The Collection Starts to Arrive

We got our first shipment of the opening day collection today from Ingram--24 pallets. A representative from Ingram was there to supervise the unloading and check some of the material to make sure things were okay. We can't shelve anything until representatives from our Collection Development department come to check a box from each pallet. Once that's done next Tuesday, we can begin shelving.

Our Ingram representative said that the fastest way to shelve material is to unbox directly onto shelves in the appropriate unit rather than opening the boxes for an entire section, putting the material in order, then shelving it from beginning to end. When I calculated shelving allocations, I simply calculated how many units for each type of collection, but didn't calculate the range to be shelved in each unit. Tomorrow we may send some staff to another branch to note the range of material in each unit for major sections of the collection such as adult fiction, 300s, 500s, etc. so that we can mark a range on each unit thereby reducing the amount of shifting we must do.

We were able to unbox our Information Desk materials and files today. Tomorrow we should receive our staff desks which will allow us to set up our workroom/offices.

One thing we've discovered about the layout of our new book area is that we cannot see the circulation desk from the information desk. After discussion with our assistant director, we came up with a new layout. Another concern was that our DVD and music CD units extended out into the main walkway. We discussed various ways to address this issue too, and I think we've come up with a better way to lay out the area.