a grand opening
Mar. 23rd, 2010 10:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacMy own principal contribution to library science has been to convert numerous card catalogs into computer catalogs, but there's another change that has also affected patrons' use of the library a lot: how you check out books. Once upon a time there were cards in pockets inside the back cover. Then some libraries put due dates on gadgets akin to price stickers, which would accumulate on the back of popular books. Then there were bar codes, sometimes awkwardly placed or covering up the part of the back cover blurb you most wanted to read. Now they're moving to RFID chips.
The privacy implications of this are another topic. What it means for self-checkout is that, instead of scanning the barcodes under a laser reader, you just place the books on a pad and the screen suddenly lists them all. Or it usually does; what you do if it misses one is still a bit hard to figure out. Taking all the books off and replacing the errant one as if it were a second load sometimes does the trick.
One local public library was already set up this way when we moved up here a couple years ago, and now our own city library has finished the transition. For about six months, sections of the library would be periodically closed off as staff chipped the books, and yesterday they re-opened after a two-week shutdown to install the circulation machines. As I had a bagful of books to return that I'd scarfed up just before the shutdown, I decided to attend the formal opening ceremony. The head librarian spoke; the mayor spoke; lots of people were applauded; a ribbon was cut. Staff hung around to show patrons how to use the machines. I made the mistake of asking if the machines worked like the RFID ones in the neighboring town's library. First the staffer thought I meant that my books were from that library; then she said she had absolutely no knowledge of how any other library did anything (not something I'd say, at any library I've worked at); then she sounded offended at the idea that her library was anything other than utterly unique.
The answer turned out to be, "The check-out ones do (except that the receipt printer paper curls up inside the machine by mistake and doesn't give you a receipt, and you end by touching a screen button marked "logoff", a techy term that's inferior to the more usual "quit" or "finish"), but the check-in ones don't." To start the return process (oy, you can't just return a book, you have to go through a process), instead of touching a screen button you need, for some reason, to scan a barcode, either your library card's or one on an item you're returning; I'm not sure why. Then the little Batcave door opens, revealing the rubber belt, but instead of inserting items one at a time and waiting for the screen to process them, the Batcave closes momentarily between each one. Evidently it does this to ensure sufficient spacing between them, and I'm glad the opening ceremonials included an explanation of what it's doing in there: it's a massive Swiss electromechanical device that sorts the materials into a choice of 20 bins, depending on where in the library each is to be shelved.
An ingenious labor-saving device, that cost them tons of money, and I'm sure it will work just fine until the inevitable day, very soon, when it breaks down.
The privacy implications of this are another topic. What it means for self-checkout is that, instead of scanning the barcodes under a laser reader, you just place the books on a pad and the screen suddenly lists them all. Or it usually does; what you do if it misses one is still a bit hard to figure out. Taking all the books off and replacing the errant one as if it were a second load sometimes does the trick.
One local public library was already set up this way when we moved up here a couple years ago, and now our own city library has finished the transition. For about six months, sections of the library would be periodically closed off as staff chipped the books, and yesterday they re-opened after a two-week shutdown to install the circulation machines. As I had a bagful of books to return that I'd scarfed up just before the shutdown, I decided to attend the formal opening ceremony. The head librarian spoke; the mayor spoke; lots of people were applauded; a ribbon was cut. Staff hung around to show patrons how to use the machines. I made the mistake of asking if the machines worked like the RFID ones in the neighboring town's library. First the staffer thought I meant that my books were from that library; then she said she had absolutely no knowledge of how any other library did anything (not something I'd say, at any library I've worked at); then she sounded offended at the idea that her library was anything other than utterly unique.
The answer turned out to be, "The check-out ones do (except that the receipt printer paper curls up inside the machine by mistake and doesn't give you a receipt, and you end by touching a screen button marked "logoff", a techy term that's inferior to the more usual "quit" or "finish"), but the check-in ones don't." To start the return process (oy, you can't just return a book, you have to go through a process), instead of touching a screen button you need, for some reason, to scan a barcode, either your library card's or one on an item you're returning; I'm not sure why. Then the little Batcave door opens, revealing the rubber belt, but instead of inserting items one at a time and waiting for the screen to process them, the Batcave closes momentarily between each one. Evidently it does this to ensure sufficient spacing between them, and I'm glad the opening ceremonials included an explanation of what it's doing in there: it's a massive Swiss electromechanical device that sorts the materials into a choice of 20 bins, depending on where in the library each is to be shelved.
An ingenious labor-saving device, that cost them tons of money, and I'm sure it will work just fine until the inevitable day, very soon, when it breaks down.
