Friday we finally finished shifting nonfiction and realized more shelving units for fiction. Because of the layout we used for large type, though, this involved changing the flow of nonfiction and moving around some of the smaller fiction collections (westerns and adult graphic novels) as well as the talking books, for which we were able to increase space too. A few of us basically spent all day Friday shifting the entire fiction collection.
Others spent Friday shelfreading, straightening, and cleaning up the public spaces in preparation for our sneak preview event on Sunday and our opening on Monday. There are still some things to clean up in the public area, but we'll have time to take care of them when we come in Sunday before event time.
One thing we discovered while shelving our old nonfiction collection was how important it was to inventory the boxes as they were brought over from our old building. This enabled us to see if we were missing any boxes that hadn't been brought over yet. This was important because we couldn't continue shifting in a section if we hadn't shelved the boxes that contained material for that area.
This last week has been exhausting, but it's very satisfying to know that we're pretty much done except for cleaning up some things in nonpublic areas and feeding in the overflow and duplicates once material begins to go out.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Crunch Time Approaches
We finished shelving all of the 600s and have continued shifting backward so that we can give more space to talking books, adult fiction, and mysteries. We also continued unboxing the old nonfiction collection. Although we tried to weed worn material before we boxed it, we've been withdrawing quite a bit of the old collection due to condition or duplication in the opening day collection. We were finally able to begin shelving the opening day collection of easies and easy nonfiction yesterday. We shifted to even out the easies today, and we also interfiled our old easy nonfiction collection onto the shelves. The Children's and Teen areas are almost completely ready for opening day. The units for our cardboard books are due tomorrow.
There are several parts of our old collection that we won't unbox until after we open and a lot of material has gone out. Our returns room is packed with duplicates from the opening day collection that can't be shelved yet. We also have been boxing most of the material returned at the drive-up window.
Our Assistant Director asked me today if we had baskets for our customers to use when we open. She indicated that people will be selecting so many items that they will need them. We only have a few at the branch, and our Supplies department doesn't have any on hand so I guess we'll need to order some. It's unfortunate that we didn't think of this ahead of time.
I'm getting a little worried about finalizing our opening and closing procedures and having time to go over them with our staff since we only have 2 working days left before we open. We also haven't had time to reallocate jobs and team members with our expanded staff. We talked about some of this at department heads meetings in December and January, but once things really began to roll on the project, we haven't had time to revisit these topics and make some decisions.
I'm also concerned about lack of signage in some areas. We met with our Graphics department in January about our signage needs, but I've noticed some areas which we overlooked. There's no signage for our Just Arrived shelves, New Audio Books, DVD Classics, DVD Series, and other New sections of various collections (J Fiction, Easies, Easy Nonfiction, etc.). There's not even a good place to post a sign in many of these collections. We don't have our end of stack signs for the main stacks either. Since we're still shifting to see where things will be, we can't yet give the Graphics department the information needed to put on those signs.
The flooring contractor finally started re-laying the linoleum in the cafe and staff kitchen areas today.
There are several parts of our old collection that we won't unbox until after we open and a lot of material has gone out. Our returns room is packed with duplicates from the opening day collection that can't be shelved yet. We also have been boxing most of the material returned at the drive-up window.
Our Assistant Director asked me today if we had baskets for our customers to use when we open. She indicated that people will be selecting so many items that they will need them. We only have a few at the branch, and our Supplies department doesn't have any on hand so I guess we'll need to order some. It's unfortunate that we didn't think of this ahead of time.
I'm getting a little worried about finalizing our opening and closing procedures and having time to go over them with our staff since we only have 2 working days left before we open. We also haven't had time to reallocate jobs and team members with our expanded staff. We talked about some of this at department heads meetings in December and January, but once things really began to roll on the project, we haven't had time to revisit these topics and make some decisions.
I'm also concerned about lack of signage in some areas. We met with our Graphics department in January about our signage needs, but I've noticed some areas which we overlooked. There's no signage for our Just Arrived shelves, New Audio Books, DVD Classics, DVD Series, and other New sections of various collections (J Fiction, Easies, Easy Nonfiction, etc.). There's not even a good place to post a sign in many of these collections. We don't have our end of stack signs for the main stacks either. Since we're still shifting to see where things will be, we can't yet give the Graphics department the information needed to put on those signs.
The flooring contractor finally started re-laying the linoleum in the cafe and staff kitchen areas today.
