Planning & Boxing & Moving, Oh My!

2009-03-07T15:08:00.002-05:00

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.

Crunch Time Approaches

2009-03-04T19:45:00.009-05:00

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.

A Light at the End of the Tunnel

2009-03-02T22:04:00.002-05:00

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.

Slogging through the Boxes

2009-02-26T21:44:00.006-05:00

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.

Lots of Books and Finally...Bytes

2009-02-23T21:27:00.004-05:00

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're On A Roll

2009-02-19T20:59:00.004-05:00

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.

Let the Shelving Begin!

2009-02-18T21:40:00.009-05:00

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 Have Desks!

2009-02-14T13:52:00.007-05:00

Friday we got our office furniture, and everyone was able to begin moving into their desks. Staff with desks in the middle of the room were advised to put little in/on their desks since partitions with electric and data lines still need to be installed between them. We expected delivery of our CD browsers and Community Playthings items as well, but they didn't come. Our event planning teams continued working on their projects even as they moved into their desk space.

We also received our second shipment from Ingram. After lunch, department heads met to prepare a plan of action for Tuesday when we begin shelving these items, plus we'll receive 10,000 items from Midwest that require turning on the RFID tags. Our full time circulation staff will work on the Midwest items while librarians and CAs (shelvers) unbox and shelve the Ingram material. We'll have teams of 2 people unboxing, armed with a cart, a box cutter, and new book stickers. Each team will look for items that should be designated as new, items with no spine labels, and items with incorrect spine labels. All three of these types of material will be set aside on their cart. When the team finishes with a box or a few boxes, they'll bring these materials to a central staging area where they will be set aside. The new materials will be shelved later in the new book area. The problem materials will be boxed, and we'll ask Tuesday what we should do with them.

I spoke to a selector in our Collection Development department on Thursday to find out which other branch was closest to our projected opening day size (approx. 120,000). No one was really close, but White Marsh was 102,000 and Pikesville was 132,000. Since White Marsh was the closest to our physical location, I sent 3 librarians there after lunch to note the breakdown of collection per shelving unit for all of the large collections. When they returned, I asked them to use that information to calculate what ranges we should mark for the units in our collections and then go post that information on each unit in our stacks. This will really help us out once we start unboxing next week. Using other staff to do these calculations freed me to do other tasks.

The Collection Starts to Arrive

2009-02-12T20:59:00.008-05:00

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.

Waiting for Deliveries

2009-02-10T22:05:00.007-05:00

Today we opened the drive-up window for service. One of our regular customers at the old building was the first one there at 9am. The circulation staff was a little surprised that there was a fairly regular stream of customers, about one every 5 minutes. Many customers seemed confused about which direction to go through the drive-up. We may want to paint the words "Drive-up" with an arrow on the asphalt to help with this.

We continued to mark shelves today. We also unpacked the bookends, cleaned them and then put them on the shelves. We're using metal bookends with cork bottoms on flat shelves in nonfiction and plastic bookends on slanted shelves in the adult fiction, young adult and children's fiction collections. We ordered shelves with dividers for adult & teen graphic novels, romance, westerns, and talking books. I plan to use the dividers to separate the series romances and graphics.

It took me until today to realize that I could have ordered slanted shelves for the bottom base shelves all throughout fiction. The sections with divider slanted shelves have a slanted base shelf, but the regular slanted shelves have a flat base shelf. When I made up the order for the shelves, I couldn't tell from the catalog that slanted base shelves were an option. We really like the slanted bottom shelves. We also wish we had ordered slanted shelves for the entire new book area.

We started shelving our adult and children's magazines today. These are the only things we can shelve until the end panels are installed on all our other stack shelving. Tomorrow we should be able to start shelving some adult and children's DVDs since we have some of the DVD units and children's CDs.

Some of our staff have been shopping for a sofa for our staff room, and our event groups have continued to plan for our tea and community day.

