Archive for December 22, 2020

| December 22, 2020
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Springshare Support Closed for Holidays

It’s been said before, but it is worth repeating – 2020 has been a year. Springshare support is not only excited to say goodbye to this really tough year but also to take some (well-deserved) time off. ICYMI, in our recent newsletter – the Springshare Support team answered 35,000 support questions this year… up 19% from 2019. We also taught training sessions to 8,500 attendees, had 20 major product releases, and more. Phew, we’ve been busy! Therefore, our Springshare Support, Training Team, and our Facebook and Twitter accounts will be closed for a few days over the holidays.

Springshare Support Schedule
(Including Training & Social Media)

Closed

Will be monitoring for emergencies. All non-emergency questions will be answered when we reopen.

  • Thursday, Dec 24
  • Friday, Dec 25
  • Friday, Jan 1

Reduced support hours (9am-5pm U.S. EST):

  • Monday, Dec 28 – Thursday, Dec 31

Springshare 24/7/365 Global Reference Will Be Open!

Our Springshare 24/7 global reference service, which backs up your reference chat service with MLIS-degreed librarians, will be open! When we say 365 days a year, we mean it. 🙂

If you’re interested in adding 24/7/365 chat coverage to your reference outreach, contact us at sales@springshare.com.

If You’re Still Working… We Have Suggestions!

If you’re still working over this holiday season, we have some suggestions for you to help make the most of your time!

SpringyU – is all about self-paced learning via short videos. Choose to learn with Blocks or beef up your skills with Courses. If you’ve got 5 minutes or a lot more than that, you can attend SpringyU right from your chair. 

Pickup Manager Blocks on SpringyU

SpringyNews – Find yourself in the midst of a slow period? Peruse our latest newsletter, which just so happens to be our 50th edition!

Springshare Buzz – Been hearing the buzz about Pickup Manager, and want to check it out? Or perhaps you’ve been hearing a lot about the LibAnswers Co-Op but don’t know what it is? Does a 5-minute LibCal Seats overview video sound exactly like what you’re capable of handling today? Check out the Product Highlights page on the Springshare Buzz Site for quick looks and more.

Catch up on Updates – It’s really helpful to keep up with all the new features and fixes for Springshare tools that are now available to you. Plus, we also released a mini-update for LibCal last week!

Opt In – for the gift that keeps on giving. Or follow us on Facebook and Twitter so you can check out the stories we’re sharing all year long.

We want to thank you for continuing to be our awesome’sauce clients in what was most certainly a difficult and turbulent year. We are so grateful for the opportunity you’ve given us and the trust you have in us to help you and, ultimately, your patrons. Thank you for sharing your feedback, suggestions, and wishlists and for your never-ending example of true dedication. We’ll see you in the New Year and goodbye 2020!

Category: General |
| December 15, 2020
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Springshare Learning Lab: Reopening Libraries Safely

Our December Springshare Learning Lab focused on how the Gwinnett Technical College reopened their library safely using LibCal Seats. Over the summer, as campuses were preparing to open fully or modeling a hybrid approach for the Fall semester, library administrators were tasked with opening the library to students, safely. This meant ensuring access but in a manner that adheres to social distancing protocols and mandated occupancy restrictions.

Deborah George faced this task for the Gwinnett Technical College library and they used LibCal seats just in time for the first day of their Fall semester. Her Springshare Learning Lab covers how they used LibCal seats to provide access to computers/webcams, printers, study rooms, and staff (!!!) to students requests those services.

Springy Michelle then covers the second half of the webinar which includes an overview of the LibCal hierarchy of Locations > Categories > Spaces > Seats, setting up restrictions/limitations, creating accessibility/powered Seats, and more.


In case you missed it, the full recording is available. Watch below and find Deborah’s slides on the Buzz site. LibCal Seats is designed for all libraries, so whether you’re an academic library like Gwinnett Technical College or a public library, or if you’re not a library at all, LibCal seats can help you reopen your buildings safely.

