Reservations

The Reserve area of our library is for high demand items required by the students in their coursework, it is very well used. We have a few problem children who hide items, or take them into the wider library area without permission and then we have to track them down to make sure they (the books) are not missing. 2 hour loans are all that are allowed and bookings can be made. The funniest ( to my mind) item that went missing was "Ethics for Nurses" .....thereby setting up a debate on the same subject! (A friend at the "big City Library" tells me that the "Ethics for Lawyers" books go missing all the time!)

The Reserve area is heavily used in study week and exam week!
The students had an open book exam this week and the 4 items that were the major text were much sort after. It is not unknown for an item to be taken out the night before an exam (overnight loans are allowed) and then for the student not to return it until after the exam, paying the few dollars cost of fines so he/she could have the item for the duration.
(I haven't quite worked out a way around this as yet, short of setting up stocks outside the library and lining up the tomatoes.)

Reserve items are getting less each year with the online EReserve and we hardly have any photocopied notes on the shelves now. This is a good thing for two reasons, the notes used to go missing regularly (asking a lecturer to replace them is fraught with difficulties) and they are now more accessible for all students with an online computer or from the library Opac's.

I had two exams this week and the Boss - Feralaw has one next week, so we have both been quite preoccupied and tired. The other staff have been verry understanding. I bought them chocolate to say thank you on Friday, at the end of my exams.
(This is the currency in the library - are you listening Students!)
Feralmb received a "teddy bear" thank you from a grateful student that she helped a lot this week.
Feralmb has also started baking, as it is cold and her wood fire is lit....yummy things coming our way. I have bottled quite a few Olives.... life is fine. Thats all for now, Feraltb.