Tag Archives: patron difficulties

Quiet – Please, Please, Please

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Please please please start enforcing the quiet zone rules! I’ve started off in the tech center, which became to loud, so I moved to the library which was okay for awhile. But now people just come to the quiet zone because it’s quiet enough for them to talk or do group work.  Please hang up more signs on the table and walks  or even get someone to walk around to maintain silence. Thank you

 Thank you for sharing your concerns about the noise you are hearing in our library quiet zones. It is unfortunate that students are talking and doing group work in these spaces. While the library staff are not about to become a team of roving quiet police, there are a few things to share that might be helpful when this happens.

When you are in a quiet zone, there should be “quiet zone” stencils in the area. We put them up not only to indicate where the zones are – but also to help students who are seeking quiet. If you are in the quiet zone and other students are not respecting the quiet, simply get their attention and point to the “quiet zone” stencil. Remind them where they are in the library, and you might also mention that the 2nd floor east is the noise tolerant space for groups or those who like to talk in the library. If other students are ignoring these very large “quiet zone” signs and the signs on the stairwell doors, more signs are not going to solve the problem.

According to experiences here and at other similar libraries, student self-policing of noise and other annoying behaviors is far more effective than asking library staff to enforce rules. If you feel uncomfortable asking others to be quiet, then by all means seek out a staff member who will do this for you. All staff will be reminded that they should assist students who need help with a noise situation. I hope this will help to improve the problem.

Why “Home” Doesn’t Mean Paley Home Page In Our Catalog

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Often when I am perusing the library card catalogue, I have wanted to return to the home page for something. When I click on the “home” link it only takes me back to a new search in the card catalogue – NEVER to the homepage. I always have to open a new page and start over just to get to the homepage. What a nuisance! Surely the web master is not aware of this glitch.
Believe me when I say that I feel your frustration. As a librarian I use the catalog extensively and show others how to use it. It would seemingly make more sense for “home” to mean “library home page” and not “catalog home page”. But here’s the glitch. 
This catalog is used by all Temple Libraries, Paley, Medical and Law (and soon our Japan campus). So if the  “home” link took you to the Paley home page, that wouldn’t work very well for someone at the medical or law library. And as far as I know there’s no way to program it to intuitively know which library you want to be home and there’s not much space at the top for links to all the different home pages. The easy solution is to go to the bottom of the page – not the top. On any catalog page, just scroll to the bottom and you will find a link to the home page of all three libraries. That’s definitely not as intuitive as we like, but it does serve the purpose.
So we are indeed aware of this. However, I’ll bring your concerns to the attention of the web programmer to see if there are other solutions to explore. I guess the other easy solution, if you use the catalog enough and our links at the bottom of the page don’t suit you, is to create a link on the bookmark bar of your browser to the Paley Library Home Page at http://library.temple.edu. I hope you think we deserve a piece of that real estate.
Thanks for sharing your concerns with us.

Please Do Something About Unruly Teens in the Library

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There is a group of teenagers that are often in the library and they have no respect for anyone else in the library. I always see them running around and screaming. Today, I could hear them shaking and pounding on the vending machines in Tuttleman. Shouldn’t they be more respectful of our campus and library? Who is supposed to be supervising them?

 

Yes. They should be better behaved and respectful of others when in Temple buildings. Yes. Someone should be supervising them. Unfortunately for others on campus neither of these things is happening. I spent some time investigating the problem by trying to find out what group this is and who does supervise it. It turns out that Temple has multiple programs for teenagers during the summer, including orientations, admission programs for high school students, special programs such as Outward Bound, and programs sponsored by the Russell Conwell Center and other offices. Without much information to go on, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly what group sponsors the teens you enountered. After an exchange of emails with other Temple departments including admissions, student services and the student center, I think we were able to indentify this group and the supervisor is going to be notified and made aware that more adult supervision is needed. I have also notified all library staff that they should be alert to unruly teens, and to engage them and find out what group they are with. That may further help us to put a stop to this unruly behavior.

 

Please know that the Temple University Libraries does have a policy that forbids those under 18 to enter the library unless accompanied by a supervising adult. However, this doesn’t apply to those under 18 entering the library who are part of  a program that is officially sponsored by Temple. So we are aware that unsupervised teens can create problems for others, and we are sensitive to this issue.