for twice as many titles the situation has gotten worse, with the usual for-profit suspects showing at or near the top: Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, Routledge and John Wiley & Sons. 12 months was the most common embargo length, but T&F prefers 18, and somehow the Journal of Youth Ministry needs to keep things under wraps for 2 full years. The good news is that while a couple pipeline-focused trade journals are listed at a JSTOR-worthy 28 months, a check revealed that the actual embargo is 28 days. If only this kind of reporting error were more common.

Impact

Titles were evaluated by three tiers of usage, drawing upon statistics from the Los Rios Community College District (for methodology, see the spreadsheet’s Notes tab). Singled out below are those that fell into the highest-use tier.

Of the drops, 7.6% fell into the highest-use category. Of those that have been removed, these include Journal of Psychology, Professional School Counseling, Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies, Insights into a Changing World Journal, International Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches, National Civic Review, and Aviation Week & Space Technology. 

Significant titles for which content remains but new issues are no longer added include American Journal of Psychotherapy, Employee Benefits, Marketing Week, Policy, Redbook, Rodale’s Organic Life, Seventeen, Los Angeles Magazine, ASHE Higher Education Report, and Journal of Popular Music Studies.

Highest-use titles still on the chopping block include Studies in English Literature, American Notes & Queries, and Shape. With nearly 100 minor newspapers included in the list, only 1.8% of the total were in the highest-use category.

25% of the titles that saw their embargoes shortened or removed were in the highest use-tier: Advertising Age, Crain’s Chicago Business, Crain’s Detroit Business, Modern Healthcare, and Pain Medicine.

More than 30% of the titles with added or lengthened embargoes fell into the highest-use category: Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, Brown University Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter, Brown University Child & Adolescent Psychopharmacology Update, Military Medicine, Black Scholar, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Career Development Quarterly, Geographical Review, Historian, Journal of Consumer Affairs, Journal of Counseling & Development, and Journal of Religious Ethics.

The Ultimate Move? Don’t Worry

CCL-EAR has been concerned about the prospect of titles leaving Academic Search Complete and moving to Academic Search Ultimate, EBSCO’s larger, pricier collection, which would amount to inflation: to keep what you’ve got, you’d need to level up.

Thankfully, our concern is for now unwarranted: we have concluded that none of the titles dropped or stopped in the first 10 months of 2018 have been moved to Academic Search Ultimate.

Conclusion

We shouldn’t overstate things. Academic Search Complete alone contains over 8,500 full-text titles, of which something like 6,400 are actively received (embargoed or not), so it could be argued that a net loss of 30-150 titles, depending on how you measure “drops”, barely registers.

But setting aside the question of scale, it is clear that the last 10 months have not been good for the statewide package. Little of value has been added, and a number of high-use titles have been removed or stopped. It is welcome to see embargoes removed, but when embargoes are added for more than twice as many titles, many of them health-related, we have lost ground even there. 

Of course it is possible that a slew of valuable content will soon be appearing in our EBSCO databases; aggregator licensing is a dynamic and far from transparent business. It’s also clear that, where the big for-profit publishers are concerned, churn is the rule; content comes and goes. It is unfortunate, though, when so much more goes than comes, and when the titles cut include valuable titles such as Journal of Psychology.

EBSCO may not always be in the driver’s seat here. A check of knowledge bases suggested that Taylor & Francis, which hawks its own journal packages, has chosen to no longer offer Journal of Psychology via aggregators. Nevertheless, when EBSCO negotiates with publishers, it should focus on retaining high-use, current titles, even if the total number of titles included in the database drops as a result. Hopefully the next time a summary like this one is created, it will report better news.

By Steve Hunt, Santa Monica College 

There are 457 people in my library right now.  I know this from the “Monitor Occupancy” web page that takes data from the new traffic monitor hardware that watches the doors in our library.

Our staff no longer have to crouch down every morning and transcribe numbers from the old electric eye counters that came built into our security gates.  The electric eye was never very accurate anyway, if two or three people walked in at the same time it counted them as one person. It couldn’t tell the difference between people arriving and people leaving.  We only recorded the data once a day, so we never knew how many people were in the library at any given time.

Our new people counters record data continuously.  They know the difference between people entering and people leaving.  They can track both occupancy and traffic for any time period we want. 

The counters are about the size of a paperback book and are mounted to the ceiling over our entrance. We have two, one over each door of our rather wide entrance. They have cameras with software built-in that analyzes the image and counts people going by underneath.  That data is passed to a cloud-based server maintained by our traffic counter service provider.

