It would seem that the issue with a floating collection is that imbalances occur as people borrow in one branch and return in another. The solution is simply to send out an email to say I need more fiction, or I've got too many DVDs and the other branches offer to give/take as required. Not terribly scientific, but essentially getting the job done.
I was also shown the new software being piloted from collectionHQ.com that analyses the circulation figures each month and allows a branch to identify items that are being over/under used and redistribute them to branches where they can work harder. It also identifies items that have been heavily circulated and are therefore probably a bit battered, allowing the library to exchange them for identical items at other libraries that are not being circulated as heavily. This looks impressive and much more effective, but is currently only being used in a selection of test libraries, and with fiction only.
So, what else did we get up to in the magical world of a public library? Well, aside from the two hours supervising children making stuff from Lego, I spent some time hunting for items that we knew we're not on the shelves as a final check before removing them from the system. There is a cool electronic wand that is used to check for missing items, and after it has failed to find them a few times a final human check is done. What I learned is that the wand was right. None of those items were on the shelves, so maybe we should just trust the wand and save a bit of time on wasted human labour. Having said that, apparently there are technical issues with the wand at the moment, so maybe all the checks will be human for the time being. You've got to love technology... It shows you how it can make your life easier before it stops working and you have to resent doing things the old slow way again.
I also was shown how the home library service works. When I'm old and infirm I'll definitely use this, and make lots of difficult demands just for the sake of it. The way it works is that the people say what sorts of books they like, and the library collects some together and sends them out once a month. My favourite was the lady who didn't want any books with pictures of pretty young girls on the cover, or any with pictures of villages. Difficult to assess when searching the catalogue. For some reason they don't include that information in the metadata. Seriously however, this is obviously a very valuable service to these housebound individuals and goes to show how libraries can make a real difference in the lives of the community.
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