Prior to Fall 2014, to secure a group study room in the Woodruff Library Learning Commons, students had to visit the Library Security Desk with two other students and surrender their Emory card to obtain a key to the room. Reserving a room in advance was not possible, and the rooms were locked when not in use.
When management of the Woodruff Library Learning Commons group study rooms transitioned to the Student Digital Life (SDL) team, we began researching an alternative solution; one that would allow students to reserve a room online weeks in advance without the need for staff intervention. We selected Office 365, the cloud-based communication system used by most Emory students, to manage online reservations and decided to leave the rooms unlocked throughout the day to allow use on a first-come, first-served basis.
By December 2014, room reservations in Office 365 had reached 4361, an impressive 54% increase over the previous Fall semester:
While Office 365 was a free and integrated solution for implementing room reservations, it did have some limitations. For instance, students without an Office 365 account had to visit a Student Digital Life service desk in the Computing Center or Cox Hall or the Woodruff Library Learning Commons to have a staffer manually enter a reservation. In addition, students were unable to see all available rooms for a particular time. This made reserving a room for peak hours cumbersome and frustrating.
A new solution was needed to address these limitations, so OpenRoom and LibCal were evaluated as possible alternatives to Office 365. Evaluation criteria included:
- Simple statistical reporting
- Robust customer support
- Ability to display availability for all rooms
- Ability to make reservations online
- Accessibility by any student with an Emory email account.
- Ability to cancel a reservation
OpenRoom, an open source solution, lacked vendor support and needed extensive development and customization. LibCal, part of the LibApps suite of products from Springshare, met every criteria outlined by the evaluation group and proved to be the more versatile solution, allowing for moderated and automated room reservations.
In January of 2015, we launched the Student Digital Life Resource Scheduler (built on the LibCal platform) on our team website. It allows students to reserve group study and specialized technology spaces in Woodruff Library and the Computing Center at Cox Hall. Students were notified of the change by email and signs posted throughout SDL facilities. Just 38 days into this semester, 2940 reservations have been processed by the LibCal system with thousands more expected by the end of the semester.
For more information, please visit it.emory.edu/reserve-room and click on Student Digital Life Resource Scheduler.
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