Last Day Reporting to Work at the Old Building

2009-02-09T20:32:00.008-05:00

Today our circulation staff got training for our new drive-up window which opens tomorrow. We'll offer pickup of holds and accept returns. The staff actually accepted a few returns there from customers today while they were setting up the room. We also set up our kitchen, and I marked shelving allocations on many of the shelving units. The shelving installers continue to assemble units in the picture book and storage areas and are waiting for the end panels to come. Our Technology Support department came today to set up our computers, although we don't have data lines yet.

Some staff remained at the old building to direct Facilities staff about which items to bring to the new branch, continue accepting returns, and process mail. It's also the only place we have Internet access so staff have been checking their e-mail before they go to the new branch and/or when they come back from the new branch in late afternoon. We decided to hold off bringing any of the old collection to the new branch yet since we're to shelve new material first, and there's not a good place to store it yet.

After lunch, we had a staff meeting at the new branch to go over the schedule of events for this week, and discuss tasks that we need to do. The contractor showed us the alarm keypads and went over what we have to do to lock up the building since we would be doing that starting today.

Day 4 & 5 of Boxing

2009-02-07T12:23:00.006-05:00

Since most boxing had been completed, I set my new librarians to work on drafting new book and opening/closing procedures while former Perry Hall staff continued to pack their desks. We'll probably have time to go over these drafts with all librarians next week while we're waiting for our desk furniture and the truckloads of new material to arrive. By Thursday afternoon, only my desk and the manager's desk still had to be boxed. We also left a few things in the kitchen available, such as napkins, coffee, tea bags, etc., as well as everything in the refrigerator.

Thursday our manager attended a regularly scheduled progress meeting with the contractors & the county on the new building. They discussed the issue of the incorrectly laid linoleum, among other things. It looks as if the contractors may only redo the floor in the cafe area because it will clash with the furniture ordered for it. We also have some concerns about one section of carpet in the new books area. Our assistant director came out to see the progress and echoed our concerns. She also mentioned that the shelving in the adult magazine room seemed rather high (units are 78"H) and suggested we might want to lower the shelves. On Friday the manager and I took some magazines over and played around with various arrangements of the shelves until we had one unit the way we wanted it. We showed the Duron installers, and they will take care of setting up the rest of the units to match that one. We also checked the spacing of shelves for the J and Y magazines and worked with the installers to set up a unit in J that they could follow and also use in Y.

While inspecting the stack shelving on Thursday, our assistant director also noticed that most books on the top shelf would extend above the shelving frame. She thought we might not like the way that would look so when I went there on Friday, I also took some material over to put on a top shelf. The assistant director was right; it didn't look very attractive. I'm really glad she thought of that. We were able to set up a configuration for the shelves that still allowed most tall books to be shelved upright rather than on their side (all shelves 12" apart). I felt badly that we were changing the spacing after the installers had already set things up, but we haven't worked with shelving this low before. Unfortunately, the shelving installers don't think they'll have enough time to readjust all the stack shelving for us since they still have a lot of shelving to assemble and install. The manager & I decided this is a job our staff will work on next week with help from our Facilities staff, if necessary. I was also able to discuss one or two other misunderstandings regarding the type and spacing of shelving for specific collections. One thing I realized this week is that I should never go to the new branch without my shelving allocation floor plan. Every time I've gone without it, I've needed it to answer a question.

While the manager and I were at the new branch working on the shelving issues, the most of the rest of the staff were at the old branch planning our two big opening events: the preview tea and a community day. The manager & I returned to the branch in time to meet the head of our Human Resources department delivering sweet treats to all Perry Hall staff. What a nice surprise! After lunch we had a fairly long staff meeting to bring everyone up-to-speed on the issues with the flooring, Verizon, and the shelving. The two groups who had worked all morning on planning our events reported on their ideas. The manager gave an overview of where we'd report to work the following week and what would be happening. One of my main tasks next week will be to arrange for marking where all the collections will be shelved and how far to shelve material on each shelf before moving to the next one. The other major task for me is to develop the schedule for unboxing and shelving our 120,000 or so volume collection. The head of our Collection Development department has instructed us to shelve new material purchased for our opening day collection first, and then fill in with our "old" collection where needed. Our assistant director alerted us that we need to leave some material boxed so we have plenty of material to refill the shelves as they are emptied once we open.

