I am placing the responses in the body of the email rather than an attachment for those who get the digest version of the list. Results were fairly mixed. Before sending my questions out I was leaning towards LibCal and I think that's where I'm still leaning. Thanks for responding! Room Reservation Software Responses Google Calendar – 3 Plymouth Rocket – 2 LibCal – 3 Evanced - 3 ---- Currently, we just use Google Calendars and differentiate between different rooms with different colors. --- We use Plymouth Rocket's room reservation/events calendar package at Peter White Public Library in Marquette. (www.pwpl.info) They are OK, but I am not a fan. I think the company lacks a designer/programming with a strong sense of visual aesthetic. The fee structure is also annoying as it's not set up for an unlimited number of room reservations. I had set up a free events calendar plugin that I liked better but had to abandon as the functionality of having the calendar tied to the room reservation couldn't be denied, and the plymouth rocket room reservation isn't available without the calendar. It was the most affordable that offered all the functionality we needed at the time. We have a rather complicated room reservation policy that involves some equipment reservation and some fees for some rooms and not others. So first thing I would advise would be to establish a simple room reservation policy. There is a free library-specific room reservation wordpress plug-in called Book A Room that I was intrigued by. It was very new when I was doing my research a couple of years ago, and I didn't have the coding background to adjust it to my needs. I think it has undergone modification and improvement since then. Worth a look. --- We used to use Evanced Spaces (which was a nightmare) and now we use LibCal. We have 9 study rooms that are in constant use and I like that LibCal lets you see at a glance what is available and when. I also prefer LibCal's "self service" room booking feature to Evanced's. LibCal is also WAY cheaper than Spaces. --- At the last three libraries I worked at, Evanced was the preferred software of choice. We had a separate "Event Type" for Private/Patron Reservation and placed patron contact info in the "Internal Notes" field along with any other pertinent info, like who approved the reservation, when it was booked, and what number of reservation it was (one of my libraries had to limit the number of reservations per month because people were abusing the system). At my current library, we use the Google sharepoint calendar for room reservations, but it can be quite tedious juggling separate room reservation and program calendars for the same room. --- We use Spaces from Demco, and it's been working well. We also use Signup for our events calendar, and the two work together so we don't double-book any rooms. Very convenient, and our patrons like being able to reserve rooms and register for programs online. Hope that helps! --- Attached is Dexter's meeting room use material. The reservation form is for our larger space which is a 300 capacity meeting room on the lower level which can be split into two smaller rooms. We just use Google calendar for scheduling. The third document is for our 1-4 person group study rooms. We have three of these rooms. Scheduling is on a separate Google calendar managed by adult ref staff. --- I've used Evanced at a previous library (now a Demco product: https://www.demcosoftware.com/products/spaces/) Good software in my experience. Kind of costly... We use Plymouth Rocket now. Can't say I would recommend it based on user experience, but cost is low... I've only used Plymouth Rocket in small doses, I'm hiring a new admin assist right now...so more than usual. Reporting flexibility is my biggest complaint about the product. But, I was in on all the Evanced setup. There are so many options it can be a bit intimidating. And, you can get just about any report you can dream up! But, really most of this decision will come down to how much you can spend. If we had some extra cash, I'd go back to Evanced/Spaces in a heartbeat. But, there are other funding priorities for us right now. --- Here at Herrick we recently switched to LibCal for our calendar and room reservation system ( https://libcal.herrickdl.org/calendar?cid=7016&t=m&d=0000-00-00&cal=7016). I'm not sure about cost, but the end user experience is very good. I know it was less expensive than we thought it would be. We use it to schedule 1 auditorium, 2 meeting rooms, and 3 study rooms, all of which have different rules governing when they can be reserved and for how long. The software handles all of that for us. It also auto-populates reservations onto our calendar. If you would like more information, let me know! --- We are using LibCal from Springshare for both our Room Reservations and Calendaring for Events. We are very happy with it. We have found them to be very responsive and the price was very affordable compared to other products on the market. We had almost given up on finding a product that would suit our needs. We were looking into building something custom. LibCal did a huge update of their product and added almost everything we wanted. -- Devin Erlandson, MLIS (she/her) Assistant Director Allegan District Library 269-673-4625 alleganlibrary.org