Stripping Books

I am now working in my second department in the Olin Library. I know that there is a need to maintain the safety of the library and the safety of the collection. However, I see many problems with the current system of putting hidden metal strips in books and other materials.

First I will examine the negatives from the Circulation side of things.

1)It is offensive to most library patrons when the doors sound with those annoying alarms. Regardless of the reason it is really a bad experience when you are leaving the library and the door buzzes at you. (It has happened to me on many occasions.)

2)It is almost without fail a false alarm. In my almost two years of working at circulation there was not one time that we actually caught someone steeling books. (many times students just keep going even if we do yell at them. Between yelling at students because the gates went off and yelling at students to go out the exit door we would hypothetically spend a lot of time yelling at students.And we don't want to yell at students!)

3)If it goes off it was usually for one of these many reasons.
a)books from other libraries
b)laptop computer
c)text books
d)large set of metal keys
e)blockbuster movies
d)etc.

4)If you go close to the gates they make this really irritating electronic hum that makes you feel like you are walking through a sonic subfield of some kind. (try walking through the doors with an i-pod)

5)Enforcing the policy is not consistent with "the friendly no hassles library"

6)having to desensitize books and other materials slows down the check-out process and is not always done properly.

7)stripping dvd and vhs cases is expensive, time consuming. Besides cases for DVD use is a waste of space.

Now I will examine the negatives from the technical services point of view.

1)Boxes of metal strips are one more expense. They are not cheap!

2)Adding metal strips can be harmful to books and other materials. I ripped the paper spine of a brand new book while trying to insert the metal strips. (the talented donna gray had to mend it for me) The process stretches the spine, or tears the pages and is not done in book stores where items are sold. (Being that are items are available for free checkout is a pretty good theft deterent)

3)Putting in the metal strips adds a lot of time to process of getting new books to the shelves ready for checkout. This process is tedious and time consuming. (It usually takes over three months from the time a books is ordered to the time it gets to the shelf) That would not cut it in the cooperate world.


I know that we need to keep our wonderful collection secure and I am not so bold as to say we should turn the gates off and stop stripping books I was just thinking that there might be a better and more cost effective way.

TR