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.