I wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions.  Most of the
suggestions are things that I currently do -- limit to an hour, allow
music, have multiple students work on the process.  And I wouldn't
say that my student workers have necessarily complained, but just
expressed that the process is very boring.  I have been very lucky
with finding very hard-working, pleasant students.  I think that
something that leads to the boredom is our network access is
generally slow, especially during the semester when my students are
working with online access titles.

One thing that I decided to try out this semester is flexible
scheduling for this particular task.  Typically, we only have
students working in our office between 8am & 5pm, Mon-Fri.  Our
students are not allowed to work more than 10 hours per week (campus
policy), and most would like to work the full 10 hours but can't fit
those hours into their regular class schedules.  The flexible
scheduling will allow my students to come in at night to work on
verification process.  They will be able to use any computer within
the Library (theirs or ours), and will have to just log-in to my
student computer via our network.  I'm hoping that this will be seen
as a reward.  I will just need to let them know how many titles
should be processed each hour (depending on our network access).

Thanks,

Ken

On Jul 28, 2008, at 11:54 AM, Corrice, Julia A. wrote:

> Just a quick suggestion...as a former student worker often assigned
> repetitive jobs, I found I was fine as long as I was allowed to
> listen to my ipod or webcast while I was working. As long as I had
> something to keep my brain occupied, I didn't tire of the task easily.
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum on behalf of
> Skwor, Jeanette
> Sent: Fri 7/25/2008 1:24 PM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: Re: [SERIALST] looking for student job suggestions
>
>
>
> Hmmm, I've not ever gotten a complaint from a student about doing
> this.  I do have them also actually bring up an article or two, so
> maybe they're bringing up something interesting and reading it :-)
> OTOH, another regular task is to search my problem issue list
> titles on other library websites, to see if they're out there
> before I claim them, so maybe looking at e-access is fun in
> comparison . . .
>
> I do, though, tend to break long tasks up into hour-or-so
> segments.  I think, no matter what it is, concentration tends to
> flag after much longer than that.
>
> The other thing I do is talk to my students - a lot.  I ask each of
> them what their favorite and least favorite tasks are, and keep
> that in mind when assigning jobs.  In this case, I would definitely
> try to give the student who likes the job the lion's share of it.
> I might also ask them for suggestions as to how to make it more
> interesting, or other thoughts they have.   Students - especially
> library student workers (although I may be just a tad prejudiced) -
> often come up with intelligent and innovative insights that save my
> poor overworked brain cells for things like those publication
> schedules publishers put out, fictional or non.
>
> Jeanette L. Skwor
> Cofrin Library, Serials Dept.
> UW-Green Bay
> 2420 Nicolet Drive
> Green Bay, WI 54311
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SERIALST: Serials in Libraries Discussion Forum
> [mailto:SERIALST@list.uvm.edu] On Behalf Of Ken Siegert
> Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 11:37 AM
> To: SERIALST@LIST.UVM.EDU
> Subject: [SERIALST] looking for student job suggestions
>
> Hello!
>
> I was wondering if anyone would be willing to share how they handle
> online access verification as a student job.
>
> For the last several years, the number of our online access titles
> has grown significantly (currently at 2500+).  Typically, I have my
> student workers look-up each title (listed on a spreadsheet) and
> verify that 1) the URL works, 2) our holdings statement matches our
> access and 3) they indicate on the spreadsheet if anything needs to
> be updated/changed.
>
> Obviously, this student job is not exciting, and it takes a student
> who enjoys monotonous work.  I try not to have a student work on this
> for more than an hour at a time.  I have only had one student worker
> actually say that she enjoyed the job.
>
> Here are some questions that I have --
>
> Do you hire one or two student workers to exclusively work on this
> task?  Or do you "share the wealth" with all of your student
> workers?  Would anyone have a job description that they'd be willing
> to share?  I have attempted to write a job description for this task,
> but it typically doesn't get much interest.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Ken
>
> ----------
> Ken Siegert
> Acquisitions Assistant
> Electronic Resources & Periodicals / U.S. Documents
> Shadek-Fackenthal Library
> Franklin & Marshall College
> P.O. Box 3003
> Lancaster, PA  17604-3003
>
> Phone -     (717) 291-4219
> Fax -     (717) 291-4160