Dear Rob,
My work (at PLR and at Loughborough) has given me the opportunity over the
past twenty years to visit many public libraries both large and small - but
on an informal basis, and with a particular interest in bookstock
provision.
In about 10 per cent of cases the practice of date stamping had been
discontinued, and the lack of an easy obvious record of issues was usually
felt to be a definite handicap in assessing practical stock performance and
making decisions on withdrawing or transferring stock. The book's location
and transfer history needs to be apparent also. In conversations with
staff I can remember few instances where they approved what had happened.
In theory the data is all on the computer for reference: in practice it is
so time consuming to get at that it is often ignored. My conclusion is
that well managed libraries make good use of date stamp information for
stock control. It will be interesting to see whether or not this
represents a consensus.
How important it is to the borrower is a different question on which I have
no evidence or view.
Best wishes,
John Sumsion
>In Lincolnshire, our Group Management Team have been having a fascintating
>discussion on the merits or otherwise of date stamping books. Is it
>necessary? Does it cause bad public relations if we don't do it?
>
>Has anyone abandoned it, and if so have you found it problematic?
>
>Rob McInroy
>Operations Manager
>Library Support Services
>Lincolnshire County Council
>Brayford House
>Lucy Tower Street
>LINCOLN
>LN1 1YL
>
>tel 01522 552851
>[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
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John Sumsion - Senior Fellow, Department of Information Science, Medway
Building, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics. LE11 3TU, (UK).
Tel +44 (0) 1509 228052. Fax: 223053.
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