Here at BCY we have our Meeting Room Calendar on Google Calendar, and it is a thing of beauty.
Want to meet every second Tuesday of the month? Sure! Click, click, type, type, and it's done. Wait, let me zip through each month to check for conflicts. Oh, in April the second Tuesday is taken, how about if we move you to the third Tuesday for that month only? Right, click, click, that's taken care of.
What? You want a list of all your group's meetings for 2009? Sure, I'll just type the group name, hit search, and print out the list for you.
Change your contact person, phone number, anything? Easy...change it once and it's all done.
Okay, I'm at HDQ for a committee meeting, and someone wants to know if we can meet at BCY on Wednesday the 14th at 2 pm. Hold on, I'll just log onto Google Calendar and check. Okay, it's free, I'll book the meeting right now.
Or we're at Bill Bateman's Bistro and someone in the costumer's group asks if the library meeting room is available on the 20th at 7 pm. Whip out my phone, log onto Google Calendar, and I can tell them at once.
But here's the kicker (and you folks at HAR and AIR, pay attention): If you ask me nicely, I will add your account to the select list of people who are allowed to view our calendar. Imagine that a patron comes into your branch and wants to use the meeting room tomorrow night. You say, "Our meeting room is booked. But I checked BCY, and they seem to be available. Do you want me to call them?"
Is that customer service, or what?
How much would you pay for this tremendous service? Don't answer yet, because we also have the following:
- Automagically repeating entries for holidays, Children's Book Week and such, and even elections! We will never have to enter Thanksgiving or Election Day again.
- Access from home. Have an emergency closing? Want to notify the groups that are scheduled to use the meeting room? Log onto Google Calendar and there are all the names, phone numbers, and other contact information you could wish.
- Slices and even makes julienne potatoes at the click of a mouse *
NOW how much would you pay? Put away your wallets, because it's free.
* Potato-slicing options only available in Idaho.
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5 comments:
I am a Google Groupie and SO glad you are using the Calendar for meeting rooms. I'd like to see us use it for the system calendar, and I've created a test site for it. Maybe we can talk people into it. :-)
That sounds very useful. I'd love to be able to view the test site.
Your meeting room calendar sounds great. I was hesitant to try it at our branch until everyone has done the Explorations. Would have been handy the other day when I booked 8 months worth of meetings for a patron while she sighed impatiently as I wrote her information down over and over.
I book meeting rooms for my library and I'm researching using google calendar. Are you still using it? If so, how is it working for you?
Elin: Yes, we're still using Google Calendar for our meeting room bookings, and we love it.
Our system has purchased a commercial product for meeting room bookings, but it's not yet deployed and staff haven't been trained, no idea of when that will happen. So we're sticking with Google Calendar for now.
We also have the branch programming calendar on Google Calendar, so we can look at both at once (since programs so often involve using the meeting room). The county public schools have their calendar on Google, which we subscribe to...makes it easy to see when schools have early dismissal or a day off, which impacts us. And one of the talented staffers at Headquarters has put the entire System Calendar onto Google...we can toggle that on/off to overlay it on the others - another source to catch conflicts and such.
Personally I'm ready for the whole world to put their schedules on Google Calendar. :)
Contacat me by email if you want more details or have specific questions. Just click on my name to see my profile, which has an email link.
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