Slight change, big problem

Isn't it interesting how quickly we get set in our ways. For example, the Sacramento Public Library has changed the printout and picking criteria for those of us who volunteer to pull books off the shelf which people have reserved. The change is minor and actually saves us a little time every once in a while. But from some of the comments, you'd think we had been asked to pick the books while we're naked.

The process used to be like this: We'd look at our Pick List for the next book, CD, or periodical that had been requested. Using the Dewey Decimal System call numbers for non-fiction and the author's name for all other material, we'd narrow our search to where the material should be. We'd then look for the title listed, pull out a book with that title, and compare the last four digits of the book's barcode with the barcode listed on our Pick List. That last comparison is surprisingly important to the pickers. It validates that we have the "right" book, the exact, the only book with that barcode. Sometimes everything else is correct (author, title, published date, etc.) but the bar code doesn't match. Usually, in those cases we'd put the book back and look for the "right" one. If we were pretty sure the books would be the same we'd not "substitute" on our list and pull the "wrong" book.

The change made by the library was to give us our Pick List with no barcodes. Everything else is there but the barcodes. The pickers first reaction was panic - "How will we ever know we've got the RIGHT book?" The next was anger - "How could they do this to us?" And the last was passive aggression - "Well, I'll do my job but I can't be responsible for pulling the wrong books."

It WAS weird pulling a book by its title and then not checking it against the barcode. More than once I wondered if I had the right book although in almost all cases I saved time by not having to check that I had the RIGHT book. And its going to take us a while before we can feel comfortable that we have the right book or other material. There are areas where I think we're still going to have trouble such as close look-likes, unreadable titles (Russian or Persian or Chinese). Sometimes looking by barcode was the quickest way to find a CD.

I'm going to say the jury is still out. We really need to give it a couple of weeks to properly evaluate the effect.