Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library Transitioning to New Software for Room Bookings and Program Scheduling

Thursday, May 16th, 2024 -- 10:00 AM

The Everett Roehl Marshfield Public Library is transitioning to a new software for room bookings and program scheduling.

The program they have been using for years, Evanced, is being discontinued. They took the opportunity to shop around and find the best program to serve the needs of the Library and their patrons. The new program, LibCal, will be rolled out on their website on Monday May 20th.

Actually, you may have noticed the new calendar has already been on their homepage since early May.  The new calendar allows you to filter between adult and youth programs and is also color coded to match their printed events calendar. Red for Adult programs. Blue for Youth programs. Teal for Teen programs. And purple for All Ages programs.

Some special events have been added with a distinct color to make them stand out. All events on the calendar are clickable for more information. There are even buttons to add programs directly to your Google or Apple calendars.

The other side of LibCal is an update to their room bookings. Their four study rooms and two large meeting rooms see quite a bit of traffic on any given day. Whether providing a quiet study area, privacy for a Zoom call, room to host a large meeting, or any number of other uses, the library’s rooms are an important resource available to this community.

In March of this year, the Library Board approved updates to their meeting room policy, but the limitations of Evanced made these changes difficult to put into practice. LibCal will allow them to use these updates to best serve their patrons.

If you would like to read the meeting room policy in full, click here. What do these changes mean for you, the patrons? The biggest change is that reservations will now be capped at four hours per day.

If a longer time period is necessary for your booking, you will need to contact the Adult Information Desk to have the staff approve the extra time. They have seen the number of reservations on their rooms steadily increase.

This limit is intended to make the rooms available to the most number of people each day. Another change will be to the online form that is filled out to make a reservation. It will ask for your first and last name, email address, phone number, street address, an organization, and the purpose of needing the room.

All fields must be filled out to submit a reservation request. Your information does not leave the library’s database. Having each of these designations helps them track what types of organizations and patrons the rooms are serving.

This allows the library to make sure they are providing the best opportunities for room users. If you had made a future reservation on Evanced, your reservation is still valid. They have transferred all accepted reservations to LibCal.

If you are concerned about a future reservation, don't hesitate to call the Adult Information Desk. The staff will be happy to look up your reservation for you. They are very excited about the new opportunities LibCal will be providing to serve patrons.

You can always check upcoming programs on the library’s Facebook page and website or stop by any service desk to pick up a monthly calendar.

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.