Attendees
Randy Hensley, Louise Klusek, Mike Waldman, Stephen Francoeur, Ryan Phillips, Arthur Downing, Frank Donnelly, Rita Ormsby.
AirBaruch
We discussed the history of AirBaruch and potential new services the library would want to offer.
Text Message Reference
Some ideas on how to market chat reference were shared, including promoting it as a service for students “on the go.” Since students are using the chat service from the convenience of their workstations, mobile devices, et cetera, it might be ideal to market chat reference as a service for “where you are.” NYU has a shared phone to cover the service.
Phone Reference
The text message reference led to a discussion on how we provide phone reference. We discussed to what extent should we promote and field reference questions at the reference desk? We also discussed how we could expand this service.
E-textbooks and E-books
Stephen discussed a pilot project for patron-initiated acquisitions of e-books at BMCC.
The library has been given funds to purchase textbooks in the fall for students; we are looking into the possibility of using some of that money to buy textbooks in an e-book format.
Mike is working with a CIS professor whose class has 2 required books that will be in ebook format (one a Kindle form and the other Books24x7). Newman Library will provide the Kindle.
Supporting Baruch’s Film Studies Minor
With the introduction of a new film studies minor, the library is looking into ways we can provide films to support the classes.
