Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Paperless Office, Chapter 626

Link to "The New Push to Get Rid of Paper" (Business Week)

Quote: Thirty-three years ago this month the phrase "paperless office" entered the business lexicon in a BusinessWeek article titled "The Office of the Future." In the article, George Pake, the legendary head of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), foresaw technology that by 1995 would let computer users summon on-screen documents "by pressing a button," eliminating the need for much if not all the printed paper cluttering workspaces.

The Middleton Public Library's recent efforts to reduce paper include the following:

1. Staff utility webpages (sorry, password-protected; you'll have to take my word for it.)
*Vacation and sick leave is requested, calculated, and tracked online. Each staff member who earns benefits has a passworded personal account.
*Events calendar and evaluations
*Service desk calendars: who is assigned to work what shifts at circ, youth service, and reference.
*Schedule for library pages
*Timesheets for non-salaried staff
*Scheduling for meeting rooms, study room, and exhibit space
*Revenue tallies: fines, fees, Friends of the Library book & t-shirt sales, printer charges
*Library policies (also available on public webpages)
*Incident reports/reconsideration forms

2. Last September, Middleton eliminated mailing paper notices when items are two weeks overdue. (We encourage the use of email and remind people to use LINK's "My Account" function. We posted this policy change a month in advance. I like to think this helped to insure its easy implementation. I didn't hear a single voice of protest, though the circ staff assured me there were a few grumbles at first. But nobody felt irked enough to talk to the Director.)

3. One of the changes I haven't been able to implement, though not for lack of trying, is to convince the members of the library board to accept their monthly meeting packets (agenda, minutes, reports, vendors statement, etc.) via email attachments.

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