Library closed for inventory November 6-11

BIBLIOFILES

Over the past year, Dana Hendrix and I have written many “BiblioFiles” detailing how the Georgetown Public Library is bringing back programs or “returning to normal” operations. One such annual operation is inventory, where the library closes our doors for a week to take stock of our collection by scanning every item currently on our shelves. This will be the first inventory since 2019. I asked Dana Hendrix, technical services librarian and our fearless leader in this task, a few questions about how and why we conduct an inventory.

Why do we do an inventory? How often do we inventory the library collection?

Libraries are full of people, and people love books (and audiobooks, and music CDs, and laptops and cake pans - all the things we have to offer). People also make mistakes now and then and sometimes things get misplaced. In these cases, our catalog will say an item is on the shelf, but it may not be where it should, leading to frustration for the patron who is looking for it. Inventories are a way for libraries (just like retail stores) to take stock of how many copies of what are where, replace what has been lost, put everything back where it belongs and update our catalog so we can offer the best customer service to the community. Our goal is to inventory the entire collection once a year. This year we will close the library to inventory November 7-10.

How does inventory benefit the library?

The library staff and volunteers are very motivated to keep our shelves in good order and to ensure that our online catalog is accurate. When we complete an inventory, we feel great about the quality of service we can offer the public when we reopen our doors. As we are all working towards a shared goal, it provides a bit of team building, too. Inventory can be tedious, but we make it fun by listening to music, working in pairs and sitting down to lunch together.

What data gets collected during an inventory? What can we learn from that data?

The library currently has more than 110,000 cataloged items organized in 100 separate collections in the building and on the bookmobile. In an inventory, we scan the barcode of every single item. Inventory reports ignore items that are currently checked out (usually about 20 percent of the collection at any given time) and tell us which items should be in but are out of place or missing. From this information we can correct shelving mistakes and identify missing items. We also gain useful data about loss patterns from an inventory. For instance, in our previous inventory we found that, on average, 1.06 percent of our collection was missing from the shelf. We’ll see what the numbers look like this time!

What benefit is an inventory to patrons?

The benefit to patrons is enormous, because through it we can reduce the incidence of missing items. It also can reduce wait times by identifying items that are simply mis-shelved and getting them back in place. All the little things that add up to make for good customer service are improved by inventory. We will use the information from this year’s inventory to replace the materials that we can, and to alert patrons who may be waiting for items if we cannot replace them.

Can patrons still return their books?

While we’re closed, people can still return items through the drive-up book drop in our Ninth Street parking lot, but nothing will be due back on those days, no curbside pickup will be available and no reserve notifications will go out. When we reopen to the public on Saturday, November 12, after the Veterans Day holiday, the reserve shelves will be chock full of goodies for library cardholders to pick up and enjoy.

Our heavily used library is open to the public seven days a week. We don’t ever like to close but we do so a few days every year for staff holidays and for inventory. We appreciate that members of the public are very understanding about our rare closures and taking a few days to close and inventory our collections helps us to take good care of the resources our patrons trust us to maintain.

See you soon at the library!

Ann Evans is the Adult Services Librarian at the Georgetown Public Library