It's Academic

Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice (PaLRaP.org) is accepting submissions for research, practice, feature, and commentary articles as well as news items for the Fall 2024 issue (vol. 12, no. 2).
Research, practice, feature, and commentary manuscripts are welcomed at any time; however, for full consideration for the fall issue, please submit your manuscripts by August 31, 2024.
News item submissions (staff changes, awards/recognitions, events, initiatives, etc. happening in PA libraries that may be of interest to other libraries) are also welcome at any time. However, for full consideration for the spring issue, please submit your news items here by October 1, 2024.
For more information about PaLRaP, including submission guidelines and section policies, visit http://www.palrap.org.
PaLRaP is a peer-reviewed, online, open access publication of the Pennsylvania Library Association’s College & Research Division. This journal provides an opportunity for librarians in Pennsylvania to share their knowledge and experience with practicing librarians across the Commonwealth and beyond. It includes articles from all areas of librarianship, with a special focus on activities at or of interest to Pennsylvania’s academic libraries.

Published biannually: May and November

Co-Editors: Kate Cummings & Roseanne Perkins

Peer reviewers: Members of the Pennsylvania library community

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In the northeast corner of the United States, the weather pattern has settled into a hot and humid rhythm. For my library, that means it is the summer and time to create a project list!

After our spring semester ended in May, our small staff began a collaborative project list that consisted of three different tiers of things we wanted to work on. To be fair, some of these initiatives were intended to be completed last summer when our staff thought we would have the time and workforce to complete them. Unfortunately, we had an abrupt turnover of multiple staff which left our normal staff of 10 down to 6. We went into survival mode then, and most of these projects got put to back burner.

Now, we are fully staffed and back in project mode. Our first tier of plans consisted of initiatives that we teamed up on and have started executing as of this blog posting. We will have these projects either fully completed or nearly completed by the start of our fall semester. They include drafting a formal remote work policy for our department, updating training documentation and onboarding materials for full-time staff, formalizing student employee work policies, and reviewing and enhancing our Disaster Plan/Emergency Procedure documents.

Depending on the project, a lead was chosen for each initiative, then other staff joined the team if they were interested in collaborating. With only nine FTE, many of us are on multiple project committees, which on the surface can seem overwhelming. However, summers in the library, while lacking the normal foot traffic of the academic school year, are an excellent time to implement new strategies and test them out.

For example, my supervisor and I completed an overhaul of circulation policies (we’re the Access Services Team!) which included extending due dates for students, faculty and staff to semester-long checkouts for certain collections. We streamlined short-term loan items for collections such as DVDs, video games and board games. The flexibility of the summer months allows us to troubleshoot any issues that come up before the fall semester gets into full swing.

Our second tier of projects consists of items we want to start brainstorming and executing, but don’t have a set end date for. These include updating policies for our Relaxation Room, processing gift book donations, and planning for our annual fall finals week event. It’s a big event that requires work to begin months ahead of time. We also began a big purge of items in our basement storage area. One can never underestimate the power of cleaning out all those old office items and little things you thought you might use one day, but 15 years later you still haven’t touched.

Our third-tier items are ideas to brainstorm and figure out the future of but have no real beginning timeframe.

Having this organized and thoughtful list has allowed us to stay on track with our department goals. What are some projects your library has started this summer? I’d love to hear about them!