BRIEF HISTORY / INTRO

The Customer Services Division is one of the Divisions in the library. It was created in 1962 when Kashim Ibrahim Library was established. The division was formerly known as Circulation Division and later called Customer Services Division. The division had three units initially and two additional units were added to it in the year 2019.

MISSION & VISION

The mission and vision of the division is in line with that of the library complex which is to create the best, secured and enabling university library environment with strong, coherent, balanced and versatile information resources that would support learning, teaching and research. The primary function of the Customers Services Division is to get materials to the reader expeditiously and the mechanism for customer services is a system which is designed to maximize the availability of books to all users, allowing each the greatest practical use without causing others excessive delay.

OBJECTIVES

The objective is to answer customer questions, solve support issues, improve credibility and nurture relationships. The aims is to always acknowledge and process complaints quickly and deal with them effectively, to build successful long-term relationships with our users, to celebrate the success of all users and to frequently access our user’s needs to ensure they are met and to indicate areas of development or change.

 

UNITS UNDER THE DIVISION

1. Service Delivery Unit (SDU):

   This Unit was created alongside the establishment of the Library in 1962. Activities of the Unit are:
   • Registration of users (undergraduate, Postgraduate, Senior and academic staff).
   • Clearance of users (Undergraduates, Postgraduates, Senior and Academic staff).
   • Charging and discharging of books to registered members of the library.
   • Taking daily statistics of all the books that are borrowed and returned.
   • Receiving processed information resources from the Resource Processing Division after they have been classified and catalogued.
   • Taking all processed information resources to the shelving area.

2. Shelf Management Unit.

   This unit was also created in 1962 when the Library was established, its major activities are:
   • Collecting all consulted information resources from the reading table.
   • Taking statistics of the books consulted.
   • Re-shelving the books for easy access.
   • Shelving of new books.
   • Shelf reading to make sure books are in-their right places.

3. Book Reserve Unit

   This unit was also created right from the time the library was established in order to house books that are limited in copies. This is to enable users have equal access to the books. Users are allowed to use the books for a period of two hours and give room for others to access but if there is no one intending to use the book immediately it can be renewed for another two hours. Daily statistics of consulted books are also taken at this unit.

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4. The Board Game Court Unit

   The board games court is a new unit set up by the University Librarian Prof. Ibrahim Umar in January 2019, but commenced work in March 2019. The main purpose of the unit is to allow students/client to refresh their brains, mind and souls after a long period of study. The unit is equipped with educative games that are aimed at enlightening and giving client’s extensive reasoning and also to have some fun time. The educative games are:
   • Brain Game
   • Chess Game
   • Checkers/ Draft Game
   • Othello Game
   • Pirate Game
   • Scattergories Game
   • Scrabble Games
   • The Game: About Wikipedia
   Each of these games has the capacity to impact knowledge on student’s/clients, because it requires cognitive reasoning to play.

5. People With Special Needs Unit

   This is a Unit that was established on 29th March 2019. The Unit provides Library and information services to the people with special needs especially people that are visually impaired to enable them have access to resources. These services give them the opportunity to read and prepare for examination. The function of the unit is to ensure that people with special needs are afforded equal opportunities with respect to access to library and its information resources and not discriminated against for any reasoning relating to their disability.
   Information resources at the unit are:
   • Brailles
   • Smart phones
   • Brails printer
   • White cans
   • Hearing aids
   • Talking Dictionary

INFORMATION SERVICES IN THE DIVISION

1. Sera CE Services
2. Scanning Services
3. Researching Services
4. Indexing and abstracting Services
5. Training of staff on has to use assistive technology

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