Monday, March 2, 2009
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
We've finished unboxing all the ~PE items from offsite storage except for easies, easy nonfiction and some large type. We've also finished unboxing all the old collection that had been brought over last week. We also got our music and dvd area set up and shelved the new opening day collection. We don't have room for any of our old music collection. We still have to bring over our old collection of DVDs which, thankfully, we have room to shelve.
The only things left to do in the J area are setting up some furniture (yet to be delivered), shelving the rest of the easies, board books, & easy nonfiction, merchandise, shelfread and tweak. Science Fiction, Young Adult, and New Books are completely shelved, and the Magazine Room is almost complete. There are 1-2 more boxes to come over from the old collection. We're trying to get some sections totally completed to give us a greater sense of accomplishment. We started setting our our service desks today too.
Tomorrow we should be able to begin shelving the rest of easies and easy nonfiction. We're also hoping that our Maintenance staff can bring over most of the rest of our old collection. There are still about 24 boxes of 600s at the old branch as well as all of the 700s, 900s, and Biographies. We'll probably leave our old fiction collection there for a while since we have absolutely no room on the shelves for it. We have been shifting in the nonfiction as we unbox, and hope to gain some space to give to the fiction collections.
The only things left to do in the J area are setting up some furniture (yet to be delivered), shelving the rest of the easies, board books, & easy nonfiction, merchandise, shelfread and tweak. Science Fiction, Young Adult, and New Books are completely shelved, and the Magazine Room is almost complete. There are 1-2 more boxes to come over from the old collection. We're trying to get some sections totally completed to give us a greater sense of accomplishment. We started setting our our service desks today too.
Tomorrow we should be able to begin shelving the rest of easies and easy nonfiction. We're also hoping that our Maintenance staff can bring over most of the rest of our old collection. There are still about 24 boxes of 600s at the old branch as well as all of the 700s, 900s, and Biographies. We'll probably leave our old fiction collection there for a while since we have absolutely no room on the shelves for it. We have been shifting in the nonfiction as we unbox, and hope to gain some space to give to the fiction collections.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Slogging through the Boxes
Our Maintenance staff continues to bring our old collection over and shelving it and the rest of the new material continues. However, we can't shelve the last third of easies or any easy nonfiction because the backs of the units haven't been installed yet. We've already begun merchandising on the top of the easy book shelves to help deal with duplicates. We also can't shelve board books as the units won't be delivered until next week. We finalized the setup of the Music & Movies section today and began to shelve some of our new AV.
I called all our part-time librarians today inviting them to help us shelve any time between now and next Friday. We can use all the shelving help that we can get, plus it offers our new part-timers an opportunity to orient themselves to the building and the larger collection before we open to the public.
Our "new book" area has looked pretty skimpy since there weren't many new items in the Ingram shipments. We began shelving new book returns to help fill it out. Once we started unboxing the new material from off-site storage, we found a lot more with the "new" sticker on them so it's starting to look a lot better. We decided to put new audio books in our new book area as well to free up space in the stack section for audio books.
The flooring people came today to take up the two areas of linoleum that were laid in the wrong color: the cafe area and the staff kitchen. We had to take the refrigerators and one of the microwave ovens out of the kitchen so we'd have access to our food and a heat source for it.
One thing our circulation department discovered is that they need a permanently set up table to process mail. There are two work tables in our shared office space. I believe originally it was thought that one of these could be used to process mail, but that would mean getting processing supplies out and putting them away each day. It is easier on the circulation staff if they can leave a table set up for this task.
I called all our part-time librarians today inviting them to help us shelve any time between now and next Friday. We can use all the shelving help that we can get, plus it offers our new part-timers an opportunity to orient themselves to the building and the larger collection before we open to the public.
Our "new book" area has looked pretty skimpy since there weren't many new items in the Ingram shipments. We began shelving new book returns to help fill it out. Once we started unboxing the new material from off-site storage, we found a lot more with the "new" sticker on them so it's starting to look a lot better. We decided to put new audio books in our new book area as well to free up space in the stack section for audio books.
The flooring people came today to take up the two areas of linoleum that were laid in the wrong color: the cafe area and the staff kitchen. We had to take the refrigerators and one of the microwave ovens out of the kitchen so we'd have access to our food and a heat source for it.