More Logistics

2009-02-04T21:24:00.005-05:00

One thing we've done that has worked out well is to start each morning with a mini staff meeting to go over assignments/projects for the day. We all eat lunch together at noon.

In case I hadn't mentioned it before, some staff are working 8-4:30, but most are working 8:30-5. I am working 9-5:30 by choice and to accommodate another staff member's schedule. This means I've had to have the next day's tasks listed before I leave for the day since some people needed to start tasks before I got there.

The first day of boxing, all full-time staff were there by 8:30 so we met at 8:45 to introduce ourselves to each other (it was the first day for new staff) and talk about the process of boxing and the assignments. On the second day, everyone started working before I got there, and the manager was at a meeting so we didn't stop for our mini meeting until late morning. Today, the manager started the meeting at 8:45 before some of us had gotten to work yet. It's probably better to wait until all the staff have arrived to hold the meeting since some may feel left out and miss some of what is said.

On a project of this magnitude, it's very hard for the managers to focus on anything other than the project. I've tried to delegate as much as I can, but I've still had to be aware of whether the program calendar was submitted on time and whether the meeting rooms had been booked properly for next fiscal year. I can't even imagine trying to juggle multiple projects like this, as is the case for the head of our Facilities Services department.

It's Always Something!

2009-02-04T20:54:00.002-05:00

When the library manager and I went to the new branch this morning to meet about shelving for our storage areas, we discovered that only 8 magazine shelving units would fit on the wall with the fireplace, not the 10 that were ordered. Since we calculated on 12 magazines per unit, that translated into a loss of shelving for 24 unique magazine titles. However, we realized that since we're no longer using the plastic magazine covers, we might be able to fit up to 16 magazines in each unit. We also might want to use some of the slanted magazine shelves (of the 2 units that won't fit) within the nonfiction collection. For example, cooking magazines in the 641s, gardening magazines in the 635s, etc.

Then this afternoon, 2 more obstacles loomed. Verizon has once again screwed up on this project (for at least the third time!). Instead of having pulled data lines into the new branch, they put FIOS lines in which evidently aren't usable as data lines. Verizon told our network administrator that they might be able to install them by March 16. Since we're slated to open on March 9, he told them that was totally unacceptable. As it is, we'll have to open the drive-up window next Tuesday using wireless cellular technology. Our entire staff will be moving to the new building next week, and will only have the use of that one computer with Internet and BCPL file server access. We may have to go to other branches to check our e-mail and do time-sheets. Any other computers we have available will only be able to access Microsoft Office.

The second obstacle is that our Purchasing Agent realized that the linoleum laid in the staff room and returns room was the color that was supposed to be in the meeting room and lobby to the public restrooms and vice versa. Therefore all 4 areas have to have the floors re-done.

Day 2 & 3 of Boxing

2009-02-04T20:22:00.005-05:00

By late afternoon on day 2 of boxing, we only had small parts of 3 collections left to box out of a total collection of approximately 52,000. We also had assorted supplies, the kitchen, and staff desks to be boxed. Since we needed to save some of this for staff the following day, we called a halt to boxing. This gave staff time to catch up on e-mail, type up minutes, or do any other tasks that had been put on hold.

Today several people started boxing their desks. We also packed branch supplies and files, programming supplies, storytime reference collection, Business Services, Ready Reference & the Info Desk, Princeton files, more bookends, and acrylic display fixtures. We've also been boxing miscellaneous returns, and our withdrawals are boxed for Maintenance staff to take to the dump.

We were excited that our special green labels came today. Even though we were almost finished boxing, we started using them. However, they didn't stick to the boxes as well as the white due date labels so we went back to using mainly the white labels.

Today we ordered pizza for everyone for lunch, thanks to our former branch manager who left us money for this purpose. Between the pizza and the goodies staff have been bringing in each day, we stuffed ourselves.

While we are very glad our new staff could be with us to help box and bond, there has been some concern about finding tasks for them to do while the "old" PE staff box up their desks. We have to pick out a sofa for our staff room, plan a preview tea, and plan a community day so the library manager is hoping to spend time on these activities on Thursday and Friday of this week. Some staff are also taking leave here and there too.