We can run reports that analyze the data different ways. We can have the reports automatically generated and emailed to us every day. I have included some sample graphs and charts. We can also have the system generate data in Excel format.  We had our IT folks run Ethernet cables to these devices, they use POE (power over Ethernet) so we didn’t need to run power.  There are wireless options too, but then the device needs a source for AC power.

This technology is heavily used in retail establishments.  The software may have a retail focus so that would be a good question to ask prospective vendors.  Because these devices are widely used, prices are low and there are many vendor and hardware choices.  A complete system can be put together for between $1500 and $4000. Cost depends on the number of counters you need and whether software is locally hosted or accessed over the internet on a vendor-run site.  We chose to subscribe to the cloud-based software to avoid more work for our campus IT staff.

We all need to be able to show how many people are using our library. This gives us hard data to help with funding requests for facilities and staffing.  Knowing when students use the library helps us plan for demand.  What hours are busiest and what days? Most library users don’t ask reference questions or use circulation desk services every time they’re in the library, but they are using the library nonetheless. People counters can help you show this. Your library needs a modern traffic counting system!

There are 539 people in my library right now. 

Some vendors of traffic counter hardware:
Traf-Sys: https://www.trafsys.com
SenSource: https://www.sensourceinc.com
V-Count: https://v-count.com
DoorPeopleCounters: https://doorpeoplecounters.com
FootfallCam: https://www.footfallcam.com

Use of Cell Phone Charging Lockers in CA Community Colleges

By Adina Lerner, Glendale Community College

I had already seen this at Pasadena City College. I wanted to know if other Community Colleges had them. I put a call out in October through the cclibrarian’s listserv. 

In October, Glendale Community College Library staff took a field trip to Cal State LA to learn about their Alma/Primo installation. On our way out, we were given a tour of the library and were struck by the really cool cell phone charging lockers. They told us they were very popular.

I received responses from PCC, Santiago Canyon College and Riverside City College. 

Pasadena has one Kwikboost charging locker with stand. The report no big issues, rather small ones. Students often forget their “code” to unlock their phones. These codes are set by the student each time they use the locker. Staff has a master key to unlock in these situations, in addition to an override code. Another annoyance is students forgetting to put their phones into silent mode, so a ringing phone issue is addressed by using the override code to go into the locker and turn the ringer down. At the beginning of Fall term they did need replace a couple of the charging cords due to wear-and-tear. The cords are supplied by Kwikboost under the service plan and the labor is done in house. They received their funding from the library’s Trust & Agency fund. 

Riverside uses goCharge. They note that this is a very expensive option, despite this, it one proved so popular they purchased another unit. They now have a total of three, the third purchased by their foster youth program for its engagement center. They report issues with phones ringing in the lockers. They have a key kept at the circulation desk to turn down the ringers. It is a “huge hit” on library and campus tours. 

One issue, Riverside writes, is that after two or three years is the battery powering the keypads needs to be monitored. When the battery dies, the locker doesn’t lock. The students are not aware they have left their devise unlocked and walk away. They now periodically make sure the lockers lock, if not, they replace the battery.

Santiago Canyon has both a charging station and a phone locker. The Fall Term saw popularity of the phone locker soar. They have some of the same issues as PCC, students forgetting the code or forgetting which locker bay they used.
I appreciated the responses. I took the information to the GCC library staff and was given the OK to survey the students. We already have a very popular charging stand. Instead of just purchasing another stand, we decided to present some options to our patrons. During the survey period, we learned that our Learning Commons received an Associated Students grant for two charging stands, in addition, a student received a grant for the library to purchase charging cords to check out to students. This makes sense as our recent remodel included what seems like a hundred new USB and outlets in both the tables and some chairs. There are issues with checking out cords, but that is a different issue. 
 
This past week, I tallied up the results of our survey (10/29 – 11/13). We received 235 replies and they overwhelmingly want another charging stand. We expect to put forward a request for an Associated Students grant next term and include the results represent our patron preference.