One thing our circulation department discovered is that they need a permanently set up table to process mail. There are two work tables in our shared office space. I believe originally it was thought that one of these could be used to process mail, but that would mean getting processing supplies out and putting them away each day. It is easier on the circulation staff if they can leave a table set up for this task.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Lots of Books and Finally...Bytes
Today Duron began to install the end panels for the Teen, Children's Fiction, and Easy areas. They also reconfigured some of the shelving in the New Book area for us to allow better sight lines from the Information Desk. We started shelving Teen material today and will begin shelving in the Children's area tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll also receive new material that had been processed in our Technical Services department then sent to off-site storage.
We only have a few more boxes of the Ingram nonfiction to unpack. We have lots of space left in the nonfiction stacks while adult fiction and mysteries are packed with several carts that can't be shelved even though we've already started pulling out multiples. It's pretty clear that the numbers for new purchases must have increased since September when I originally set up my shelf allocations. I requested updated numbers today from our Collection Development department so that I can determine where I can "steal" space for other areas. We've asked our Maintenance department to bring over most of our old PE collection of nonfiction to interfile with the new material. Once we have a better grip on how much space nonfiction really needs, we'll shift and hopefully gain room for the fiction collections.
We got our new metal bookends today (900 according to our purchasing agent) so we were finally able to hold up the books in nonfiction. We also got 2 boxes of tall plastic bookends for the fiction collections. Maintenance has been really great about moving boxes for us, breaking down boxes, and removing packing trash.
Finally, we got data lines activated today, and our Technology Support department was able to get most of the staff PCs up and running. We have been without access to e-mail, our file server, and our intranet since Feb 10. We've had to either check our e-mail at home or go to the old branch to access necessary data. We love our IT people!
We only have a few more boxes of the Ingram nonfiction to unpack. We have lots of space left in the nonfiction stacks while adult fiction and mysteries are packed with several carts that can't be shelved even though we've already started pulling out multiples. It's pretty clear that the numbers for new purchases must have increased since September when I originally set up my shelf allocations. I requested updated numbers today from our Collection Development department so that I can determine where I can "steal" space for other areas. We've asked our Maintenance department to bring over most of our old PE collection of nonfiction to interfile with the new material. Once we have a better grip on how much space nonfiction really needs, we'll shift and hopefully gain room for the fiction collections.
We got our new metal bookends today (900 according to our purchasing agent) so we were finally able to hold up the books in nonfiction. We also got 2 boxes of tall plastic bookends for the fiction collections. Maintenance has been really great about moving boxes for us, breaking down boxes, and removing packing trash.
Finally, we got data lines activated today, and our Technology Support department was able to get most of the staff PCs up and running. We have been without access to e-mail, our file server, and our intranet since Feb 10. We've had to either check our e-mail at home or go to the old branch to access necessary data. We love our IT people!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
We're On A Roll
We began using a new system for shelving material since we haven't always been successful conveying to everyone the 4 things we have to check before shelving a box of material. Librarians unbox material onto a cart and check it for errors, new book label, etc. then they set it aside for volunteers, CAs, or other BCPL staff to shelve. This seems to get material shelved more quickly, as long as the librarians can keep ahead of the shelvers. We left about 6 carts ready for shelvers first thing in the morning. We're really thankful that our 51 brand new carts arrived yesterday.
We began pulling duplicates today due to packed sections in fiction. We'll end up doing this in most sections, I'm sure. For some titles we got as many as 16 copies so, of course, we don't want to open with all of them sitting on the shelves. We still have about 18 or so pallets to unbox from the Ingram order. Once that is shelved, I guess our Maintenance staff will bring the new material that our Technical Services department processed, boxed, and sent to off-site storage. Only after all new material has been unboxed will we begin unboxing material from old Perry Hall.
We've been finding quite a few items with no spine labels as well as incorrect spine labels. So far, I've packed up 3 full boxes, and we have 2 more almost ready to seal. We've also started a box for items with cover issues--no jacket, weird half covers that cover up the call number, etc. These items are sent to Technical Services. We've also found some damaged items which we will send to Collection Development.
We found out late today that the end panels for our main stack area, which were being painted in Canada, have to be repainted, and we may not get them until the first week of March. We still haven't received the furniture for our children's activity room, the DVD unit, or the CD browsers either. We should receive a shipment of 900 book ends for our nonfiction any day now.