One activity some staff worked on today was naming our 2 meeting rooms and 2 group study rooms. Staff were asked to suggest names for rooms. A sheet of all the suggested names was handed out on Monday, and today the group reviewed the votes so far.

We also took time today to pick out our desks on the floor plan. The managers' desks were already labeled on the plan, but managers didn't want to assign the rest of the seats so we numbered the seats on the floor plan: C1,2,3,4,5 for circ and L1,2,3,4,5,6 for librarians. We put the numbers on slips of paper and staff drew a number to determine where they would sit. Then we wrote each person's name on their desk on the floor plan. This seemed to work very well, and staff liked seeing their name written where they'd sit.

Day 1 of Boxing

2009-02-02T21:31:00.003-05:00

We accomplished a lot today--over 350 boxes filled. We were hoping that our Facilities staff would be able to get rid of the public computers and their furniture to give us more room to stack boxes, but they won't be able to do that for a couple more days. This meant that instead of being able to stack all boxes of one collection together, everything is stacked rather hodge podge due to lack of space. We also had a few misunderstandings about labeling of boxes. I suggest filling out a sample of the label so that everyone is on the same page instead of simply explaining how it should be filled out. And in spite of all our aggressive weeding for the last several months, we still accumulated 2 full carts of withdrawals as we were boxing!

We were supposed to have special neon green labels to put on the boxes, but they weren't all ordered at one time so we ended up using white due date labels. Hopefully our green labels will come tomorrow. We also ran low on boxes and packing tape shortly after lunch. Fortunately, our maintenance staff was able to bring us more of both not long after we ran out. For future reference, it would be best to have all labeling and other boxing supplies 1-2 weeks before you expect to start boxing. I suggest starting with 36 rolls of packing tape, and plan to have 500-600 boxes on hand for day 1 since everyone is fairly energetic on the first day. We also had plenty of goodies on hand to help keep the energy level up!

There were several tasks that had to be done before we started boxing any collection: shelving all display material; boxing all cassettes for the trash since we aren't taking any with us; shelving any unboxed items we had changed to ~PE so they would be boxed with the appropriate collection. As slatwall displays were dismantled a team boxed the acrylic display fixtures. Another team boxed the easels used to display books. As returns mounted up, these were boxed as well.

We used teams of 2 people to box each collection, and I had prepared for up to 7 teams. We tried to team up a person from circ with a librarian or failing that, a new staff member with one who had been here for a while. For each team, I listed 4-6 collections in the order that they should be boxed, factoring in that only one team could be in an aisle at one time. So far this has worked very well, and we haven't gotten in each other's way very much. In late afternoon, I assessed our progress on my lists for the teams. We had about half of the 300s, 600s, 900s, Young Adult, and Large Type to finish tomorrow. I put those items first on team lists for tomorrow, then added other collections.

We are using 2 flip charts to list jobs for each day. One chart lists the standard tasks for the day: answering the door bell, answering the single phone line left at the branch, accepting returns, checking out holds to customers, clearing material from the drop box, processing mail, taping boxes together, withdrawing as needed, and boxing unprocessed holds. The other chart lists the teams and their assignments for the day. As a team finishes a collection, it is crossed off the chart. We are also keeping a log of how many boxes there are for each collection so the team also records this information when they finish a section/collection. Everything needs box #s and you need to record the total number of boxes for everything, including returns.

Boxing Know-How

2009-02-01T13:46:00.002-05:00

Since I've been involved in projects like this before, I already had some boxing guidelines written. I tweaked them for this particular project and was soon ready to share them with the rest of the staff. I gave everyone a copy of the written guidelines and also went over how to pack a box and label it during a staff meeting. I will go over this again tomorrow before we start boxing as a refresher and because all our new staff will be arriving tomorrow to help us box up the old collection.

