The latest wave- floating materials

THE LATEST WAVE


With floating collections, libraries stretch materials budgets, respond
swiftly to patrons, and drive down delivery costs
Ten years ago during a period of rapid growth and increasing
circulation, Jefferson County Public Library (JCPL), CO, cut the total
volume of all material moving among its libraries by 67 percent. Last
year, Hennepin County Library (HCL), MN, cut the number of videos going
through delivery by 75 percent. This year, Gwinnett County Public
Library (GCPL), GA, made high-demand collections more available without
buying more copies.
Each of the above libraries has achieved such results with floating
collections, which they implemented to help control delivery costs and
increase the availability of materials.
The concept is tried and true for several libraries-a few Canadian and
U.S. libraries have been floating collections for years; Fraser Valley
Regional Library, BC, and Pikes Peak Library District, CO, both have
been doing so for over 25 years. However, in these times of escalating
costs and shrinking budgets, more and more librarians are intrigued by
the cost-saving potential of a floating collection management process.
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Downsizing deliveries: Floating collections still require drivers, like
Connie O'Bannon (pictured), though JCPL cut the total volume of all
material moving among its libraries by 67%

Sinking a "sacred cow"

In most libraries, borrowed items must be returned to an owning
location. Floating collections turn this basic concept on its head. The
tenet of a floating collection is simple: one system, one collection.
Materials "float" freely among system libraries rather than being
"owned" by a specific location.
When a patron returns a circulating item, it is shelved at the location
where it was returned instead of being sent back to the location from
which it was checked out. Upon checkin, the location is automatiRather than a "home" location serving as the trigger for moving material
among libraries, patron requests become the trigger. Only materials
patrons actually want to use pass through delivery.
While the concept behind a floating collection is uncomplicated,
implementing it can be difficult. It requires a paradigm shift in the
way service is delivered, and changes in the library's integrated
library system (ILS) take work. Librarians, used to viewing a library
system's holdings as a series of discrete collections, must reject a
sacred cow of library service when they turn away from the belief system
behind the practice of returning items to an owning location.
Institutions willing to take up these challenges and convert to a
floating collection will see many benefits. They will be able to respond
faster to public demand, provide more equitable access to materials,
stretch the materials budget, reduce ergonomic strain on staff, and
dramatically cut the volume of delivery among libraries.

Patrons control the flow

The physical size of the library becomes less of a limiting factor since
the collection is constantly refreshed through patron activity. Patrons
at even the smallest library help select the items that reside on the
shelves. Since holds trigger the movement of material, the library
serving patrons who have a heavy interest in horses will end up with
more material about horses in the collection, while the library down the
road might have fewer such items.
It is also true that all ten copies of the local book club's selection
will end up on the shelves of one library. From the patron perspective,
this natural drift can be a positive. Since only the items actually
being used by patrons are moving through the system, more material is
available on the shelves.
These service benefits are complemented by savings on the physical
objects. Lessening the number of times an item goes through delivery
reduces wear and tear, extending circulation life. For audiovisual
materials, where packaging can easily be damaged, this is a real boon.
Libraries that choose to float their collections often change their
selection practices. For instance, staff members charged with ordering
may reduce the number of copies they purchase, knowing patrons will have
an opportunity to browse the material currently at different libraries
as it floats through the system. Because fewer copies of some titles
need to be purchased, more dollars are available to bring in new
formats, increase the number of copies of high-demand items, or expand
the breadth and/or depth of the collection with a wider variety of
titles.

Taking the technical plunge

Every library system that moves to a floating collection tailors the
concept to meet its own needs. A library system might choose to float a
new collection of DVDs to gain maximum exposure for a small number of
titles. Another, using bookstore-type displays, might want to make sure
the additional nonholdable copies purchased for the displays are kept
out of the float. Some libraries might exclude language, genealogy, and
local history collections from the float because they require special
care or shelving, while others might particularly want their special
collections to float to increase accessibility in a geographically large
system. Some libraries exclude entire locations from the float. For
example, a combined high school/public library's usage agreement might
prohibit the location from floating its collection, or a system will
want to protect a start-up collection in a new library for six months.
Whatever an individual library system's unique needs, a basic
infrastructure must be in place in libraries that choose to float their
materials: a fast delivery system, a convenient request system, and
software support from an integrated ILS vendor. Channels for internal
communication among facilities help the process, as does centralization
of materials selection, acquisitions, cataloging, and processing.
Once an infrastructure is in place, libraries must focus on two areas to
insure a successful transition: the ILS and the staff. Libraries
interested in converting to a floating collection should consider
appointing a library representative who has in-depth knowledge of the
circulation system and the database functionality to work directly with
the vendor on the technical changes required to track floating
materials. The objective is to end up with a product that automatically
updates the location of an item when it is checked in and produces an
automated trigger to send material back to an owning location if it is
not part of the floating collection. Although Innovative Interfaces Inc.
and DYNIX have developed software to handle a floating collection,
because implementation is dependent on local database codes, each
library's situation will be unique, requiring software customization.
Before working with a vendor, a library should have a good idea of the
collections it intends to float and the items and/or locations that
should be excluded.
To ensure the maximum flexibility to alter aspects when service needs to
change, the float program should be fully integrated with all ILS
modules, and the library should retain the ability to limit by item type
and location.

