Weeding Adult Fiction

If you've been in the library lately, you've probably noticed how stuffed the shelves are. Sharon and I have been working on weeding adult non-fiction on and off for the past few months, and it's finally having some impact. We focused on non-fiction because it's much easier to weed than fiction. Fiction arguably never goes out of date and does not get replaced by a newer (but different) book on the same topic. As a result, our adult fiction (hardcover) shelves became fuller and fuller.

I started playing with ReportTool, which is one component of our ILS (integrated library system). It had a report that allowed me to enter a number to see which books had not circulated in that number of days. I started small, and worked my way up. At some point between 900 and 1000 days, every adult fiction book was circulated, probably during inventory. So I decided to search for every adult fiction book that hadn't circulated in 900 days (approximately 2 1/2 years).

Sharon and I went through the resulting list and crossed off many of the books that we wanted to keep. I crossed off some of the books in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 series and a few Douglas Adams books, and Sharon picked some more to keep. At that point, the list was still really long (by my rough calcuations, it was still over 2000 books). So we decided that we'd keep newer books regardless of their circulation. I chose 1998 as an arbitrary year.

So last night, Mackenzie (one of the library's pages) went through the shelves to find the books on the list that were published before 1998 that Sharon and I hadn't crossed out. When we arrived this morning, there were stacks of books surrounding my desk. Sharon and I went through the piles and picked some books to save (either because they were part of a series, were written by a very popular author, or because the book sounded too interesting to weed).

We ended up with around 75 books to delete from the catalogue, and we're not even halfway through the Bs. We'll be working on this for the next few weeks, and we're tentatively scheduling a major book sale during Mass Registration in September. So when the time comes, please come out and buy some.

Funding cuts less than expected

On August 20th, 2009, the provincial government announced that it would continue to support BC public libraries with $13.7 million in funding, which is ~78% of previous funding levels. Nobody is ever happy with a 22% funding cut, but even two weeks ago, the libraries of British Columbia worried about a total loss of provincial funding. The details still have to be worked out, but on the whole this is good news.

The staff members of the Tumbler Ridge Public Library would like to thank everyone who sent letters, mailed postcards, and signed the online petition. You let the provincial government know how important public libraries are, and they listened.

On that note, we would also like to thank Blair Lekstrom (our MLA), Margaret MacDiarmid (Minister of Education) and Gordon Campbell (Premier) for listening to everyone's concerns.

Jacob's Desk

[begin stupid parody]
Today on Behind the Spine Label:
It's a place where decisions are made and instantly regretted.

Jacob's desk.
[End stupid parody]

If you walk by my desk at the library (and see me hard at work), it'll probably look pretty messy. Random papers are strewn about the desk and floor, and there are piles of books, post-its, and envelopes everywhere.

I just completed a (semi) major cleanup of my desk and shelf section today, and they're looking pretty good. So what's left? Well....

One of our phone handsets has a semi-permanent home on the back left (from my perspective) corner of my desk. It's as far away from me as it can be without leaving my desk. As the most junior full-time staff member, I get stuck with the phone quite often for a few reasons.

First, Sharon doesn't want it, so she only takes it when she needs it or is feeling very generous. Second, our circulation clerk Rebekah is only here for four hours each day, and her schedule overlaps the time I need the phone (to call people about books that have come in, overdues, etc.) Third, my desk is the closest (regularly-inhabited) staff desk to Michele's office and the back room. So it's become second nature for everyone to drop the phone off on my desk on their way by regardless of where the phone was to begin with.

Underneath the phone is a pad of paper. Right now I've got a scribbled list of notes on it about authorized Library of Congress subject headings. I could put the list into a notepad file, but I have to switch between three different windows when updating subject headings as it is. Adding a fourth would just slow things down even more. If you take a quick look at the pad, you'll see that I switch between handwriting and printing at random. (Well, maybe it's not random, but I haven't been able to identify a pattern, and I'm the one doing it!)

Next to that is my monitor, with some papers on its base. One stack is some ILL request forms for a particular patron. He has asked me to request the books around August 25th so that (hopefully) their arrival will coincide with his schedule. I have a strategically placed post-it note on the front ILL request form to cover the patron's name so that I'm in compliance with FOIPA (the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act).

The other paper on my monitor is a post-it note reminding me that I need to make a folder in the vertical file for 338.40971187. Michele has asked me to make a folder for the tourist trade in Tumbler Ridge. I believe (I looked it up a while back and can't remember off the top of my head) that that number corresponds to Tourism-Canada-BC-Northern BC-Peace River region. [I did check. It refers to Northeastern BC, and names cities and towns that are mostly from the Peace River region]

Beyond my monitor and speakers is where I keep the pens I've received for various things. I've got one from a LawMatters training session, a few promotional ones from a company that tries to sell them to the library, and one from the Credit Union's grand reopening. I keep these pens separate because they aren't the cheap $0.39 pens the library purchases. What do I use on a daily basis? A cheap $0.39 papermate pen with the cap on the end (they feel unbalanced otherwise). I use black ink because blue ink looks too friendly on overdue notices.

Moving on I've got two containers of quick-ties (thin ones used for sealing cloth mailing envelopes), the empty plastic ring from a roll of tape (which is handy if I feel the need to keep my hands busy), a few CDs from when Kristen was here (3 blank, 4 used), a pile of rubber bands (some libraries use them to hold books together in shipment but I generally don't), and a few blank ILL forms.

My water bottle (Dasani, refilled with TR tap water) is also sitting on my desk right now, as is one of the library's books that a co-worker put in an ILL request for (but clearly didn't check the catalogue first).

