Spring 2009 Welcome!

I know it's a little late to be "welcoming" everyone to the Spring 2009 semester, however, there has been a great deal going on! So, welcome anyway and a few things going on:

ACC's Round Rock Campus

Planning for Round Rock is in full swing. Floor plans have been finalized and the RR team is reviewing where tech/network connections/drops will go. In earlier emails I have sent links to floor plans, construction drawings and some great information Teresa Ashley forwarded to me. The information about RR grows weekly so visit back to the original links off the ACC Facilities page and see the progress. The timeline remains the same - classes begin Fall 2010 so August of 2010. When you look at this timeline, of course, it means that this year will be a very busy one for us as CDT orders materials and TS manages this huge project. Thanks to all the LS RR Team in advance. It's always exciting to have new space - but a great deal of work goes in to creating this space ...and it will be our largest.

Area Libraries

As one might imagine, the economic situation - and other issues - relate to other similar organizations and institutions in Austin...and how they react in turn, comes back to us.


* Austin Public Library branches (each one) are already closed one day a week due to the City of Austin cutbacks. This last week additional measures were announced and in addition to their one day, each branch will also close an additional 4 to 6 hours. At this time, web information regarding hours includes this general hours and locations link
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/map.htm
and a nice "What Austin Public Library locations are open today?" link
http://www.austinlibrary.com/whoisopentoday/index.cfm

This means a few things for us...

1. Our customer service answers are different when we are sending people to APL branches as their hours are limited...we will be sending links to new hours as soon as the decisions are completed and APL hours pages have been posted. Your usual community information has now changed..if you had memorized the local branch library hours, they will now be different.

2. We may well see more customers from the general public. We are addressing this in a number of ways...see this section on "Guests/Visitors" below.

* Austin Public Library - downtown/main - will be closed for 6 weeks beginning next Monday. Closing is for "repairs." Again, this means we will be giving out different "directions" or customer services messages if we are directing people to materials and resources more appropriate for their needs.
http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/news/nr20090204.htm



* Other area libraries hours may change as well as we head into downturn times. We will keep you updated on that but it is likely I won't have all the answers the minute they happen so if you hear or as you hear of anything, let me know!


ACC LS Guests/Visitors

We welcome the general public to our libraries, however - as we all know - we have limited resources for our own students, faculty and staff and our increased enrollment contributes to even busier ACC IRT/LS libraries, media centers and computer centers. Beginning soon we will be identifying resources (in accordance with our resource contracts, etc.) that ACC LS Guests/Visitors are invited to use/will be guided to and identifying usage times and sign in procedures for all Guests/Visitors. We will be sending customer service scripts for public service staff to use in assisting 'guests/visitors."

We have received approval by ACC administration and we are working closely to prepare simple procedures and a guideline and brochure that outlines the services and resources available to the general public. In addition, we are working with ACC police to set up general training (requested last summer) for working with all of our customers and patrons including ACC students, faculty and staff and general visitors.

Budget Issues

President Kinslow outlined a general guide for ACC for the next three or so years. We all know we are in an economic downturn and that does have an effect on our budget. Yes, we have more students, but teaching students costs money! Round Rock funding (bond and operating) aside, we will have no or little new funding for the next few years.

This means no raises for faculty and staff and re-purposing operating and capital dollars we already have carefully to keep up with rising costs. In addition, we have been and will continue to review how we do business and we will continue to identify ways to make sure we are focused on providing excellent services to our students, faculty and staff and maximizing our direct services (reference, circulation) to patrons in the midst of possible shrinking dollars.

More on that as we move along. We've had downturns before and made it through and the college has always approached these situations thoughtfully and carefully. This time will be on exception.

More later as we move through this year!