Circulation Workflow Best Practices

A special thanks to my former colleagues, Nick Tepe and Michelle Jackson, over at Columbus Metro Library for hosting us for a visit today. They walked us through their materials handling related to circulation workflow. The changes that have been implemented in the last year to eighteen months are quite amazing.

I can remember walking the staff hallways of CML's Main Library a few years ago being surrounded in blue transportation boxes filled with items requiring check-in. Today ... through performance standards, careful metric-based analysis and some big workflow changes, they are getting materials back on the shelf within 24 hours of return to the library. In fact the numbers are closer to 3-8 hours depending on the branch. This, of course, means that the materials are more available to customer and not hiding in back rooms or transportation boxes out of circulation for days and days.

The biggest changes are related to 1) floating collections between the branches (in other words the item stays where it was returned and is not returned to a "home" location), 2) sorting items directly onto carts after check-in eliminating the extra touches to an item, and 2) stand-up check-in stations that provide all the tools needed in item handling. (Should have brought my camera along to snap a few pictures of these.)

Kudos to Nick and the entire team at CML for implementing big changes for big results.