Hello,

Monitoring of shelving turnaround times, as well as shelving
activity, has been a major focus of our shelving team this year and
we have made a number of interesting discoveries.

At the beginning of the year we set performance measures
including a shelving turnaround time of 24 hours, out to 48 hours
during peak times.

Traditionally, Semester 1 (from mid-February to end of June) is the
busier of our two semesters.

We utilise shelving trolleys (800mm shelf length), with two divided
shelves and a flat base.

In Semester 1, we filled the two divided shelves of the trolley,
omitting the flat base shelf, and our shelving surveys (25 trolleys
per week, every second week) gave the following information:

    # of trolleys shelved:      1270
    # of items shelved:         165100 (we averaged 130 items per
    trolley)
    Average time to shelving area (from checkin):       0.73 hours
    Total time elapsed until shelved (average for semester):    5.82
    hours
    Range of elapsed time until shelved:        2.9 hours (in Week 2) to
    10 hours (in Week 12)
    Average time to physically shelve a trolley:        47.82 minutes

In Semester 2 (from 19th July to 219th November), we made a
major change in our shelving setup - we filled the top shelf only!

                             This came about for a number of reasons:

    Occupational health and safety - pushing less heavy loads.

    Ease of access, for both clients and library staff, to trolleys in
    the shelving area but not yet shelved. This meant that if you
    were looking for an item not yet on the shelves, you had only to
    check the top shelf, rather than manoeuvring in and around
    trolleys to view the lower shelf. Saves time and frustration level!

    Psychological impact on shelving staff. The shelving staff found
    that if they had only 15 minutes or so to the end of their shift,
    they were more likely to take a trolley and shelve, rather than
    either leave a half-shelved trolley, or as was more likely to
    happen, find something else to do to fill in the time - shelfread,
    etc.

    Trolleys are loaded and arrive in the shelf area more quickly.

The last two reasons for the change resulted in faster shelving
turnaround times, and more productive time for concentrated, rather
than piecemeal,  shelfreading.

    The figures for Semester 2:
    # of trolleys shelved:      2268 (top shelf only)
    # of items shelved:         148328 (we averaged 65 items per
    trolley, surprisingly)
    Average time to shelving area (from checkin):       0.30 hours
    Total time elapsed until shelved (average for semester):
    2.95 hours
    Range of elapsed time until shelved:        0.94 hours (in Week
    1 to 5.38 hours (in Week 5)
    Average time to physically shelve a trolley:        21.58
    minutes

The shelving team at Griffith University Gold Coast Campus Library
consists of one full-time shelving coordinator and two 25 hour per
week shelvers.

For our "peak" times, I am able to call in casual shelving staff who
might work anywhere between 4 and 12 hours per week in the busy
periods. During Semester 2, I used less of these casual shelving
hours than in Semester 1 - 40 hours less in fact.

The shelving this year has been more efficient than ever before, due
mainly to the efforts of each shelving team member. Both of the
library shelvers were "new" this year and have worked hard, with
the shelving coordinator, at forming a very reliable efficient shelving
team.

Regards,
Trish



==========================================
> Date:         Thu, 2 Dec 1999 18:59:57 -0800
> From:         "McFadden, Molly" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject:      Average shelving times
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> Hello,
> Has anyone out there, preferably in an academic library, have an average
> length of time it takes items to get shelved?  Our Circulation area had
been
> asked how long it took us from checking in the books to getting them
> shelved, so we did a study of how long it took us to shelve the books
(only
> counting hours the library was open).   We also broke down the statistics
by
> Library of Congress call number areas and looked at which sections got
> shelved the quickest. Our average for all items was 10 hours from check-in
> to shelf, with call number sections ranging from 3.5 hours (A) to 27.5
hours
> (U).
>
> Anyway, now that we have done this study, we still do not know if an
average
> of 10 hours from check-in to shelf good or bad, which is why we're
wondering
> how long it takes other libraries to get things shelved.
>
> Molly McFadden
> Circulation Assistant
> Foley Center Library
> Gonzaga University

Trish Barnes
Lending Services Supervisor
Library - INS
Griffith University
Gold Coast Campus
Private Mail Bag 51
Gold Coast Mail Centre  Q 9726
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 7 5594 8817
Fax:  +61 7 5594 8797
Email: [log in to unmask]


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