Example uses for RefTracker – requests and workflows

The primary use for RefTracker is to manage all the different types of requests that come into your library, and the tasks associated with responding to them and other tasks that need to be managed in order to deliver your information provision service. In order to provide all these functions RefTracker has created features that can also be used for other purposes. Here are just some of the ingenious uses to which RefTracker has been put. You might like to think about other areas in which RefTracker could be used in your organisation!

Managing requests, feedback, information delivery services, and offers:

To offer information seeking skills training using desktop sharing in association with RefTracker.
To manage problems and report requests related to your library management system.
To manage requests for library buildings, fittings and computer equipment maintenance.
To manage requests in relation to image databases e.g. changes to the catalogue records, and requests in relation to copyright status.
To manage feedback in relation to your organisation’s web pages and requests for changes to them.
To manage requests for rotation of items on long term loan.
To accept requests for mediated item or event bookings.
To maintain a celebrity contact information database that was previously held in a separate database.
To maintain information about a very small book collection where an ILMS is not warranted.
To manage your SDI and Content updates services – you can even accumulate the costs incurred, and report on those costs so that the continued need for the service can be evaluated against the cost.
To supplement the collection assessment role of Electronic Resource Management Systems by specifically evaluating the effectiveness of resources in answering requests.
To report on total hours of information literacy (or any) training delivered.

And here’s some uses related to managing information delivery workflows and projects:

To accumulate the costs, including librarian time, associated with managing subscriptions for clients, and to use that information to bill clients.
To manage the process of digitisation – copyright clearance, before copying the item and delivering it to the end user.
To manage the process of evaluating items offered for donation or purchase and provide consistent quality correspondence to those potential donors.

Ask your RefTracker support representative for assistance to set p your RefTracker system, if you want to set up any creative use like these!

The following sections describe how RefTracker can be used for some of these things, and how it can be used in conjunction with some other tools that might be in use in your library.