Caveat Lector

Last summer in management class, the project group I was in took a look at security provisions for the almost-24/7 College Library. The major sticking point was staff, of course, and the particular problem was late-night staffing.

Well, we pointed out that the problem boiled down to a really rather odd space decision: circulation was located way the heck down the left-hand side of the building, so there was no way to man both circulation and the front-door ID check with a single person—as would otherwise be perfectly reasonable.

Oh, but we can’t move circulation! they said to us. Closed print reserves are back there, and somebody has to be there to retrieve and check those out.

So we backed off on the space-shuffling recommendation, but left it in the report just for kicks. And if you walk into College Library now, you find that the space has been reorganized precisely as we recommended. (Though I’m not sure what they ended up doing with print reserves. I think they live behind the ref desk now, but I could be wrong about that.)

Guess we left our mark.

This comes to mind just now because our systems-analysis class is poised to leave another mark, to the tune of “completely redesigning two small campus libraries.” It’d be scary as all getout if it weren’t actually going so well. We’ve got buy-in from nearly everyone we’ve talked to, we’re told the money will be there, and we think the space and staff problems are eminently solvable.

I’m really starting to regret that I won’t be here to see the plans go into action.