Inviting student employees to work – a scheduling system built with free google applications

Scheduling an access service team made up of full-time staff and student workers to ensure a consistent coverage of service points is an important but time-consuming task for access service managers in academic libraries. In order to streamline the redundant efforts and to engage student workers in the scheduling process, the author “built” a scheduling system with a suite of free Google applications, aiming at cutting down schedule-related email exchanges, and booking work shifts directly into student workers’ personal time management tools. A survey among the student workers after 4 months of implementation indicated that this system successfully improved scheduling efficiency and work attendance by motivating the student workers to proactively plan their priorities using online time management tools.