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Safely Manage In-Person Library Activities
Open for visitors... but not all visitors at once? We've got you!
LibCal Seats for socially distanced library visits & building management
July's 25-minute webinar provides a full demonstration of Seats. Take a look to see it in action!
You've spent hours planning and rearranging library furniture, marking one-way aisles, and installing protective barriers around the desk. Now how to prevent people from roaming around the building for open chairs and lining up at the door?
With Seats (our Spaces add-on module), you can ensure visits are scheduled and staggered to help enforce library reopening policies.
Students and patrons can easily reserve a seat, and check it in and out, from their mobile device.
Admins can establish building hierarchy within Spaces to define reservable areas and seats and add booking limits and restrictions, like LibAuth authentication.
Staff can assist students and patrons with reservations, get a birdseye view of building occupancy and trends, and quickly retrieve booking details for contact tracing.
See Seats Live
Seats launched in July, and we already have customers who've reopened their doors and launched their sites! Here are several examples:
- Gwynedd Mercy University Keiss Library in Gwynedd Valley, Pennsylvania, USA
- Newman University in Birmingham, UK
- UNC University Libraries in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA
- University of Hull in Hull, UK
LibCal Can Help at Every Building Reopening Stage
>> Building Closed
- Manage pickup times with Spaces! Set up a location specifically for item pickup. Add hours, custom booking form fields, and lot/slot Spaces. Share the pickup URL widely in your website, ILS, and email correspondence. Here's an example!
- Display and share Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Watch Party, and Instagram Live events with one LibCal event calendar and widget using our online events features.
- Conduct library research consultations & meetings with ease using Zoom and Microsoft Teams integration.
>> Building Partially Reopen
- Easily manage a hybrid online and in-person events calendar so patrons can find and register for all library activities in one place.
- If you've previously relied on printed spreadsheet schedules, create a staff desk assignment internal calendar.
- If you need a full scheduling platform, consider LibStaffer!
- Create new Hours departments to indicate which floors / rooms / areas are currently open and closed. As you update hours, they'll reflect everywhere Hours widgets are embedded.
>> Building Open
- As patrons contact you to reschedule canceled Space and Seat bookings, easily copy their previously entered info into a new booking.
- Monitor Space and Seat bookings in real-time by building area as well as past, current, and upcoming occupancy data. Use the Contact Tracer tool to quickly lookup a person and identify other bookings in that seat/space 24/48/72 hours after theirs.
- If previously free-for-all areas now need to be more tightly managed, consider adding more Spaces to your subscription.
- Need reservable chairs, computers, desks, and tables within a room or area? Seats is for you!
>> Building Reclosing
- Quickly cancel Spaces and Equipment bookings and Appointments in bulk with their Booking Explorers. Use the email notification option to let your patrons know.
- Switch events to online locations or bulk unpublish them to remove them from public view while retaining stats. Use the email registrants feature to inform them of the changes.
- Keep a "library closed" Hours template on hand to quickly apply to your Hours Library in the event of a closure.