Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam

I recently joined the OBA, Amsterdam's Public Library. Join
really is the operative word here, because while access to the building is open to everyone, circulation privileges are only given to those who purchase an annual membership. This is pretty typical for European libraries.

While the cost is certainly reasonable (27 Euro which is about$36). Not a huge sum, but after I joined I realized my branch has about 10 English language books for preschoolers, which is the primary reason I joined. However, they do have a reasonable DVD collection which can be charged out for a modest 1 Euro per title, and most DVDs offer soundtracks in multiple languages, or at the very least (for adults anyway) subtitles.

One of the self-check machines, the only option for checking out or returning material

My local branch reminds me a lot of a branch of NYPL, mainly because it's in the same type of 1930's civic building. What is different is how automated the branch--and presumably the system--really is. There is no circulation desk. The lobby includes two service desks: one to generally assist with holds, internet log-ins, directional questions, etc. and the other to assist with memberships. Reference desks are elsewhere. In the lobby not only are there 2

self-check machines, there is also a self-service machine for paying fines an fees. Users are responsible not only for checking out their own materials, but also for checking them in! This has been challenging for me because the self checks are in Dutch (the payment machine offers an English option).

The payment kiosk, which allows you to put credit on your library account. This is useful not just for fines, but for utilizing library services for which there is a fee

My main disappointment with OBE is that their catalog does not allow limiting by language. I wish I could search generally for children's books and then limit to English, the way that our

Primo installation allows, since their discovery tool allows me to place requests for books from other branches (and I understand the main library has a much more extensive English language collection).

It will take a little time for me to decide if my library membership is worth it. Some time, a few more check-outs and a visit to the main library, which I think has a larger collection in English (as well as bilingual story hour). But, to learn about a foreign library first hand I suppose $36 is a small price to pay.

Thanks to RFID tags in all the books, these gates sound if a user attempts to leave the building with an improperly charged out book.

Note: While refining this blog post and I was able to figure out the language limit in OBE's catalog! If you select the AquaBrowser link from the English language home page, the catalog options allow a language limit. Now I have to go back and tell the librarians about this, but first I'm off to place several requests...

A few Random Thoughts from Vacation

Yes, it's my first day of "vacation." I'm taking off a few days to move, and as it turns out, today isn't one of them. I came into the office this morning to tie up a few loose ends and make sure I didn't return to my usual disaster-area of a desk. Here it is the early afternoon, and I still have 2 things on my to do list.

I'm glad I was here, though, because Gary just popped his head in my office to ask if it was OK to waive $250 in fines. The user's mother got in touch with us to take care of these fines. The user is on a medical leave from school. I'm assuming the mom didn't show a doctor's note, which is why Gary ran this by me. What I loved about this was that Gary said, "I have no reason not to believe her." Right on, Gary. Waive those fines!

On a sad note, yesterday Moxa closed. The business was subject to a large rent increase and although Dave and Georgia tried to negotiate with the landlord, it didn't work out. They decided it wouldn't make business sense to stay in that location. They are looking for another location in the neighborhood, but until they find one, I'll need to find a new coffee place. Someplace with good decaf (usually it's cold in this city) that gives a discount for reusable mugs. You all are the coffee shop experts now. Any suggestions?

Who made my day?

Posted on Twitter:

"I cut your late fines in half because you like Down." - guy working at NYU @bobstlibrary. Where academia and metal meet, there is love!"

I LOVE this tweet for a several reasons.

First of all, the library administration--from supervisors clear up through the Dean--encourages staff to waive up to $50 in fines just to make someone's day. Even if there isn't a compelling reason. I feel that this particular freedom is underutilized by circ staff as a tool for creating good will, so I'm glad to see that it was used, very successfully used, in this instance.

I also love that it got out there on Twitter, creating a ripple effect of good will. This patron has 166 followers who all know that not only is Bobst understanding about fines, we're cool! (OK, as an old fart librarian maybe I shouldn't be so quick to claim coolness,, but the person who waived these fines is definitely cool, and that person represents the library. There's some "coolness by extension" there.)

Lastly, I love this tweet because my boss monitors what people tweet about Bobst, so it makes me look pretty good in my superior's eyes.

Who was this "guy working @ NYU bobstlibrary?" who made my day? It was Wes Wambold. Well done Wes. Thanks for making this patron's day and my day.

