Vol. 36, No. 2
June 2006

IMPROVING YOUR SERVICE

There are several things that you can do to help make books available as quickly as possible to you and all of our patrons.  Because our mailroom staff spends hours every day rewinding tapes, it would be very helpful if everyone rewound their tapes before sending them back.  If you have listened through all four sides of a cassette, then the tape is already perfectly rewound.  The tape that contains the end of the book is the one that should be rewound.  After you’ve finished the story, simply place the last tape in the player with the first side up and push the rewind key.  Having tapes rewound speeds up the inspection process and allows more books to be available to go out the next day.

Also, please be sure that the correct tapes are in the container before returning the book.  During March, a typical month, more than 200 books had to be taken out of circulation because they were returned without all the tapes or with the wrong tapes inside.  It helps to open only one book at a time and to finish that book before opening another container. 

If a book contains a bad tape you may call the library for a replacement, or mark two ‘X’s” on the side of the label with the Library’s address.  One “X” alerts us that there is something wrong with the book and two “X’s” tells us that you would like that same book again.  Please put a rubber band or string around the defective tape so we can identify it.

If your tape is running too fast and sounds like Donald Duck, check to be sure that your speed selector switch is still set at 15/16.  The speed selector switch is directly above the side selector switch.  Another trick is to take the tape out and tap it firmly on a hard surface, which quite often will solve the problem.  Remember that you can always call us for help and quite often we can talk you through various problems on the phone.