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50 Law Libr. Lights 1 (2006-2007)

handle is hein.journals/lll50 and id is 1 raw text is: Frances M. Brillantine, DuFour Law Library, Catholic University ofAmerica Communication and organization are two of the biggest challenges facing librarians who manage student workers in academic libraries. Academic libraries rely on student workers to staff the library during weekends, holidays, and late into the night. How can library managers ensure that the library is adequately staffed and keep that staff well-informed? I have found that technology is a great help in this area. This article will discuss how technology can assist library managers in hiring and scheduling student workers, in keeping them informed, and by providing guides and manuals that are easily accessible. Although this article will focus on circulation desk attendants, many of the ideas discussed are applicable to student workers in other departments as well. One of the most important aspects of manage- ment is effective communication. Although I am responsible for the circulation desk attendants, I am often not here when they are scheduled to work, due to the late hours the library is open. Therefore, keeping desk attendants informed of policy changes or other important issues can be challenging. I could use e-mail to disseminate information to the desk attendants, but I hesitate to do that. We all receive large amounts of e-mail, so I try to reserve its use for shift requests and very important memos. I instead created a blog to keep desk attendants informed. The Circula- tion and Access Services Blog (http://dufourcirc. blogspot.com) has been in existence for about five years. It is the start-up Internet page on our circulation desk computers, so it is the first thing desk attendants see when they start their shifts. The blog originally resided on our intranet. I initially used Dreamweaver and frames to create and maintain it. This method was a bit time- consuming, so I started using Blogger about a year ago. There are a number of free blog pro- grams available, such as Blogger, Blogster, and Blogstream. Since I am most familiar with Blogg- er, that is the program I'll briefly discuss here. As I'm sure many of you are aware, Blogger is very easy to use. It does not require much, if any, knowledge of HTML, depending on how customized you want your blog to look. Blogger provides a range of templates from which to choose, or you can create your own. You can host your blog on blogspot.com or on your own server space. If privacy is a concern, you may want to host your blog on your intranet. The sidebar provides space for an unlimited number of links. I keep the number of links to no more than five or six, so that only critical links are displayed. I use the blog to inform desk attendants of policy changes, changes in hours, reminders on how to perform certain tasks, and occasionally to thank them for their hard work. Although I have the comments function enabled, the desk attendants don't use it. They usually e-mail me with problems or questions instead. The blog has proven to be an excellent method of keeping the desk attendants informed and of providing a central location for important links. It is also a useful resource for our evening and weekend reference librarians, since much continued on page 5

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