Core Operations
The Public Services Department is in the process of planning the 2026 Public Services Department Retreat. The selected date for the retreat is Wednesday, August 12th in the Heritage Room, located in the Reynolda Hall.
The department’s management team is working on the staff position description project, which will update staff position descriptions to reflect current essential functions, and provide consistency where relevant.
The Public Services team is working on reconfiguring storage space in Reynolds 210, including the reorganization of Reynolds 230.
Collections
Shifting on the Reynolds 5 has reached the PN 3155 LC call number range. The goal of this project is shift items so the empty shelving on all Reynolds floors are on the west side of the building, in preparation for future space projects.
The Public Service student employees (including the fall and spring semester students) completed a scanned shelf-read of the entire Reynolds 3 floor, PS LC call number range, and have transitioned to searching for the missing books generated from the shelf-reading process.
User Services
Will Ritter, Rodrigo Castro, and student supervisors within the User Services are working on developing a staffing model for inclement weather scenarios that would rely on student employees for onsite coverage.
Book Displays
This month marks the exciting launch of the new ZSR Student Employee Book Display initiative! Spearheaded by Laura Milcarzyk in collaboration with Erin Jones, this program gives ZSR student employees the opportunity to curate a display on a topic of their choice. The students handle the entire process, from selecting the books to designing the supporting materials and crafting the description cards.
The Public Services student employees are kicking off the inaugural round, but this opportunity is open to student workers across all ZSR departments. If you are a student worker—or a supervisor with a student who would love to showcase their interests—please reach out to Laura or Erin to get a future display on the schedule.
June Displays
- Delayed Freedom: Echoes of Juneteenth, curated by Alaina Wheeler (ZSR Student Employee, Public Services)
- We’ve Always Been Here: LGBT Historical Fiction, curated by Erin Jones
- Preparing for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, curated by Maddie Soultanian (ZSR Student Employee, Public Services)
- Summer Beach Reads, curated by Erin Jones
- Summer of Science Fiction, curated by Erin Jones
Upcoming Displays
- Disability Pride Month, curated by Erin Jones
- Independence Day through the Lens of Immigration, curated by Setayesh Nowruzzadeh (ZSR Student Employee, Public Services)
- Conditions Remain Unstable: Reading Through Uncertainty, curated by Will Ritter
- Understanding Human Trafficking, curated by Safa Akhter (ZSR Student Employee, Public Services)
Content Access & Delivery
James Harper worked with Kevin Gilbertson (Library Technology) to make sure all the request forms will work with the new version of our public catalog, Primo NDE (Next Discovery Experience). Most requesting experiences will remain the same, but one change has been made. Patrons will now have the choice of choosing a single article or entire volume when requesting journals from Offsite Storage.
Offsite Storage
In June, the Offsite team
- delivered 48 physical items,
- fulfilled 36 electronic requests,
- accessioned 744 items,
- and audited 10,537 items.
David Link and Ty Wilson are coordinating cross-training on Caia, the offsite cataloging software, and Leganto, the course reserves software, to make both platforms more accessible and usable by more members of the department.
Alayna Veasey has completed her audit of ANT 190 – Introduction to Museum Studies. This new knowledge will improve her work with the University Archives Artifact Collection. She continues to conduct SCA shifting projects to make room for new university publications.
In June, Alayna
- fulfilled 9 SCA offsite requests,
- returned 10 SCA offsite requests,
- shifted 7 SCA books and periodical boxes offsite,
- and shifted 7 SCA boxes offsite.
Professional Activities & Development
Will Ritter presented a poster at Metrolina Library Association Conference in Charlotte, NC on June 17. The poster was titled “Procedures Are A Public Service Infrastructure” and detailed department efforts to document procedures and workflows.
Collaborations
Reporting and submitting facilities-related issues: The Facilities Operations group (Veronica Escamilla-Brady, Tanya Zanish-Belcher, and Rodrigo Castro) is looking at formalizing and standardizing practices related to the reporting and submission of facilities related issues. When completed, recommendations will be presented at the next Admin Council meeting.
Reviewing student employee survey feedback and training materials: The Public Services Department is reviewing training materials for student employees in response to the feedback we received through the Student Employee Survey. Areas of attention include: expanded guidance on professional behavior expectations, clarification of shift-makeup procedures, and the discussions around transferable skills resources.
System optimization: In collaboration with Resource Services and the Technology Department, Public Services is working on addressing system issues affecting items with conflicting statuses (e.g. an item that has both an “in transit” and a “checked-out” statuses) as a part of the ongoing work to clean up item records.
Facilities Updates
- Fire shutter door inspection The Fire Marshal conducted a required inspection of the fire shutter system. The inspection was carried out successfully on Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026
HVAC replacement The HVAC replacement project is progressing largely as planned; however, a delay in the shipment of parts will impact the overall timeline. A construction fence has been installed in Parking Lot E and around the library’s loading zone, though the loading area will remain largely accessible throughout the project. Two ADA parking spaces have been added to the lot. We anticipate the installation of a crane at the building entrance during the week of July 17, 2026.
Furniture cleanup A total of 139 chairs from classrooms, group study rooms, and public areas were deep-cleaned between June 19 and June 22, 2026.
Reynolds 6 Facilities removed shelving units from Room 609 on June 15. The carpet was replaced on Friday, June 26, 2026.
Statistics
Browse previous editions of What’s Happening in Public Services here.
4 Comments on ‘What’s Happening in Public Services: June 2026’
Excellent work! Thank you for putting this together, Jemma!
Congratulations on the displays! Great job from Staff and Students. I love seeing these!
Thank you as always for compiling this newsletter, Jemma! I’ll definitely be reaching out to my returning students this fall to see if they want to curate a book display.
Thank you Jemma for putting this together. Fabulous job as always! I do very much enjoy reading about what our department does across its own inter-department work!