The library leadership committee launched the new group study room scheduler, Bookit! Sept. 26.

The program is available on the USI website under the library tab, with link son both the top of the page and on the side.

Students must first register on Book it! In order to be able to reserve a room.

Once an account is established, students can then create reservations for the rooms they want for two or more people. Rooms are available for up to two hours a day and six hours a week and students can make reservations up to 30 days in advance.

“We recommend that you put some kind of vague information in there like Nursing study group for example, so that others in your group can see your reservation and know where to go,” Director of Library Services Marna Hostetler said.

Hostetler said she saw the Bookit! Program in use at the University of Evansville library and thought it was the simple reservation program she was looking for.

She also said the idea for implementing the program came from feedback the library received in the annual fall survey conducted by the Office of Planning, Research, and Assessment (OPRA).

  “Every year that we have taken part in that survey, we have gotten many responses from students saying that they would like to be able to schedule study rooms,” she said.

Hostetler said one of the biggest problems since the launch of the new program was students using their non-USI email accounts.

“You have to use your USI email account,” she said. “We are working on getting an authentication piece set up, so it won’t register unless you use your USI email, so once you’re logged in it will take you right in.”

Though the Bookit! Tool is only three weeks old, Hostetler said she has noticed a problem with individual students being in the reserved rooms.

“We know it is a problem with individuals in the rooms and that is a big reason why we put the individual study carrels in on the fourth floor and I think that’s helped, but it still was an issue,” she said.

Romain College of Business Representative Bradley Flittner said he experienced an issue with being kicked out of the room he was studying in.

“You can just walk into a room and say you reserved it. There is nothing to nothing to say that you did it, so I was just very tired of having to pick up my stuff and move to a different room,” he said. “If there was a way to kind of make it more legitimate, like if you had to sign in at the library front desk or get a sticker or something, I think that would be better.”

There are 12 individual study carrels on the fourth floor of the library that are not currently available on Bookit! But are first-come, first-serve. The library has 30 group study rooms that are available on the Bookit! System.

Hostetler also plans to set up a tutorial on the library homepage to get students more familiar with the program.

“I would encourage people to give it a try and work with it and see what they think,” she said.