My current guidelines state that you pack all material flat, not spine up or down, and you pack every box fully so it can support the weight of other boxes on top of it. I have always placed two labels on each box: one on a top corner and the other on an adjacent side corner. I was re-reading an article by Janet Hofstetter in the Jan/Feb 1993 issue of Book Report though that suggested putting labels on 2 adjacent sides rather than on the top and on the side. Either way would work as long as you have 2 labels and they are in the same place on all boxes. Another tip from that same article was to stack boxes so the numbers are facing the handle of the hand truck. That way the numbers will face forward when they are unloaded against a wall or another stack of books.

I already knew to mark the shelves with where each collection should begin, but I got the following tips from Meg Van Patten at the Baldwinsville Public Library (NY) from her post on the PUBLIB discussion list.
Have staff members at the new building direct movers to stack boxes near where the material will be shelved.
Post large signs on the end-of-stacks to show where various sections will be shelved.
Have copies of the floor plan [and shelving allocations] posted at the old and new buildings.
Mark each shelf to show how far to fill it before moving to the next shelf when re-shelving the collection.
Use painter's tape or post-it notes to mark shelves instead of labels or scotch tape so no residue is left when markers are removed.

Of Shelves & Shelving Allocations

2009-02-01T13:14:00.003-05:00

As I worked on shelving allocations in September, I found this project harder to calculate for than others in which I've been involved. My other projects have involved calculations for fairly static collection sizes. Yes, we received new material every day, but the numbers didn't make a significant amount of difference. However, now our library system has a floating/shared collection. This means that whatever material is returned to our branch becomes our responsibility to house and maintain until it is checked out and returned somewhere else. This makes my collection sizes moving targets on any given day or week.

Adding to that is the fact that our Collection Development department is adding about 70,000 new items for the new branch. Some of that material is being held by the jobber for delivery in a few weeks, but some has gradually been sent in each day with all the other new material generally purchased for our branch. Fortunately, Collection Development was able to give me a broad breakdown of the number of items being purchased for various parts of the collection: nonfiction, J fiction, adult fiction, mysteries, science fiction, etc. Hopefully my calculations won't be too far off-base. I have a reputation for being fairly accurate at shelving allocations so I'd hate to ruin my record now. :-)

Other things I had to consider when determining my shelving allocations were the types of shelves to be used in various sections. In consultation with our assistant director, we decided to use full backs throughout nonfiction to prevent books from sliding through the back into a section on the other side. Full backs required the use of flat shelving, but in fiction we wanted to use some kind of slanted shelving. We decided to use open backs throughout the fiction sections with slanted shelves that have a 4-5" back on them. These shelves plug into the frame the same way flat shelves do, but go in on a tilt.

For magazine shelving in our quiet study room, our assistant director decided to go with fixed slanted shelves for displaying current copies paired with flat shelves several inches below for storage of older issues. These units will be 78" high. We are using shorter variations of this type of shelving within the teen's and Children's shelving. The variety of shelving being used throughout the building means that I need to be on hand as the shelves are being put in to make sure that shelves are being placed in the proper sections.

Another important point is that the shelves be properly spaced on the frame. The first shelf above the bottom shelf often needs to have a higher clearance than between other shelves so material is easier to see. I want to make sure I'm at the new building when the installers start putting shelves into the frames so that I can supervise this. I don't want us to have to reset all the shelves after they've been installed.

One thing we didn't think of before the shelving was already ordered was that we might want/need shelving in our two storage closets near the children's area and our supply closets in the staff area. Now we know we want shelving in there so now we'll probably have to use shelving from our old building for them.

Help With Furniture Decisions

2009-02-01T13:05:00.002-05:00

We knew we wanted our teens to have some input into the look of the new Teen area so in early December, one of our librarians convened a teen focus group. We had about 10 of our regular teen library users attend. We gave them food, showed them our standard library supply catalogs, and explained that though we wanted their input, we couldn't promise that the library would buy exactly what they picked out. They were very excited about being involved and expressed understanding about the library's need for the final say. They gave us clear indications as to the kind of furnishings they'd like if we had to pick something different: soft, comfy, and cool. (And the booths we thought they'd love are NOT cool!) :-)

We wanted lots of neat stuff for our children's area too, so we pulled together a team of people consisting of our branch manager, a branch staff member with school age children, our Youth Services Coordinator (an early literacy specialist), our purchasing agent, and someone from our Graphics department. This group made decisions about what toys and furnishings would create the most inviting environment in our children's area.

