Vol. 35, No. 1
March, 2005

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
ABOUT YOUR LIBRARY SERVICE

As you know, the Library purchased and installed a new software system in November, 2004. The change-over process was especially challenging for the mail room staff since they had to process returning books that were checked out under the two different systems, and they had a tremendous number of returns due to our sending out extra books before the new system was installed.

The large volume of returns also meant that there was a larger than normal number of books that had to go to the repair area. Some books come back to us with tapes that have failed, and those of course go to the repair area until replacement tapes can be made. But more than half the books that are put in the repair area are books that come back to us with missing tapes, the wrong tapes or no tapes at all. Of course none of these books are available to other readers until all these problems are sorted out, a process that takes an enormous amount of staff time. You can help by opening only one container at a time so there’s no chance that the tapes from two books will be mixed up.

Mailroom staff also spends a tremendous amount of time rewinding cassettes and would very much appreciate your rewinding your cassettes before you send them back. If you’ve read all four sides of a cassette then no rewinding is needed, but a book usually does not end neatly at the very end of a side so the last cassette tape in the book is the one you need to rewind. Just put the tape into your player with the first side up and press the rewind button. The goal is to have all the tape on the left side when the first side of the tape is facing toward you before you send the books back to us.

As you may have noticed, the mailing card for KLAS, our new system, has two bar codes on the patron side of the label, one for the patron’s address and one that identifies the book and links a particular copy to a certain patron. It is very important that the labels remain in the book they came on and are not moved from one book to another. It is also very important that you not write or mark on the bar codes on the side of the label that has your name and address. We use one of the bar codes to check the books back in and the scanner must be able to read that barcode.