What Puts the I in ILS?

Kimberly here, thinking about what I have started to call "The Aleph Thanksgiving Debacle of 2009."

By now the story is old hat: we experienced a catastrophic systems failure for the two weeks following Thanksgiving because of some planned work to the university's cogeneration plant (the digging over by Courant). We receive heating and cooling from that plant, and they had to take our cooling offline for some reason. While the work was planned, it was started several hours earlier than agreed to, and somehow we weren't given the auxiliary cooling units we needed for our server room. By the time we were alerted that something was wrong, temperatures in our server room had risen to dangerous levels. Long story short: Aleph quite literally cooked. The situation was complicated by one day of "up time" on Friday, December 4th, for which all transactions were lost. (Note: The image at left was pulled off of another blog, and isn't an actual pic of what happened over Thanksgiving!)

This recent downtime got me thinking about the ways we use Aleph. The generic term for a system like Aleph is an integrated library system, or ILS. Integrated because it consists of several modules that all talk to each other. While GEAC was also an ILS, we use Aleph in a much more "integrated" way.

Not only does the library perform the expected functions on Aleph (cataloging, reserves processing, circulation, etc.) but we are using the system in new ways: LP relies on Aleph to check that users are in good standing before they are issued a carrel or locker. Stacks retrieves material for both Reserves and ILL, and not knowing if books were offsite or here at Bobst wasted a lot of their time. While ILL could still place and fill requests, they had to devise alternate workflows for tracking their checkouts. Circulation used the excellent offline circulation module that Aleph offers, but could only perform a fraction of their services. Reserves switched to a totally manual method of circulation, which, although it worked beautifully, was reminiscent of my trips to the Norwell Public Library as a child in the early '70s.

Midway through this downtime, I actually started to think that the fact that this systems failure brought operations to a crawl was...actually GOOD. Good? Really? Sure, it was a ton of extra work for much less than usual productivity and service. Sure, it took it's toll on everyone. Sure, some departments are likely to have clean-up through the better part of next semester.

Call me crazy, but I can't help think about the up time. In the grand scheme of things, even with a failure of this magnitude, Aleph is up 99% of the time. While no system is perfect and we are more than aware of Aleph's quirks, it does do some things well, too. During the up-time we are using the system to its fullest to provide excellent service to our users. We have embraced what it has to offer in a way that is exponentially richer than our use of previous systems. I think that's pretty terrific, and only stands to grow as our understanding of the system grows, and the system itself offers more and more useful tools.

On Tuesday Access Services will join our close colleagues from Avery Fisher Center and BLCC to breathe a collective sigh of relief that the system is back up, and that we survived this very poorly timed down time. At that time, you are welcome to call me crazy in person. I won't try to convince you of my opinion on this, because I'll be too busy enjoying the celebration.

One Desk? One Department.

On Tuesday our candidate mentioned some future trends for Access Services and suggested that we were considering merging the Circulation and Reference desks here at Bobst. Although I don't disagree with the utility of this, and certainly think it makes sense in some organizations, we have no plans for merging Circ and Reference here at Bobst. She must have been thinking about our plans to merge the Business & Documents Center with the Science Reference Center, or perhaps she was thinking about another library altogether.

I have been spending a lot of time writing the 2008-2009 annual report lately and I'm struck by how much crossover we have between Access Services units. I'm very proud that it is now impossible to list our accomplishments in terms of individual units as so much of what we have done crosses the boundaries of our units. Great examples of this include:

• Stacks now pulls material for both Reserve and ILL
• Eileen has leadership responsibility for 3 Circ, Reserve and LP in the evenings
• Collaborations between Stacks and Offsite Prep, (setting priorities and reballancing)
• Quick Check machines, which were investigated by Pat, implemented by Sydney and operationalized by Eric.
• LP uses circulation data to determine patron eligibility for lockers and carrels
  

Over the past 5 years we have worked really hard to unify Access Services and this year's annual report is the first opportunity I have had to pause and notice how far we have come. Together we share our successes and together we learn from our mistakes.

So, while we aren't planning to merge Circ and Reference any time soon, we have successfully merged Circ, Reserves, ILL, LP, Stacks and Offsite Prep into an interrelated group of units collectively known as Access Services.