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May 1, 2006
Bloggington on Sea 1
It's rare but there are some library authorities who have read "Who's in Charge? Responsibility for the public library service" and asked me what they should do.
In a series of these blogs I shall try to explain the steps that I recommend to planning a better library service. We shall call the authority Bloggington on Sea and let us imagine it has one central library, nine branches and a book bus.
The first steps are about working out how many staff are needed to operate the libraries. You can create a picture of the staffing requirement by recording several days activity in each library. In each library (or on each floor or level of a library that is larger) every twenty minutes count and keep a record of the number of visitors present and how many loans or enquiries of different kinds took place since the last measure twenty minutes before.
If you plot these results on a graph you will be able to see if there is a pattern to the use of the library during the day and on different days of the week.
Having drawn these graphs it becomes possible to draw conclusions about when you need people to staff the library. You may find you need less people up to say eleven o'clock and more thereafter, or you may find another pattern.
Of course these patterns change at different times of the year, for example in school holidays, but by drawing out the use that you predict you will see how might be able to organise staff hours to fit the needs of your community.
Posted by Tim Coates at May 1, 2006 8:48 PM