The Benefits of Shelf Reading

As I’ve mentioned before, I really enjoy doing router. But do you know what drives me nuts about doing router? When the shelves are a mess! It’s bad enough when an item on router is not where it’s supposed to be, but it’s even more frustrating when you walk a patron to the shelf and the item is not there.

Shelf reading not only keeps your material in order, but helps to keep the shelves neat and tidy. Correct order, books edged, shelves even, these all make an attractive collection that is easy for staff and the public to use.

Ideally, every item in your library will be shelved correctly, the first time. Realistically, that doesn’t happen. It’s easy to blame patrons for returning items to the wrong spot on the shelf, but it’s primarily library staff doing the shelving. We need to pay more attention – and spend some time shelf reading.

Which book is out of order?

It’s really easy to assign this task to library aides, the ones who do the shelving. Or to volunteers, especially when you have more volunteers than work. I argue that it should be handled as a team building experience.

Think about it: as librarians, we should know our collection. You should notice when you’re low on popular subjects, like ASVAB or Native American history or dinosaurs. You should also be aware when you’ve got 3 copies of the same item on the shelf. Maybe it’s time to order a few more books by that author or on that subject?

Not to mention, there are a lot of shelves in our libraries! If you’ve only got 3 shelvers, it could several weeks for them to get thru the whole library. But if your staff of 10 are all working on it, you could probably make it in less than a month.

I’ve been toying with making shelf reading a team effort, with the goal of getting thru the collection once a month. A sort of ongoing project that everyone can contribute to completing – with an incentive for finishing 🙂

Not sure how to go about shelf reading? Here’s some pointers (with pictures in the doc) from The Ohio State University. It’s something we all should do – your staff and patrons will thank you for it!

 

Lesson 10: Online Mapping

I think I’ve visited just about every branch in SAPL, some more than others, but I always seem to get lost going to Igo and Carver. Several of our branches are located near highways or major intersections, both those two always seem to give me headaches. Maybe I should visit more often? 🙂

Google Maps is a wonderful resource, especially for people like me who don’t always know which way is North. I often use it on my phone, with the Bluetooth headphones on, so it can tell me how to get where I’m going.

I have a long commute to work from home, with many variations in how I get to one place from the other. Because of this, I use Google Maps to show me the best route. It will recommend one way over another, avoiding traffic pile-ups and construction. It has saved me many, many headaches!

Getting to McDonald’s from my branch would cost $1.30 and would involve walking quite a bit of the way. I would recommend the patron leave the library and walk to the McDonald’s. It wouldn’t take much longer than the bus, and would save the patron some money to buy a refreshing drink once he arrived.

 

Lesson 9: Coding

Part of me does not like that Google is targeting Girls, with pink hearts and diamonds on their Made with Code site, but the other part recognizes that girls may need more encouragement in the STEM fields.

I made an emoji at MwC, but I don’t feel that I learned any actual code, since it was just a drag and drop construction. 

I like how these programs make it fun for kids, using Disney characters and easy drag and drop commands, but I’m not sure how these fun exercises will graduate students to actual code writing.

Lesson 8 Challenge

Virtual reference has been around for a while now, mostly as chat or email. Video is somewhat newer and offers so many more possibilities.

I’m not sure that I would do a first reference interview with a person using Skype, a Mondopad or Google Hangouts. I would much rather have the first interaction be in person, to better gauge a person’s interest level and ask more in depth questions, if necessary. Should the patron have more questions, a virtual setting would be ideal, especially if information would be transmitted electronically.

I particularly like using Google Hangouts, and the ability to share your screen. This would be useful for guiding a patron through using the databases, assisting with catalog searches, even giving tutorials on how to use Office products or their free online equivalents.

Virtual communications could also be helpful for homebound patrons, those who are unable to come to the library but still enjoy conversations with librarians. Also, students in long distance education programs could use the technology to “attend” an on campus class. Something that might be fun is having a conversation with a native speaker of a language you are learning – virtual pen pals!

 

Lesson 8 Prep

Hi fellow SAPLers! Anyone up for a virtual conversation? Let’s set up a “screen date” between our branch iPads and get lesson 8 done 🙂

 

Lesson 7 – 404 pages

I really like it when a company takes the time to design an entertaining 404 page. Often times, it’s user error that will bring up a page not found notice, so it’s good that we can laugh about it. Looks like I’m not the only one who enjoys them, either:

One of my favorite 404 pages is the one for Ravelry, featuring Sherbert the Sheep:

 

Badges

Maybe it’s just me, but wow – we’re getting a lot of badges this time around. Good thing that ninja is so adorable 🙂

 

Lesson 6 Challenge

The latest selection for the North East Senior Center Book Group is Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, so I used this book for this challenge.

For appeal factors, I selected Books to Movies, Romantic, and Love Triangles.

This gave me a list of 12 titles with these factors. I like that I’m able to further refine the search with the optional filters on the left.

I don’t usually like historical fiction, but I think I might try Corelli’s Mandolin, by Louis DeBernieres. I like how you get further recommendations when you select a book, listed there on the right.

I can see this being useful for that bookaholic patron who has read all your suggestions and wants something new!

 

Badge update

The thing about doing these slightly ahead of the crowd is that I forget to go back and check the live posts. Missed a couple of badges! I have to say, I really like that we can pick up our badges from Dropbox directly, instead of waiting for the 11.5 team to email it to us. It saves a lot of time on our end 🙂

I think the Tech Ninja is super cute!

 

My favorite badge yet!

Love the ninja heads on the train!