Laptops to go: Toward a sustainable self-service lending model

The laptop loan program is one of the most popular services at Ryerson University Library & Archives (Ryerson Library). With the laptop loan demand in mind, in July 2013, the librarians in Ryerson Library's borrowing and lending services department launched another questionnaire to assess how staff felt about self-service lending. The future of mobile learning is here and libraries are striving to keep up. To ensure future funding considerations and continued growth and success, Ryerson Library needs a new service model that allows for increased access and enhanced functionality. Self-service is a great model to adopt to add scalability to their existing program; however, it doesn't resolve all the issues. Both library management and staff support the self-service initiative, although the discussion of self-service is often associated with budget cuts, not the needs of users and the convenience of the system itself.