We have been looking at ways to increase the use of the Central Library Selfcheck.
It has been decided to do the following:
1. Allow 3 day loan items to be issued via the selfcheck machine
2. Victoria will review any material she has particular concerns about, and move them to hourly loan. This is already current practice.
3. At the end of the semester an inventory will be done to identify the number of missing items and compare this to previous inventories. This will allow us to review our practices.
This will significantly increase the number of potential issues that can be handled by the selfcheck.
The original decision to exclude the 3 day books was based on a genuine concern that it is possible to fool the machine into desensitizing more than one book at a time. In fact this could already be done in some cirumstances if the top book was not 3 day loan so excluding them was not effective.
Please encourage users, when approriate, to use the Selfcheck.
Feel free to make comments on this change.
Anne
Sounds like a positive move.
To me the key component is promoting the machine, perhaps a flashing neon light or instant cash prizes…
On a slightly less looney note anything to prominently advertise the change would be a good start.
Dave Clemens
Re promotion, I think a lot of libraries have found it helpful for the transition into self-check to have someone out front of the desk to greet people coming up with books and direct their attention to the machine (and talk them through using it as necessary). Otherwise people tend to follow their normal routine (whether because they don’t notice it or shy away from the unfamiliar).
An alternative for low-staff times would be to set a bowl of lollies where only people using the machine can take one. 🙂
Deborah
It would be interesting to know what the "some circumstances" are in relation to the ability to fool the machine into desensitizing other books. Really just asking if there is anything we could do to reduce those circumstances
– Tim.
(PS: trusting counterculture is disallowed in a robots.txt file somewhere so we don’t hand potential book thieves another method on a platter)