Helping Students Succeed Through Extra Hours

By Dee Near, Merced College

The Merced College Library has consistently been voted the number one student support service on campus. One of the biggest reasons is the extra effort the staff make to help our students. Beginning in 2014, the library began staying open until 11 p.m. Monday – Thursday the week prior to finals. It is known as “Cram Week” on our campus, and the library provides coffee and snacks such as string cheese, fruit and granola bars to keep the students’ energy up. The initial funding for this effort was provided by Student Equity funds, and now the Associated Students of Merced College provide money for the snacks. The survey comments include “It is Awesome!” “Great work on helping students become successful” and “I just thought it was a good idea to give students more time to use the resources.”

In addition to the longer hours, the Monday of finals week we host a Christmas Cookie and Cider event. The staff bake cookies, and we offer hot chocolate and hot cider to enjoy while relaxing in our Wendell Olsen Forum area upstairs.

The librarians have also added a jigsaw puzzle table this semester. Students are enthusiastic about this addition to the library, and have worked at least four 700 plus piece puzzles as a cooperative effort. It’s really fun to see students working on projects that bring them together outside the classroom.

Library and Info Tech Program Updates at Sacramento City College

By Pamela Posz, Sacramento City College

The Library and Information Technology Program (LIBT)  at Sacramento City College (SCC) is pleased to announce the following changes and additions to our curriculum: 

• LIBT 100 has gone from .5 to 1 unit. An introduction to concepts in equity and diversity has been added to the course outline.
• LIBT 300 - the topic of equity and diversity in library settings has been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• LIBT 330 - equity and diversity in library collections management has been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• LIBT 340 - equity and diversity in school libraries and media centers has been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• LIBT 341 - equity and diversity in library services for children and youth has been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• LIBT 343 - the course title has changed from Library Access and Reference Services to Library Public Services. Equity and inclusion in public service have been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• LIBT 345 - the course title has changed from Library Operations and Management to Library Teamwork and Supervision. Equity and diversity have been added to the course outline as a new topic.
• Libraries in Correctional Settings (LIBT 342) - has been added as a new course in order to serve the large number of prison libraries in the State of California.

The course will be offered completely online in order to maximize availability.

Course description:

This course is designed to provide students with an overview of the main skills, requirements, and knowledge expected of staff members working in correctional libraries. Topics include the history and current state of correctional libraries, collection development and management, library staffing in correctional settings, literacy improvement opportunities, and legal issues.

Questions? Contact Pamela Posz, LIBT Program Coordinator at poszp@scc.losrios.edu | 916-558-2186 

Pasadena City College Has New Certificate of Achievement

By Krista Goguen, Pasadena City College

Pasadena City College now offers two related Certificates focused on job-related skills and practical experience for archives and digital collections. Students can now earn one or both Certificates described below. More information on the program courses is online: https://libguides.pasadena.edu/Archives-Digitization-Certificates

Digitization Skills for Libraries & Cultural Heritage Organizations

Occupational Skills Certificate (4 courses, 8 units)

The Digitization Skills Certificate curriculum provides practical experience using industry standards to prepare students for work in digital repositories found in libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations. Coursework includes:

• Digital project planning (students build their own digital collections)
• Digital imaging equipment, standards and techniques for creating quality digital images
• Digital asset management systems used to build and manage collections (commercial and open-source)
• Basic principles of metadata schemas for end user access to digital materials
• Copyright and privacy issues relating to digital projects
• Application of skills and concepts in an established digitization project (Internship).

Archives & Digital Collections Assistant

Certificate of Achievement (7 courses, 16 units)

New for Fall 2018. The Archives & Digital Collections Assistant Certificate curriculum prepares students for work with archival materials as well as 'born digital" collections found in libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage organizations. This more comprehensive certificate incorporates and expands on the shorter Digitization Skills Certificate with three additional courses on archival practices, digital image editing and digital preservation skills to better prepare students for work in archives, special collections and the digitization field. Additional coursework includes:

• Introduction to the components and processes of archives and best practices for handling, arranging, describing and preserving archival materials.
• Introduction to industry standard digital image editing tools and techniques.
• Techniques, protocols and standards for digitization and preservation of "born digital" and reformatted material of long term value
• Strategies to ensure that digital information is preserved to remain accessible and usable over time.

Laney Library Classified Staff Off to Graduate School!

By Evelyn Lord, Laney College

Michael Wright began graduate studies this semester at San Francisco State University. He is pursuing a Master of Science in Counseling (MSC). Michael is the Principal Library Technician for Technical Services.

Dominique Dozier has been accepted into the Master of Library Information Science program at San José State University. She will begin her coursework in January. Dominique is a Library Technician II and serves as the evening lead at the Reserve Desk.