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June 2, 2007
The backlog of boxes of library books waiting for months to be unpacked
Antonia Davis writes in response to the earlier discussion about why many library library authorities have a substantial back log of boxes of books waiting in their distribution depots:
"The labeling is just a minor problem that could be resolved, but the real reason that boxes of new books sit in our staff canteen is that we do not have enough staff to actually add the books to the computer catalogue. We get imported records which don't match our catalogue which then needs editing and the actual copies then have to be added individually. Librarians are all pitching in to help with book processing but the boxes keep arriving faster than we can clear them "
Antonia- thank you for your comment. I don't want to draw attention to which council you work in, because I'm sure a lot of people in other councils would have said the same. But what I and others can't understand is why "the imported records don't match" your catalogue and why they need editing. If you, as most others do, subscribe to the provision of BDS records why can't you use them in the form which they come? What the Government reports have been saying for several years is that is the fact that councils insist on doing things their own way that is so expensive because every council has to handle things manually and every supplier has to process each council in a different way. Surely your catalogue can be in the same form as the records imported from BDS? One can understand the small number of cases of stock coming from independent small publishers - but presumably most of a back-log is stock from the main library suppliers?
And, I think, it is right to ask why, in the days in which data is transferred electronically, do you need still to add copies which have come from your mainline suppliers, manually, to your council catalogue? Surely all Library Management Systems by now can accomodate the transfer of this information without it being re-keyed? And if they don't- why are councils still using such out of date Library Management systems, when most councils tend to review these contracts every 3 years or so? As you say, it means that valuable librarian time is being spent in doing work that is essentially administrative and clerical.
I don't mean to put you on the spot with these-- I'm sure there are sensible answers to my questions, but they do seem to be at the heart of so much of what is being discussed in the debate about the Library Supply Chain. People ask why are 204 councils re-cataloguing - or even just checking the work of- that which has already been catalogued by a librarian paid to do the work "book in hand" ? The cost of this extra work runs into 10's of millions of pounds-- could we do without it when we need that money?
Posted by Tim Coates at June 2, 2007 7:27 PM