Information Technology

OSUL’s Room Reservation System manages reservations of group study rooms in Thompson, 18th Avenue, BPL, FAES, Vet Med, and the Research Commons. Students and faculty can check the availability of study rooms and reserve them online. Since June 2016, over 22,000 reservations have been processed through the system.

The original system was quite old in internet time and couldn’t handle the heavy load during exam times. During Spring term, students were experiencing intermittent service disruptions, so we spent some time updating the system using new technologies. The new version is at least 10 times faster than the old one and can handle significantly more transactions.

Why is it important to our patrons?

• Because study space is at a premium in the Libraries, students appreciate the ability to reserve rooms in advance, so that they aren’t wasting time walking through the buildings looking for empty study rooms. When the Room Reservation System breaks, it is understandably very frustrating for them.
• Students have low tolerance for slow applications. If we want students to use the app, it has to perform well.

Why is it important to the organization?

• Service to Students
  • The high usage of the Room Reservation System suggests that it provides a valuable service to students. As such, it is an example of how the Libraries leverages technology to facilitate student success by making it easier to use our resources. Automating reservations also saves staff a considerable amount of time.
• User Experience
  • One pillar of the new strategic plan for OSUL is enhancing patron experience. Revising the Room Reservation System demonstrates our commitment to this initiative.
• Learning Organization
  • The dramatic improvements in the performance of the system demonstrate how important it is to invest time in learning new things. The technologies underlying the updated system can now be applied to other OSUL applications.

What’s up next?

• New Functionality
  • The schedules for rooms are displayed on iPads in the Research Commons so that patrons can check the availability of the room as they are standing in front of it. The next step will be to add functionality so that patrons can not only view the schedule but also reserve the room directly on the iPad.
• Responsive Design
  • The current app isn’t very usable on mobile devices. To improve usability, we want to re-design the interface.

Special Thanks

Special thanks go to Chris Bartos who researched and implemented the new technologies to improve this system.