I had been contacted by the UC Sustainability Office earlier in the week, as staff members were concerned that the screeds of backing paper rubbish produced by the tagging project were not recyclable. However, it has now been confirmed that this is not the case. Mastagard (who UC have a waste/recycling contract with) have confirmed that they do accept this paper backing for recycling. So please disregard my previous post about rubbish disposal – anything in a red wheelie bin is indeed being recycled.

Thanks,
Fiona T

The tagging produces a large amount of rubbish, the bulk of it the backing paper from the rolls of RFID tags. We had thought this paper was recyclable and were using the red recycling wheelie bins. However, this paper is not recyclable as it has been waxed and is causing problems for the crew in recycling.

UC rubbish bins are too small for the amount of rubbish our tagging produce in a ten hour day so we will continue to use the red wheelie bins. However, we will indicate to the recycling team that the contents of these bins is destined for the landfill by sticking a ‘curl’ of the backing paper on the top with a note saying ‘Not recyclable – Landfill.’

Should you see these rubbish bins with their ‘curl’ of backing paper, please don’t remove it and please don’t add any recyclable material to these bins.

Thanks,
Fiona T

We now have teams tagging at the Central, Law and EPS libraries.

We are making good progress in all three libraries.

Central: Levels 2, 8, 9, 10 and 11 are finished. We have finished two-thirds of level 6 and approximately a quarter of level 3. On Friday we started tagging ‘P’ books boxed and sent to Crown after the earthquake. We have started placing these on shelves on level 4 today.

EPS: The taggers have been tagging parts of the collection as they are available, dependent on where the builders are working. They have therefore finished large parts of the collection on all three floors and we anticipate they will finish tagging the entire collection in time for the new semester.

Law: One team has tagged all the serials and moved into the monographs on level 2. The other team on level 3 has been steadily tagging from KL-KN, in the process clearing the shelves for the Commerce Collection. We hope to start tagging the Commerce collection tomorrow.

Fiona T

Tagging is continuing apace in the Central and EPS libraries.

So much so that the taggers have nearly completed the serials at EPS and will be moving up to tagging some of the monograhs on Level 2 from Tuesday. We have also pretty much completed Levels 8-11 in the Central Library with good progress also being made on Levels 2 and 6. We have hit some difficulties with Level 4, as unavoidable delays in getting this floor carpeted and fitted with new shelving prevent us from tagging and shelving the boxed PM-PQ and T-Z sequence currently stored at Crown.

We have found that it is much quicker for us to tag straight from boxes (at least when the stock has been taken off the shelf and boxed, rather than thrown off the shelves and then boxed which has been a lot more fraught!). Therefore, while we had originally thought we would move to tagging at the Education Library if we hit problems at Central, we have decided to move some of our staff to the Law Library to tag the Commerce Collection in the next week or so before it goes on the shelves. It is currently stored at Crown and has to be unpacked and unloaded onto Law shelving. It makes sense to tag this collection as it comes out of the boxes, rather than off the shelves at a later date, so as to avoid doublehandling these books (47,000 items). While we are there we will also tag other Law items and Centrals 3day loan collection.

Tagging will continue in Central as well – on levels 6, 4, 3 and 2. We can tag and shelve the P-PL collection on the remaining shelving on Level 4. We will tag the stock on the other floors and return it to its current shelving in order to tag as much of the collection as we can before the semester starts.

Fiona T

The teams resumed tagging on Wednesday at the Central and EPS libraries.

Levels 10 and 11 are now complete, with books classified A – DS580 tagged and reshelved on these two floors. Levels 8 and 9 are roughly half complete, with books classified H-HX and G-GV tagged and reshelved.

The taggers are currently working on level 4. We were fortunate that only a few books fell down in the Boxing day aftershock so the tagging project was not affected. One team is working on tagging and moving the DT-F books (moving to Level 9). Another team is working on tagging and moving the J-JZ books (moving to Level 8). These books were on shelving that collapsed during the earthquake so are packed in boxes. This presents difficulties in trying to reorder the books before they go onto the shelves.

Joan has staff unpacking and ordering these books which our tagging teams then tag and move to their new location. This is a good trial for us in figuring out the best process for ordering, tagging and shelving the large numbers of books on Level 4 that were boxed and sent to Crown after the earthquake and which we anticipate we will start tagging in the next week or two.

One important message for lending staff working at Central is that books being returned by borrowers should not be resensitised from now on. I believe EPS has already stopped resensitising books in preparation for when their library is completely tagged. As we have floors that have been tagged and completely desensitised we don’t want sensitised books going on these shelves and there is no need to sensitise with the new system going live in a few weeks.

