Think before you print – Router

Router, aka “paging slips” are something we deal with every day – more than once a day, if we’re industrious, right? We’re making customers happy with each item we check in that triggers a hold. It’s a great way to get out in the collection and maybe do some shelf reading as you’re searching for items, and can also be a great team building exercise, when the whole staff pitches in to get it done. Oh, and if you’re wearing your pedometer, it’s an excellent way to get in a few hundred steps each morning, too.

I may be the odd one out here, but pulling router is one of my favorite things to do at work. I’ve been known to time myself, to see how quickly I can finish the list, and often spend extra time trying to track down that one book that wasn’t where it was supposed to be.

The one down side of router is that it uses so much paper!  Even a short list of 40 items is going to use 4 sheets of paper. And if you’re lucky, you won’t get that blank last page. Remember, we’re supposed to be conserving paper at work – are you doing your part? At my branch, we print on both sides of the paper.

We think before we print: We’ll use yesterday’s router to print up today’s clear hold shelf list, which is usually much smaller. Once the page is printed on both sides, then it goes in the recycle bin.

There’s always scratch paper needed at my branch, and router pages are a good source for this. Great job for a volunteer, if you can trust them with the paper cutter. And we are checking that there are no names on the back side, right? Always consider people’s privacy when reusing paper.

What about the item level holds?

These are item specific holds, i.e., it wants the paperback version of Harry Potter, not the hard cover. This list is usually not more than a couple of titles, but if you print it the way you do the bib level holds, you’ll get one request per page, and that page will have the patron’s info at the top. Not a big deal when it’s a branch putting holds on their next book club selection, but that’s not always the case. This is also the list that gives you that ominous warning about how you can’t pull it up again if you leave the page without printing.

One option to consider: If it’s only one or two titles, write it down! But it’s a specific item, so you have to match barcodes, right? Here’s a trick. See that little double box icon next to Call Number?

Right click on it and see what happens.

Yay – barcodes! Now you know exactly which item you need to pull. Right click it again to go back to call numbers. This also works with the bib level list.

What if it’s more than a couple of titles? You can still save paper! Once you have your list of item level holds up, go to the top left hand corner of the box and select File, then select Print Table. This will give you 4-5 requests per page, much better than one per page.

What do you do at your location to conserve paper?