Bio-Med Library Access Services Blog

Starting this week we will be adding a new section to the Reserve books: The Medical School Student Books. These books (about 10 titles with multiple copies) can be checked out for 4 or 6 weeks (depending on the title) and are ONLY for Medical Students on rotations. Yes, that's right ONLY Medical Students.

So how will you know which books are ONLY for Medical Students and who can check them out? The books will have a yellow sticker on the back by the barcode and there will also be a popup in Aleph when you try to check the book out that says 'Verify Med School Rotation'. If you see this message you need to ASK the person if they are a Medical Student. If they say 'YES' they are a Medical Student continue to check the book out, but if they are NOT a Medical Student please tell them that "Unfortunately these books are for Medical Students only and they will NOT be allowed to checkout the book." The Medical Student's will not have any special ID, just take their word for it (plus they are the only people that will know about these books). The Medical School Students are paying for the books and that's why they are the only ones allowed to check the books out. If a patron has any questions please refer them to Melissa, Pat, or David.

If we run out of a title and students are still asking for it, please tell them that we have purchased all the copies for this fiscal year and that we hope to buy more copies when the funds become available.

So the Medical School Student Books:
-will be able to be checked out for 4 or 6 weeks (depending on the title)
-will have both a yellow sticker on the back of the book below the barcode and will have a popup in Aleph
-will have normal fines
-will NOT be eligible for renewal
-will NOT be eligible for 'Get It'
-these items will NOT be listed in MNCAT (the record will be suppressed, so make sure that you are aware of the titles and where they are located in Reserve).

Please post to the blog.

Thanks,
Melissa

P.S. From David...
We have coded these books so that they can only circulate to grad students (including Med Students)--to help with keeping them from the grubby paws of undergrads and faculty and staff. If these people should chance to check one out, it will be due immediately, so if you notice that you'll know that either there's something wrong with the student's registration or (s)he isn't a med student like (s)he told you.

Posted by Melissa Aho at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Message from Pat:

In case any of you have forgotten (or never knew!) here's the procedure for returning professors' personal copies of books, videotapes, or course packets.

-Simply ask what the course name and number was (N5200, PubH6800, for instance) and look it up in our Filemaker Reserve database.
-Print the course page and pull the appropriate private copy items off our shelves.
-Pull off the red wrappers and book marks, or take any articles out of the Bio-Med envelopes they were kept in, and give the books and/or articles back to the prof.
-Last, but definitely not least, ask him or her to sign the course sheet (make sure it's legible!) and date it.
-Put the signed sheet on my desk, please.

If the course also had library-owned items on reserve, you can leave them on the shelves and I'll take care of removing them and changing their item records later.

Thanks everyone!
Pat

Please post your name that you have read this post!
Thanks,
Melissa

Posted by Melissa Aho at 03:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

I’m not sure if everyone is aware that our reserve 2-hour loans have not been automatically accumulating overdue fines like the books and journals in the 1-day or 6-week or 1-week categories (or even the permanent reserve 2-day loans). We’ve relied upon manual calculation of these fines in egregious cases. Up til now.

As of this week, probably on Tuesday (2/5), Aleph will begin automatically calculating and assessing these fines at a rate of $1.50 per hour. I have written a long 2 page memo that you need to read carefully at the desk. This has a number of consequences for our practices, which must now change. Please initial this memo here, and also initial the paper memo at the desk.

Posted by David Lenander at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)