I can't wait to see how both of these special areas of the library turn out.

Getting the Word Out

2009-01-31T21:17:00.005-05:00

Once we had a definite date for closing and reopening, our Marketing and Graphics departments kicked into gear. Flyers were created to handout to customers the last week or so that we were open. They included a map, directions to the new building, information about limited service at the drive-up window, and the date of reopening. These flyers will also be kept outside the door while we're closed so customers can take a copy with them if they need the map.

A sign was created to put in front of the old building saying 'This library is closed. Your new library will open in __ days.' Branch staff are in charge of changing the numbers on the sign indicating how many days until the new branch opens. The new branch's gable sign at the road will also have a countdown of the number of days until it opens; Facilities staff will change it until branch staff are working in the new building.

Our PR specialist has been in touch with all the local papers, some of whom did interviews with staff and took pictures of the new building. Here's one example:
http://www.explorebaltimorecounty.com/community/7118/mansion-books/

Staff who worked this last day at the old branch reported that it was incredibly busy from 9am until closing. Several people mentioned seeing articles in the papers. Some people came to share memories, say goodbye to the old building, and some, to see it for the first time!

Limited Service While We're Closed

2009-01-31T20:53:00.005-05:00

Full service at the old branch ended today at 5:30. Next week we'll still be in the old building boxing everything, working 9-5 only. We will be letting customers return materials in our drop box. If they have a hold to pick up, they can ring a buzzer on the door. We'll come get their library card, check out their hold, and bring it back to the door for them. For that week, we'll also put our tax forms rack in the vestibule so people can still access them. We're even delivering a few boxes of MD tax forms to the local senior center. We offered them a wider selection of forms, but they didn't have the space for them.

On Tuesday, February 10, we'll open the drive-up window at our new building, again 9-5 only. From this point on, branch staff will be working in the new building, unboxing and shelving. Customers will be able to pick up their holds and return material at the drive-up window. We're even going to have a few basic tax forms available there. Around the middle of this past week, one of our assistant directors put out a memo to all staff about the closing of Perry Hall and explaining about the drive-up window as a hold pickup point. As of Thursday, January 29, the drive-up had been activated for this.

Limited service is not as much of a problem for our customers as it might be for some other branches in the county. We have 2 other branches within 10 minutes of our branch, and our customers often used those branches in the past anyway.

A Temporary "Ghost" Branch

2008-10-22T17:52:00.003-04:00

Collection Development informed us a few months ago that we should keep some extra excellent condition copies of some major authors since it might be difficult to get replacement copies later. Our Technology Support department created a ~Perry Hall branch so that we could assign these extra copies to the new branch and box them. The ~ designation means that that branch's ownership doesn't show up in our public catalog, though items do show in staff view.

Collection Development also assigns some new material to ~Perry Hall when it comes in since they know that the current branch can't handle a large influx of new material. Our Facilities department has already acquired an off-site storage facility to accomodate boxed material for this "ghost" branch.

Counting Shelves in My Sleep

2008-10-21T19:22:00.003-04:00

I spent most of September counting the number and type of shelving units we'd need so the shelving could be ordered. To do this, of course, I needed to allocate shelving for each section of the collection. To do that, I needed to know how much new material would be bought for each section and then add our current collection size to those numbers. I had done some preliminary shelving allocations, but then found out that the library would be buying 66" high shelving instead of 84" high shelving. This didn't affect my nonfiction calculations since I had only planned on having 5 shelves in nonfiction. However, I had planned on 6 shelves in all fiction collections. The lower height meant that I could only have 5 shelves in fiction as well, except for romance paperbacks, westerns, & maybe audio books.

