Char Booth (Associate Dean of the University Library)
My feedback
8 results found
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2 votes
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Thank you for this suggestion, Yvette!
Starting in Fall of 2017, will be testing a mobile charging stations in the Library's upcoming 24-hour zone (which will be a renovated area just inside Kellogg's 2nd floor entrance). After getting a sense of how these charging stations work, we hope (budget permitting) to expand this pilot throughout the rest of the building in order to provide more outlets for our users.
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12 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Greetings, Nikki, and thank you for this suggestion. The Library is currently working on a strategy that will help do just what you describe here - indicating through signage and maps the appropriate noise level for different areas of each floor, and make clearer distinctions between active and quiet areas. We will begin rolling this our in Fall of 2017, so I hope that you will find that it makes navigating to the best fit area in terms of noise level a bit easier.
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7 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Marlita, this is an excellent suggestion - we will take you up on the idea, and will be providing sanitizing wipe stations throughout the Library starting in Fall of 2017... especially in our labs and computer areas!
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12 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Josh, thank you for this comment and I'm sorry that you're experiencing noise issues with our group study rooms.
Kellogg Library has a unusually large number of group study rooms, which, while great on the one hand, creates a higher than typical noise level in some areas of the building. These rooms are are in almost constant use - combined with growing Library use in general, we are experiencing an overall increase in building volume.
While your suggestion to install soundproofing is well taken and would go far towards addressing the issue, with approximately 50 rooms and limited funds for renovations it is almost certainly a cost-prohibitive solution. Over this summer, we are instead developing several strategies to help manage noise levels in and around our group study rooms - these including employing students who regularly conduct sweeps of our upper floors and triage noise issues as needed, and creating visible signage that indicates the appropriate sound level in different Library spaces. Last but not least, we'll offer free disposable earplugs at our Library services desks on the 2nd and 3rd floors.
I hope that these strategies prove useful!
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14 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Thank you for the suggestion, which I'm happy to say we've implemented during extended finals hours in 2016-17.
I'm also happy to share the news that the Library will be open 24 hours a day, 5 days a week, starting in Fall of 2017 - this is possible thanks to generous financial support from ASI and CSUSM students. The 2nd floor of Kellogg will be open continuously from Sunday through Friday, which will provide 30 additional hours of Library space/services to the campus during Fall and Spring semester. Overnight hours (between 12am-6am) will be reserved for CSUSM students, staff, and faculty.
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4 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Thank you for this excellent suggestion.
As the Associate Dean of the University Library I chair the Library's Space Committee, and we are in the process of looking at strategies we can employ to make our space more supportive, healthy, and inviting to students and other library users.
While there can be some challenges to incorporating plants inside a library (e.g., increased humidity can be hard on books) there are definitely ways we can bring more green into our spaces in the future. Living walls are indeed beautiful and have positive ecological impacts, and we're looking into the possibility of opening our 5th floor porches to student use - these outdoor patios would be a perfect location to feature plants.
Thanks again for the suggestion, and stay tuned for plant-based improvements in Kellogg!
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15 votes
An error occurred while saving the comment Summer, my apologies for your frustration about not being able to access the Reading Room. This is an issue we hear about frequently from students.
The University Library is committed to the Reading Room being an open student study space as often as possible, but the main challenge is that we do not actually manage the room or book the events that happen within it. The events that occur in the Reading Room are controlled by CSUSM Event and Conference Services, which maintains the Reading Room as one of the official event spaces on campus - to my understanding, this arrangement has existed since Kellogg Library opened.
We are in ongoing conversations with ECS to reduce the amount of Reading Room "downtime" on the schedule, and hope to see increased availability to students in the months ahead. They are aware that the Reading Room is intended for quiet student study whenever an event is not scheduled, but a variety of event management practices need to be examined and adjusted to keep the room open to students more frequently.
The Library is in full agreement that this is an important quiet study space for CSUSM students, but because it is needed at times for campus events our goal is to work with ECS to achieve a happier medium.
Thank you for this suggestion, LM. This upcoming academic year we will again provide catalog search kiosks on our 4th and 5th floors - these are expected to be installed in early Spring of 2018. These kiosks will also contain links to floor maps, available computers, study room reservation software, and other useful Library services.