Come in, we’re open! Managing opening hours, especially in uncertain times

Abstract

Managing opening hours is a constant challenge. In the case of Bamberg University Library, we have to deal with six branch libraries spread all over the city area with quite different opening hours.

It has always been a challenge to deal with public holidays and special opening hours during semester breaks, but during the pandemic the ability to plan became significantly worse.

While trying to keep the libraries open throughout, we had to react quickly to short-term legal restrictions on opening hours and seat capacity. These latest changes always had to be communicated immediately to our users and also become visible in other services that rely on this information. Due to the frequent changes, the effort was considerable.

To meet this challenge, we decided to develop a central, easy-to-use web application to manage and schedule both opening hours and available seats. Changes are possible at any time, even on the same day without any coding skills.

We are now integrating the information from this application into various services. These services include our communication channels (e.g., information displays in the libraries) and our website. We also use this information for our room booking system. This allows users to book rooms only during opening hours. When the strictest restrictions applied, we also developed booking systems for individual pick-up appointments and workplaces in the libraries utilising this information.

These functions already make our colleagues' work much easier. To simplify further work steps, we also plan to connect external services such as Google Business Information to our application. Additionally, the reporting of the total opening hours for the German Library Statistics (DBS) may in future also be processed automatically with our application.