By Bradley D. Faust, Arthur W. Hafner, and Robert L. Seaton Introduction Over the past several years, the Ball State University Libraries has changed its image from serving the campus community as a repository of knowledge to a destination for research, learning, and friends. This was accomplished by facilities renovation and new space configuration, organizational development, and the infusion of technology in almost all aspects of the Libraries’ operation. This new environment has resulted in the Libraries becoming the most popular learning space on campus. The size of Bracken Library’s usable space over its five floors is equivalent to 6.6 football fields and includes stacks, information technology, and individual study spaces. Matroska file player. Bracken Library also includes over twenty group study and meeting spaces that students, faculty, and even local community members can reserve and use for group project meetings, class study sessions, presentation review, and many other purposes. Our challenge was to make it easier and more convenient for students and faculty to request and plan use of these group spaces. Jumping through Hoops to Reserve a Room For many years, the University Libraries used a paper calendar, telephone calls, forms, and in-person requests to reserve and manage Bracken Library’s group study rooms. The master paper calendar was located at the Periodical Reserves Microform service counter. A student had to call that service desk or stop by and complete a room request form to get a reservation on the calendar. Then library users had to remember what room at what time and on which day they arranged their meeting reservation. Of course, this was the best method available to control and manage use of these meeting spaces when first implemented in 1976. Join GitHub today. GitHub is home to over 20 million developers working together to host and review code, manage projects, and build software together. Looking for free and open source hotel management software. And open source hotel management software. By your hotel. Automatic booking. FeaturesThis legacy approach for scheduling, however, was inconvenient for users when planning and reserving space, checking on a room’s availability, or confirming reservations. The rigid process was time-bound because Bracken Library had to be open to book a room and place-bound because the user had to visit or call a specific service point. Knowledge BaseEmail requests were also used for space requests but suffered some of the same process hurdles. As the popularity and hours for Bracken Library increased in the latter half of the decade, we knew a web application could improve the service level and reduce staff time required for managing reservations for the group study rooms. Buying vs Building – Why did we Build it? In July 2007, we conducted an environmental scan to learn what web-based scheduling applications were available. We found that many already existed, and they ranged from very high-end, complex, expensive enterprise solutions to single room/single user desktop systems. To help explain why we decided to build our own, let’s look at some of the original functional requirements our staff handed us. • Empower any Ball State community member to initiate an online request to use a group study room in Bracken Library. • Adhere to the University Libraries’ room use guidelines on size, use purpose, requestor’s credentials, use frequency, and length of reservation. Device drivers usb. • Limit room reservations to hours when Bracken Library is open and rooms are accessible. • Communicate by email with a user when a request is generated. • Minimize the amount of work a user is required to do when completing the request form. • Guide users to spaces that are appropriate in size and technology for their meetings. • Use Windows Server and IIS technologies. • Represent the entire suite of group study rooms in a single web interface. As we scanned the environment, we had a difficult time finding any scheduling software that met most of our needs. Instead, we found systems that cost too much, were too simple, were too complex, ran on unsupported platforms, or used unsupported technologies. For these reasons, we decided to build the application we needed to manage our group study rooms. Room Scheduler Version 1.0 – Transfer of Control to the User In January 2008, the University Libraries released the Online Group Study Room Reservation System (Room Scheduler 1.0).
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