New year, new digs

Next time you visit the library, you’ll see that several things have changed. Shelves have been rearranged and office personnel have shuffled. At the end of last year, we learned that the technology and library departments would be joining forces to form the new Information Literacy & Technology Department (ILT). Now with the year underway we can see what has changed for the new ILT team.

The most noticeable change is the new and improved help desk which resides outside the former library classroom. This desk is staffed all day by rotating ILT team members and is our student's one stop shop for all their technology and library related questions.

“Kids are no longer getting lost trying to weave the labyrinth of the second floor of the TLC. It’s just ‘go to the library, there’s a big desk, you can’t miss it’. And they don’t,” says Drew McGilvray, Technology Support Specialist.

McGilvray works in rotation with Djimon Wulah, Support Lead, and Andrea McCandlish, Library Assistant, to staff the help desk throughout the day. While in the TLC, the technology office always had an ‘open door’ policy, but it was harder to find the office or know who was available with the ‘drive through window’ setup they had before. “I find that people are able to recognize where we are and we are able to recognize more easily when people need support,” Wulah says of the office move.

Everyone on the ILT team brings their own expertise and over the last few months as the team has merged, the help desk staff has started to train and learn from each other. Wulah recalls that initially he might have passed a library specific question off to McCandlish, but now that he works alongside her and listens to how she answers questions, he is better able to assist with a library specific question when she is not there. “It’s interesting that I get to wear a different hat now that we’re in the library," Wulah says. McCandlish echoed his sentiment about how they learn from each other’s expertise. McGilvray also noted that an increase in team size also helps out the team when they need to step away for classes or clubs, there’s always someone to be at the library.

McCandlish says she has really appreciated the streamlining of the library and technology processes. Both the library and tech office would often check out equipment like laptops, mice, or headphones, but weeks would pass, and the equipment would be returned to a different location than it was checked out, making it a confusing cluster of supplies to manage. Now everything comes from one central location and is more effectively managed.

If you need help, stop by the desk in the library and say hello to one of the smiling faces waiting to assist you, or drop an email to help@overlake.org