Tuesday, July 23, 2013

The DVD story

Listen up, because it's really complicated.

There are (at least) two noteworthy things about our library system:
1. Items 'float' from library to library--if you borrow something from Branch A and return it to Branch B, it stays at B until someone else requests it.
2. My branch is the poorest branch i.e. has the population with the smallest Netfilx saturation and the least discriminating literary tastes

This means two things:
1. Our print collection is kind of crummy.
2. Our DVD collection is AWESOME.

Search the catalog and find a movie where we only own one copy, and 99% of the time it is at my branch, which is great.

We have a table at the front of the building filled with popular and new DVDs. This is good in that we are recognizing our patrons' tastes, but bad because there is a cart behind the desk that the circ staff uses to refill the display throughout the day. The cart is the smallest kind we have and I'd say holds about 100 DVDs if you pack it as full as humanly possible, which the circ staff always does.

Now, our regular collection of movies on the shelf at any given time is about 1,800. So having 100 DVDs hidden behind the desk isn't so bad at face value. Except that they fill the little cart DIRECTLY FROM THE RETURNS BIN. So in effect the 100 DVDs in highest demand are kept behind the counter at all times.

Someday I will have my degree and not be a lowly reference assistant,and I will stop this madness!

1 comment:

  1. Oh yeah! That's the path that has seduced many a clever person into the dark world of library management. But unlike some of those people, you'll manage to retain your rationality.

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