Fiona T

We now have our full quota of tagging trolleys for the RFID project. On Thursday we began tagging the serials at EPS library. We have two trolleys at EPS and will have teams of two operating each trolley from Monday to Saturday. We have six trolleys at Central library and for the last couple of days have had teams of two or three operating the trolleys on Lvls, 4, 6, 8, and 10.

One of the issues with the tagging project has been how to deal with group checkouts with multiple barcodes (e.g. items such as musical scores which will often have numerous items, each with their own barcode). So far, as our teams have been gaining confidence with the tagging process, we have instructed them to put them aside. We have started tagging on level 6 where the number of such items is numerous and it’s become clear that we don’t have time to merge these. In addition, putting this number of items asides throws out our reshelving plan so we need to deal with them as we tag. Therefore, we’ve now made a decision that ‘tricky’ items such as group checkouts with multiple barcodes will have a small, round, yellow sticker placed on the spine and will be placed in their new location alongside tagged items.

Other items may also occasionally have a yellow sticker – for example, newsletters that are too thin (1 or 2 pages) to merit a tag or publications on which there is no clear space to put a tag without covering integral text. These will often be in a box and rather than sticker each item, we will just put a sticker on the outside of the box.

The yellow sticker is a clear marker that an item has not been tagged. I am keeping a record of these ‘untaggable’ items.

Fiona T

The tagging teams are making good progress through the Central Collection with the new Level 11 (containing A-BX) almost entirely shelved with tagged books. We have also tagged D-DA, H-HA, and HM-HQ. We expect to start tagging F-GV tomorrow, shifting them from Level 4 to Level 9.

We are expecting more tagging trolleys to arrive this week, taking our total to eight trolleys. The plan is to have two of these trolleys operating in the EPS library from Wednesday, tagging the serials. The remaining six trolleys will be working throughout the Central Library.

Staff working at Central checkin will need to pay careful attention to which trolleys returned items should be stored on. As I wrote last week, Rosie’s “Guide to the Post-Earthquake Location and Management of Central Library Material” (found on the K Drive) clearly marks which sections of the collection can be shelved as normal and which sections are currently being tagged. Returns that belong to a section currently being tagged need to be placed on the trolleys marked “Do Not Shelve – Leave for Taggers”. However, as we now have a lot of tagging trolleys operating, the taggers do not have time to shelve recently returned items once they’ve tagged them. Therefore, once taggers have tagged the recently returned items on the “Leave for Taggers Trolley” they will place them on another trolley clearly marked with a large ‘thumbs up’ sign as well as labelled “Tagged Recent Returns – to be shelved in new location.” Central staff can shelve items on this trolley.

Fiona T

The tagging has begun!

We had our full RFID tagging team start this Monday with plans to begin tagging on level 9. We’ve been bedevilled with problems with our tagging trolleys this week which has slowed us down but we now have one team tagging from B-BX on Level 9 and another tagging tagging from D-DA on Level 8. At this stage we anticipate that after finishing DA, we will start HM-HX on Level 10 (possibly on Monday).

Once the books have been tagged, they are being reshelved on new floors as part of the process of reorganising the Central Collection into alphabetical order throughout the building. The A-Z project, combined with working around shelving being moved and/or built post-quake, means that the order in which we will tag the collection is changing frequently. For example, we are tagging D-DA first because moving that to the empty shelving on Level 10 leaves empty the shelves on Level 8 to which we will move HM-HX . It’s kindof like a giant game of tetris. This constantly changing process does make it hard to clearly communicate to everyone where and when we are tagging.

At the moment, we have signs on Levels 8 & 9 reminding people not to shelve books on these floors. We also have trolleys at CKI with signs reminding people to leave books bound for Levels 8, 9 & 11 for our tagging teams to take care of. Rosie has designed a very useful cheat sheet which is kept at CKI to remind people what Central staff shelve and what tagging staff shelve. This will be updated as the situation changes and can be found on the K drive in the lending folder.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Fiona

We have started tagging some books and are currently working out an efficient tagging process. We expect to have our first full day of tagging on Saturday and will be tagging books on level 9 before moving them to their new home on level 11.

Therefore, we need to make sure any items returned to the library that would normally go on level 9 (A-BX) are NOT shelved.

If you are working in the Central Library returning books, put books on the appropriate trolleys in the CKI area. However, please do not shelve any books on level 9 or 11. The RFID taggers will take care of these books every few days, tagging them and shelving them.

Signs will be in place on the relevant trolleys as a reminder, as well as on the floors themselves.

Thanks,
Fiona

Students are having problems booking study rooms through the library website. They can select a library but when they go to select a time/room, an error message informing them that “There is a problem with this website’s security certificate” pops up. Staff and students can still continue to the website but it is ‘not recommended’.

ICT Helpdesk and Library IT have been emailed regarding the problem.