Hello lis-linkers! Here at Univ of Derby we are looking into the possibility of taking Shelf Ready services from one or more suppliers. We are fairly well informed about how the process works in terms of what actually happens, but have several questions around possible "pros and cons". If any library is willing to share information with me about the following questions it would be much appreciated. I can summarise for the list in due course. My apologies up front for the length of this email!
1) What were the main reasons for you taking shelf ready services? Eg unmanageable backlogs of cataloguing and/or classification; insufficient staff for these tasks; pressure from within own organisations; complaints from students or staff about slowness of getting books onto shelves; etc etc I'm sure there must be other reasons I haven't thought of.
2) Before starting to use shelf ready, who within your library teams did most of the classification? Subject-based librarians with no responsibility for cataloguing? Cataloguers with some subject responsibilities? Other models?
3) At Derby we have several editions of Dewey in use depending on the area of stock and the site in question. So having everything supplied with Dewey 22 class numbers could cause our users problems if we ended up with books on the same or similar subjects shelved at different numbers. Has this sort of thing been a problem for anyone and if so what policy was adopted? Also, for any libraries using a subject index (as distinct from Library of Congress Subject Headings), has shelf ready impacted on it?
4) What have been the main advantages and disadvantages of shelf ready services?
5) What LMS are you using? We are a Talis library but I'm interested in hearing from anyone willing to respond!
Many thanks in advance
Valerie Wilkins
Academic Resources Manager
Learning Centre
University of Derby
Kedleston Road
DE22 1GB
Phone: 01332 591283
Fax: 01332 597773
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