Our Collection Development department gave me the figures for new materials they plan to buy. I used our monthly circulation report and my own Shelf Space Collection Size spreadsheet to determine how much space to allocate to each section. At first, our Collection Development department planned on us weeding 10% of our collection before we moved it. However, since BCPL began full floating in January 2008, branch staff have been unable to get the collection size below 54,000 due to the volume of material that naturally floats into the branch. It was agreed that branch staff would weed aggressively for age, circulation, and condition up to the time we box the collection for the move, not worrying about hitting a target collection size.

There was discussion by our administration of taking Perry Hall out of "float mode" a month or so before we move so that material checked out when we open in the new building would have to be returned to us. Instead, we need to remain a floating branch. We're hoping that people DON'T return the material to us because we won't have enough room to unbox everything when we open anyway.

Fleshing Out Decor Details

2008-10-21T19:00:00.002-04:00

In May 2008, our branch manager began to assemble a team of branch staff, Youth Services, Graphics Production, and Purchasing staff to flesh out the details of artwork and special features for the children's area. Branch management discussed the need to get teen input for the teen area, but we haven't done anything about that yet. We need to develop guidelines for a teen advisory group and convene it so that we can get their ideas for the area.

The Perry Hall Improvement Association (PHIA) is very interested in hanging copies of historical photos in the new building. Our branch manager and Friends group have been evaluating various photos proposed by the PHIA for this purpose.

Nitty Gritty Moving-In Planning Begins

2008-10-20T17:09:00.003-04:00

BCPL's Facilities department has been the lead contact department for the project. Since the new building will be owned by the County, not the library, the head of Facilities has been working closely with the Baltimore County Department of Public Works throughout the project. A work group composed of current Perry Hall branch staff, the head of Facilities, and staff from the library's Graphics Production, Collection Development, Purchasing, and Technology Support departments met intermittently to discuss various issues.

Once construction of the new library began, the work group had another rest until March or April of 2008. At that time, branch staff began making lists of tasks that needed to be done by the time we opened in the new building. We used the standard BCPL Planning chart to create a timeline of the tasks. The chart helped us to organize the tasks by the month in which they needed to be completed. It also helped us to remain alert to responses needed from Administrative Offices staff about various tasks.

In May 2008 our Collection Development department began negotiations with vendors about buying the opening day collection. The money for our materials wouldn't be released until July 1, 2008, but the department needed to have its processes in place so orders could go in immediately on that date.

Branch staff were encouraged to begin cleaning out personal and branch files so that only necessary files and belongings would be moved to the new building. Librarians were encouraged to weed aggressively for condition so that we won't need to weed as we are boxing the collection.

Blueprints 101

2008-08-23T15:25:00.003-04:00

One thing we soon discovered is that you have to check your blueprint drawings thoroughly--all the pages of them. It seems that corrections on say the architectural drawing page might not be reflected on the plumbing drawing page. And the 100% drawings contain errors that we had corrected on previous versions of the drawings! Unfortunately, we weren't able to review them before they were used to create the bid documents.

LEED On

2008-08-23T15:09:00.007-04:00

When I came to the current Perry Hall branch in December 2006, the New Perry Hall Workgroup had done all their planning work, and everyone was simply waiting for approval on the building site. Once the site was okayed in mid-2007, the workgroup met with County officials and the architect to review 50% drawings, discuss carpet choices & colors, and discuss requirements for various LEED "green" credits.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design. "LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings."
http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=222"
Different design aspects earn points toward a certain level of "greenness". The new Perry Hall library will be LEED certified at the silver level. There are four levels: certified, silver, gold, and platinum.

We want a permanent library! And can you super-size that?

2008-08-04T14:57:00.002-04:00

The story of a new Perry Hall Library began in the late 1990s with grassroots community support for a bigger library. The current facility is 10,000 sq. feet in a building that has been leased since the mid 1960s. The community was concerned that if the lease wasn't renewed, the library would simply disappear.

A new facility was finally approved and planning began in earnest in 2004. The new facility would be a 25,000 sq. foot "green" building. Architects and designers were hired, and floorplans were drawn. Then, a stumbling block occurred--a dispute over the site chosen for the new library. That issue was resolved and finally building construction began in January 2008. The projected opening for the new building is March 2009.