The saga of our phone and data lines changes daily. I don't believe any dates Verizon gives us anymore. Our Technology Support department came today to set up our staff computers in the workroom, although there's only so much they can do without data lines.
We began pulling duplicates today due to packed sections in fiction. We'll end up doing this in most sections, I'm sure. For some titles we got as many as 16 copies so, of course, we don't want to open with all of them sitting on the shelves. We still have about 18 or so pallets to unbox from the Ingram order. Once that is shelved, I guess our Maintenance staff will bring the new material that our Technical Services department processed, boxed, and sent to off-site storage. Only after all new material has been unboxed will we begin unboxing material from old Perry Hall.
We've been finding quite a few items with no spine labels as well as incorrect spine labels. So far, I've packed up 3 full boxes, and we have 2 more almost ready to seal. We've also started a box for items with cover issues--no jacket, weird half covers that cover up the call number, etc. These items are sent to Technical Services. We've also found some damaged items which we will send to Collection Development.
We found out late today that the end panels for our main stack area, which were being painted in Canada, have to be repainted, and we may not get them until the first week of March. We still haven't received the furniture for our children's activity room, the DVD unit, or the CD browsers either. We should receive a shipment of 900 book ends for our nonfiction any day now.
The saga of our phone and data lines changes daily. I don't believe any dates Verizon gives us anymore. Our Technology Support department came today to set up our staff computers in the workroom, although there's only so much they can do without data lines.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Let the Shelving Begin!
Tuesday our Collection Development staff checked a box from each pallet against their invoices. Once they verified all the items in that box, they released the pallet for us to shelve. On some pallets, the box they checked was missing some copies of titles. We are saving those pallets for last since we have to look for the other copies in another box on the pallet. When we find other problems (no spine labels or incorrect labels) we box those items to send to Collection Development for follow-up.
We also received our non-print shipment on Tuesday and began connecting the RFID chip to the barcode. That work continued today as did shelving of the pallets. We also put out a call late Tuesday for help shelving the new collection and have already received several responses. It takes a lot longer to shelve than it does to box the material, especially since we have to check the labeling and put "NEW" stickers on appropriate material. We also found that it's hard to make sure everyone understands the process we need to follow, including the mere fact that material should be put on the shelves in order.
We have lots of duplicates which we'll have to begin pulling to set aside for restocking the shelves as they empty. I knew that we wouldn't have enough space to shelve everything, but some sections are filling even more quickly than I expected. I believe that more material was purchased beyond the numbers upon which I based my shelving allocations.
A question came up today about the flow of the arrangement of material in the children's fiction area. I set it up to flow left to right, echoing the flow in the main stack area. However, as you enter the children's area, this means you would come to the ends of the various collections first. After conferring with our assistant director, we decided to reverse the flow, working right to left. This change also prompted us to change the order of some of the children's collections as well.
As I was walking the assistant director through the main stacks, she suggested a change in the flow in the large type collection to allow more room for seniors to browse. Since it involves moving some parts of large type into one less unit of shelving, we'll wait until we've unboxed all the new large type material so we can decide which parts of it fit best into one less unit.
We also received our non-print shipment on Tuesday and began connecting the RFID chip to the barcode. That work continued today as did shelving of the pallets. We also put out a call late Tuesday for help shelving the new collection and have already received several responses. It takes a lot longer to shelve than it does to box the material, especially since we have to check the labeling and put "NEW" stickers on appropriate material. We also found that it's hard to make sure everyone understands the process we need to follow, including the mere fact that material should be put on the shelves in order.
We have lots of duplicates which we'll have to begin pulling to set aside for restocking the shelves as they empty. I knew that we wouldn't have enough space to shelve everything, but some sections are filling even more quickly than I expected. I believe that more material was purchased beyond the numbers upon which I based my shelving allocations.
A question came up today about the flow of the arrangement of material in the children's fiction area. I set it up to flow left to right, echoing the flow in the main stack area. However, as you enter the children's area, this means you would come to the ends of the various collections first. After conferring with our assistant director, we decided to reverse the flow, working right to left. This change also prompted us to change the order of some of the children's collections as well.
As I was walking the assistant director through the main stacks, she suggested a change in the flow in the large type collection to allow more room for seniors to browse. Since it involves moving some parts of large type into one less unit of shelving, we'll wait until we've unboxed all the new large type material so we can decide which parts of it fit best into one less unit.
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