BCPL's experience

(from Joseph Eagan)

Dear colleagues:

I wanted to share some information about floating collections at Baltimore Ccounty Public Library. They started to float some materials about eight months ago and began to float all library materials on January 2. So far, some of the results of floating are:

The size of deliveries among the BCPL branches has dropped by approximately one-half - YES, approximately 50% - since floating was implemented. This means an incredible reduction in staff workloads, more materials on the shelves available for circulation and a substantial savings in terms of delivery costs. In the future BCPL may consider two deliveries a day or implementing Saturday deliveries.
The amount of new materials on the shelves - available for circulation - has increased substantially according to anecdotal evidence from library staff. When I visited the Pikesville Library last Saturday, I was simply amazed at the amount of new materials on display, including multiple copies of new fiction. One of the branch managers recently told me, "We need to buy less new popular fiction now .. we can buy more titles and fewer copies." Why? Because the popular materials are either in circulation or on the shelves - not sitting in a tub!
Collections are automatically "freshened" as customers return materials to different branches. Customers now participate in collection management by returning materials to a particular branch.
Floating has positive benefits for the customers and staff workloads but means a whole new way of thinking about collection management. It's no longer a branch collection but a system collection in terms of labeling, weeding, etc.


Joseph

Joseph Eagan
Olney Library Manager