Category: Client Stories, Customer Service, LibCal |
| December 10, 2020
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Final Code Release of the Year: LibCal Goodies

Before we usher in a much-needed new year, we are happy to bring you some LibCal goodies for the holiday season! This release is on its way to you next week, and will be live in all regions by the end of the day on Friday, December 18.

Seats/Spaces

  • We’ve added the ability to move or bulk-move Seats between their containing Spaces. Bulk-deleting Seats is also now available!
  • The admin booking grid has been enhanced to include additional search filters for the ‘Accessible’ & ‘Powered’ Seat/Space attributes. The appropriate icons will also display on the admin booking grid.
  • The ‘Back-to-Back’ booking limit has been modified to support the ability to restrict simultaneous bookings without enforcing the minimum of one hour required before the next booking can be made.
  • To assist users who want to check into a Seat/Space but have not yet made a booking, we added a link to the Check in/out page. The link will bring the user to the individual booking page for that Seat/Space.
  • It’s now possible to disable the check in/out requirement for a booking. You can do this when making a booking on the admin side or by editing a booking created through the public booking pages.
  • There is now an accessible / screen-reader-friendly booking page for Seats. Support for period-based booking locations has also been added to these pages. These links are at the bottom of each page.
  • A few changes have been completed for our API:
    • New endpoints for Spaces & Equipment to return all spaces or items and their availability in a location.
    • The Zone, Accessible, & Powered attributes are now available in the space/category/:id & space/item/:id endpoints.
    • Check In & Out codes have been added to the Spaces /booking/:id & /bookings endpoints.

Misc

  • Auto Zoom meeting password generation is now available for this integration.
  • The ability to link locations in the Hours module to opening / closing hours in Alma is now available.

Interested in more detail for this release? Check out the LibCal release notes on the Springshare Lounge! [Back to Top]

Want in-depth coverage of the ins and outs of LibCal? Don’t forget you can always check out our recorded training sessions!

That’s it for this round of updates from Springy HQ. We would like to thank you, our user community, for sharing all your great ideas with us! We love making them a reality and look forward to bringing you many more improvements in 2021. We are always here for you if have any suggestions or questions.

Category: LibCal, New Features |
| December 1, 2020
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ICYMI: Our First Springshare Learning Lab!

Just before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, we were thrilled to host the first session of our new client story + how-to webinar series: The Springshare Learning Lab!

Ken Winter kicked things off with a thoughtful discussion of his longtime remote working experience and its recent challenges. And how LibGuides, LibAnswers, and LibWizard have helped him and his team support their patrons during the pandemic. Next Springy Michelle highlighted using LibChat for internal staff communication, setting chat departments as fallbacks, and configuring a LibWizard form with conditional logic.

In case you missed it, the full recording is available! You can watch it below and find Ken’s slides on the Buzz site!

Got an after-the-fact question for Ken? Lounge members can ask it in his discussion thread that he’ll be monitoring for the next week or so. Any Springy user can request a Lounge account, and we have getting started guidance in our July newsletter.

Inspired by Ken’s presentation, Springy Michelle also created a special training on how to build an internal staff communication guide similar to the one in his session with LibGuides, LibCal, and LibAnswers. You can watch the recording in our training video library.

Up Next! Library Reopening at Gwinnett Technical College with LibCal Seats

Back in September, Gwinnett Technical College shared their reopening experience and how they’re using LibCal Seats to help reopen safely. For our next Learning Lab, Deborah George, director of library services, is going to share their story, give us an update, and answer audience questions. Following, we’ll look at some of the specific features they’ve found most useful during this reopening process.

Register today! COVID-19 – Bringing Patrons Back to the Building
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
11:00am – 12:00pm ET

Just getting started with LibCal Seats? Since we won’t have time to cover every setting during the Learning Lab, we have a full training session scheduled for the next day.

Register today! LibCal Seats – Get Your Library Ready to Reopen Safely
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
2:00pm – 3:00pm ET

We hope to see you at one or both of the sessions! Wishing you all a happy and healthy holiday season. 🙂

Category: Client Stories, Community, LibAnswers, LibChat, LibGuides, LibGuides CMS, LibWizard |