Monday, October 7, 2013

Getting new staff members up to speed

Let's say you have a new staff member starting at your school or library. Their responsibilities will likely intersect with your OverDrive digital collection. Maybe they are going to be handling Collection Development, Marketing, or Staff Training. Perhaps they will assist patrons whenever they have one off questions. How should you prepare these new staff members? What do they need to know?

 

First, be sure to contact your Account Specialist with the new employee's information and their areas of responsibility. We can update your library or school's records so that the new employee receives the necessary updates pertaining to their area of specialization. This is also an important step if you have librarians leave your school or library—we need to update your records in these cases as well.

 

Second, give them access to OverDrive Marketplace. Whether they’ll be building or purchasing carts or contacting OverDrive's Support Team, you can assign them the necessary rights when you create their account.

 

Next, new employees should sign up for alerts from the Digital Library Blog and OverDrive Newsletters to stay on top of OverDrive news and alerts.

 

One important resource your employees (both new or old) should be familiar with is the Partner Portal. In the Partner Portal you can find Marketing Kits and Library Service FAQs.

 

Also within the Partner Portal is the OverDrive Learning Center. The "On Demand" portion of the Learning Center allows your staff to view trainings anytime, anywhere, at their convenience. For staff members just getting started, the Just the Basics training provides a great overview of your digital library. Trainings more specific to the staff members' roles can also be found here (for example, Collection Checklist for your librarians in charge of purchasing content, or User Assistance for those librarians on the front lines with patrons).

 

Employees savvy in the social media arena can follow OverDrive on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

 

Your entire staff may not play a direct  role in your digital library, but these are great places to help make every member an OverDrive champion.

 

Karen Jakubczak is an Account Specialist with OverDrive

 

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