Well it’s the last day of my “blog slot” and nothing has emerged so far.  Why?  Well, partly because I’m new to blogs and have to admit they do scare me slightly.  I’ve even managed to fall at the first hurdle in that I couldn’t log in.  OK, that's been a bit of self-development for me there!

The main reason for getting down to this task so late in the day is that just for a change we are short-staffed.  Yes, all of us are grabbing our turns for well-earned holidays – Copenhagen, here I come in just over 3 weeks’ time.

Two members of staff working at this time of year shouldn’t pose too much of a problem, and to be fair, things haven’t been too bad this year.  However things would go much smoother if we didn’t have to deal with the silly, pointless questions that wing their way in from some of our readers.  Pointless, because if the person had read (I mean really read) that email properly, they wouldn’t have had to ask the question, and we wouldn’t be wasting our time keeping calm as we once again spell things out in mono-syllables. 

Statement from us:  “This book must be consulted within the library”.  Subsequent questions from reader:  “How long can I take it out for?”  or  “I’m a member of staff, so I’d like to take it to my office.  When would I need to bring it back?”

It got me wondering how we can most effectively get information out into the community in such a way as to minimise these irritating communications.  We used to have induction tours for new students, but generally found that many of the students were still feeling the after-effects of the previous evening’s partying:  in other words it was felt that for the return, it wasn’t worth the staff effort.   The solution was to put everything on the web pages, leaving people to find information themselves.   However we all know how easily one can get lost.  How can we expect our more technically challenged users to cope?  In any case, if people don’t know what they’re looking for, how can we expect them to find it?

It’s been a bone of contention with me for a long time.  I’ve even offered to produce booklets to hand out to new Postgraduates and staff, in conjunction with a short spiel at their induction sessions.  That’s fallen on deaf ears so far, so I’m no further on.   What do other people think? Is it better to kill a few trees to produce print booklets, or thrown everything into the general mix of the website, or should we still be getting out there and meeting our readers face to face?

Phew, that's the text done - now to post it .....