Thursday, September 10, 2009

further to the library

Sep 10: Further to my item in April, it's still current and I want folks to dig it out and remain aware of it coz this is important !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- on the library internet system being changed for a worse system, with a built-in time cut-off that can make you lose your work if you hit any technical problems over the net running slow when you are trying to save. Which is provenly bad for us if we are trying to use the web to communicate to organise to meet up with researchers and the like.

The change is going badly. At Newington library, computer users are being told that the one they have converted to the "Netloan" system that it's not working very well, and advise against choosing to use it.

Same as nobody uses it in the downstairs room at Central, where the first conversion to it was made. This is because the new system is a bad system, so bad it's not worth introducing - and the libraries trying it out are now finding that in practice.

Oct 28: The system's piecemeal further extension is a total shambles, and the system's own faults are visibly why, to every annoyed library user who is struggling with it. Timers are going wrong, starting their count with 2 minutes already missing that have not passed, just like in Fife. Sometimes computers are taking 6 minutes to log in, and the solution to slowness, available under the old system, of telling the previous user not to log out, is no longer available in this system. The system for staff to set bookings is working too slowly, so that you are frantic if they are racing against the timer to set an extended booking. Mostly the staff don't know how to work the extension system, either. There are blocks in the system that are meant to force a minimum time gap between users' sessions, the staff are struggling to override these in order to do extensions. These blocks shut you out of the system half the tmem and refute the chicken-and-egg idea that you are supposed to log in to the system just to book when you are going to log in!! I mean, what the ... At central reference where it used to be you could see exactly how long the queue was, you no longer have any idea when you will get a vacancy. Unless you stare over all the users' shoulders to see their timers, which is unlikely to be allowed or popular, so you have to bother the staff more than before and with a question it takes them a long time to answer, so the new system is not saving them work at all, and the answer is supposed to be that you have made prebookings that are difficult or impossible to get a chance to make for much of the time. Staff in every library where I have observed, which is many, are frustrated and stuck and apologetic the whole time.

Everyone can see none of this should be happening. Everyone can see only the old system worked. Everyone can see this is a disability injustice that was totally preventable.

Maurice Frank

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