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I would like to comment on Ursula Kolstetter's plan at Indianapolis to
remedy collection losses by restricting access to hours that the library
is staffed.
Is is not clear from her message whether the cause(s) of the losses have
been determined. Before taking a fairly extreme (unpopular) measure, it
would be a good idea to be sure that the solution to be applied will improve
things.
I say this because when I came to the Walters two years
ago, a number of staff expressed their concerns over missing materials,
and pointed to this individual or that department as the culprit, and
suggested I ought to restrict access privileges.
It did
not take long for me to discover that relatively few of the missing items
could be attributed to staff. In our case most materials turn out to be
mis-shelved. We have three endemic problems that lead to misshelving: a
serious lighting problem, a confusing classification scheme, and lack of
staff for shelf-reading. Correcting these things will help us keep
materials available for use.
Indianapolis probably has entirely different problems which cause missing
materials. One thing Ursula did mention was that some staff (those
without offices) cannot borrow. If thse folks are the offenders, maybe
they need borrowing privileges so that they can "legally" sign books out,
then they could be traced.
To answer Ursula's questions about what other libraries policies are,
staff can get to our library at any time that they are in the building.
Staff can also enter/exit the stacks by a door not within the view of the
library staff. Volunteers also have access to the stacks during hours
the library is staffed. We have no measures in place to monitor whether
staff have signed out books they take to their offices. Its an honor
system, with occassional reminders from us to be good.
Security staff
at staff exits are supposed to check staff belongings for library books.
If this worked well I'd be completely satisfied with the policies we have
in place, but they really do not check consistently, and staff also may
exit the building through the public entrance during museum hours without
being checked.
Elise Calvi
The Walters Art Gallery
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