I've got a storage container on the upper level of my desk that holds a few handy things (date stamp, highlighters, staple remover) alongside some shipping label slips. There's a nearly empty post-it note tower (it was much cheaper to buy one and hand out post-it notes to everyone as necessary than to buy individual packs for everyone), a paperclip holder (filled *only* with standard paperclips. no oversized, plastic-coated, novelty coloured, or ridged), a box of tissue, a stack of message and note pads, and a stapler that looks like it's army surplus from the 70s.

I've got a couple of souvenirs (given to me by co-workers) on my side shelf, along with a printer used almost exclusively for printing spine labels and envelopes for overdue notices, a roll of removeable tape (used underneath temporary barcodes) and a few DVDs I need to catalogue. The shelf also holds two binders -- a thin one for patron bills that couldn't be mailed and a thick one that holds my copy of AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules) -- which are covered in a stack of books that I need to ask other staff members (mostly Sharon and Michele) about.

The lower shelves hold our office supply catalogues (one from Corporate Express for standard office supplies, one from Brodart for library supplies) and all the things I need for ILLs (temporary barcodes, folders to hold request forms, a scale, etc.)

Finally, the floor around my desk is pretty much always a mess. I keep spare padded envelopes for ILLs (cloth and paper) to the right of my chair (because it's much handier than keeping them in the back room), and spare mail bags next to them. I usually have a pile of papers to the left of my chair that will all end up in the recycling bin. It's generally easier to keep an ongoing pile that I remove once a day than it is to walk over to the bin with every little piece of paper.

So that's the official tour of my desk. I'm afraid on-site offical tours will generally not be given during library hours.

Thoughts on standardization

I like standardization. We drive vehicles that have a fairly standardized layout (steering wheel, two pedals for an automatic, three for a standard), use keyboards with standardized layouts (either Qwetry or Dvorak) and refer to weights and measures in either the metric or imperial system. In short, standardization makes life simpler.

My goal in updating the library's cataloguing was not to fix or correct it, but to standardize it. Libraries have a reference called AACR2 that describes how to catalogue items. In theory, following AACR2 perfectly should result in a "correct" record. The cataloguing done at this library over the past 20+ years has deviated from AACR2. I've been fixing some bad cataloguing (skipped fields, incorrect information, etc.) but in cases where the deviation is helpful, we've kept it and standardized it.

For instance, a book from a popular series like the Babysitters Club should be catalogued like this:

100$a Martin, Ann M. [author]
245$a Welcome back, Stacey [specific book title]
...
490$a The Babysitters club [series title]
490$v v. 28 [series number]

The problem is that our OPAC (online public access catalogue -- the card catalogue) only shows the title, author, and publication information. When searching the catalogue, library patrons could not tell what volume number they were looking at.

Things become even trickier with series without volume numbers (Harry Potter, Twilight, etc.). Many times patrons will come in and want "the third book in the series", and unless we have a personal knowledge of the series, we're not able to answer without checking an external source (Amazon, Wikipedia, etc.)

The records in our catalogue had a few different ways to deal with this shortcoming, but Sharon and I eventually agreed on a standard to follow. After being fixed to conform to our new local standard, the record looks like this:

100$a Martin, Ann M.
245$a Welcome back, Stacey : #28
...
490$a The Babysitters club
490$v #28

It seems like a small change, but it does two things. First, it includes the volume number in the book's title, making it much easier for patrons and staff members to find a particular book. Second, this record standardizes how the volume number is recorded (the number sign, followed by the volume number).

According to AACR2, this record is incorrect. However, it conforms to a standard, and the record is extremely usable. Patrons can easily understand that the #28 means that the book is the 28th volume. Future staff members should also be able to look at a few records in the catalogue and understand this particular system.

The library's standardization efforts are proceeding very well... at least, they were. As I previously posted, we found out that we will have to convert our subject headings to Library of Congress (LoC) subject headings before we transition to Sitka. So for the past week, I've been digging through LoC authority files to make sure our subject headings are accurate.

Guess what? The LoC subject headings contain just as many inconsistencies as our catalogue does. The LoC subject headings aren't standardized nearly as well as they should be. The biggest problem is the complete lack of guidance for singular versus plural subjects.

The following are all LoC authorized subject headings. My notes are enclosed in square brackets.

dogs [plural]
cats [plural]
walrus [singular]
giraffe [singular]

winds [plural]
water [singular]
water-power [with a hyphen]
wind power [without a hyphen]

This lack of standardization is causing me no end of problems.

For instance, many of the library's books had "handicrafts" [plural] as a subject heading. When I looked at the LoC authority records, there was no listing for "handicrafts"[plural] , and at "crafts" there was a link to "crafts & decorating". So I changed all the records with the heading "handicrafts" [plural] as I got to them. I've fixed the subject headings on 930 records now, and I just discovered that "handicraft" [singular] *is* an authorized subject heading.

It's getting frustrating. If LoC had standardized subject headings, my subject heading cleanup would be relatively easy. But right now, it isn't.

Sitka News

We just learned today that Sitka (the integrated library system most libraries in BC will be transitioning to) has an interesting cataloguing requirement. Apparently all subject headings in the 650 field in Sitka will have to be official Library of Congress subject headings.

So what's the problem? Our library uses Sears subject headings. We're currently waiting to find out if Sitka will also support Sears. If it doesn't, we'll have to double-check the subject headings on all 36000 records (including the ~2200 I've fixed already) to make sure they're official LC headings.

This project (especially this latest problem) is making me feel more and more like Sisyphus (I had to look up the name -- just knew the reference) every day. Well, I guess there is one difference. Sisyphus didn't get paid to push the boulder up the hill for eternity.