Staff anxiety

Beyond the technical issues, emotional issues must be addressed.
Librarians who have spent their careers thinking of and relating to a
series of individual branch and special collections within a library
system may have a challenging time transitioning to the concept of one
collection.
Library users, in general, have always thought of library holdings as
one collection, and the advent of the virtual library reinforces that
perspective. Many patrons now regularly set foot inside a physical
library only to pick up holds. With this pattern, the physical location
of material is less important, and an imbalance in the collection occurs
only when the system owns no items on a topic. For those who come to the
library, the serendipitous joy of browsing is enhanced by a continuously
refreshed collection.
For staff members, the anxiety level can rise as they start switching to
the idea and practices of a shared collection. Before moving into this
phase, administrators would do well to evaluate the situation and dust
off their copies of Managing Transitions by William Bridges. Common
concerns that emerge during this transition relate to perceived
collection imbalances, redistribution of materials, and holds activity.
Staff task forces often gather information and establish new procedures
to address these issues. It is important to acknowledge the issues and
provide substantive answers to staff questions.

Testing the waters

At JCPL, we chose to gather information by piloting floating collections
for a three-month period in 1994. Just before the start of the pilot and
again three months in, we conducted customer surveys on the availability
of materials and charted the number of holds and deliveries moving
through the system as well as the number of shelves per subject category
in each library.
Through testing the process based on areas of staff concern, the library
gained important information:
* Thirty thousand items a month were returned directly to the
shelves instead of being placed in delivery.
* The increase in holds was negligible (less than half of one
percent), and shelf variance was less than two shelves per library.
* Surveys showed that patrons were unaware that collection
management practices had been altered. Thus, the library chose not to
publicize the internal procedural change to library users.
* Anecdotal information indicated patrons were pleased with the
increased number of "new" books on the shelves.
* Library managers estimated that the conversion to a floating
collection saved 20 hours per week per library of circulation staff
time.
Once staff saw the positive impact of the change on workflow and
customer service, they recommended permanently adopting a floating
collection.
Floating JCPL's collection alleviated the need for an additional
delivery driver and vehicle, an expense the library system had been
contemplating before the conversion. The library was able to redeploy
160 hours per week of staff time to other activities, and worker's
compensation claims dropped significantly.
HCL also saw dramatic changes in activity level when it tested floating
adult VHS material collections in 2003. According to Judith Friedrich in
Hennepin's Collection and Bibliographic Services Department, HCL counted
only the material shifted from branch to branch for reshelving and found
there was a 75 percent reduction in delivery traffic-the 250 items
before the collection started to float dropped to 60 items per day.
There was a slight rise in reserves, 150 to 180, but staff members were
unsure whether it was owing to a seasonal trend or the floating
collection.

Setting materials adrift

Staff worry about the natural drift that occurs in a collection when
materials have no home base. They fear a need to shift material
endlessly on the shelves to adjust the fit. The reality is that
redistributing material becomes a normal and easily manageable part of
collection maintenance.
Different libraries have developed different methods to handle the
process. Most rely on simple, direct communication among staff. At JCPL,
the head of circulation in one library will email the circ units at all
the libraries, asking for a response if a library has room in a specific
Dewey range. Once the response is received, staff pull material from the
overcrowded area and ship it off.
If too many copies accumulate at a branch at Gwinnett, staff simply toss
them into bins for delivery to other locations. When there is a
noticeable shift in demographics, the branch managers work with
materials management to correct the quantities ordered and/or the
initial distribution.
HCL has developed a semiautomated method that identifies surplus and
deficit collections based on system-supplied shelf counts. The float
manager software directs staff in designated libraries to pull a
specific number of materials and route them to specific libraries-based
on item count, not content. HCL's Friedrich comments that "on any given
day, there are just a handful of libraries requested to either pull and
send material or receive material."

Sailing a new kind of ship

During the conversion to a floating collection, staff members fret that
they will lose their close, personal knowledge of the collection and
that the collection will no longer reflect the community's interests and
needs. In practice, staff gain a deeper, more global knowledge of the
collection and have the opportunity to learn more about a community's
interests. Trends that might remain unnoticed by staff dealing with
questions at the service desks are revealed through the holds activity
of patrons who never ask a question.
Developing collection management practices that work within a floating
environment is essential. A library with a history of centralized
collection management may find the transition to a floating collection
easier than a library like JCPL, where the management of the collection
was decentralized.
To cope, we developed new procedures for everything from the allocation
of the materials budget to the types of specialized labels children's
librarians place on books. The system started allocating the materials
budget by category and material type rather than by individual library.
Acquisitions staff piloted formula-based distribution, using the number
of copies and the size of the library to develop the formula. Cataloging
staff instituted a procedure to pull older editions of reference
materials when new editions arrived. And a training program was
developed and delivered on effective weeding techniques for a floating
collection. In essence, the library moved to a form of centralized
collection management.
Floating collections might not be the solution for every library. But
for those that can use it, the practice has exciting potential.
Libraries that have implemented it tell the tale-with greatly improved
access and service to patrons while holding that precious line on rising
costs.
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By Ann Cress
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