Our 3rd largest branch library recently moved to a temporary location while the original building was refurbished, lift out in and generally DDAed. The temporary location is smaller thus they couldn’t fit all the stock on the shelves, so in highly scientific fashion whichever box they unpacked first went on the shelves, none of this we need some 641s as they get borrowed, if there were no 641s in the boxes they opened there were no 641s put on the shelves.
"What do we do with the stuff which we haven’t room for?" They inevitably asked.
I advised that they transfer them to one of our redundant locations so it wouldn’t show on the catalogue, and then store it somewhere.
This apparently involved too much effort, so they decided without consultation with anyone that they would distribute it around other branches in the group AND withdraw stock to make room for it.
The slight flaw in this solution seems to have escaped them, as now it is coming time to move back they have realised they haven’t enough stock to fill the shelves, that they can’t empty the shelves of the branches they sent the stuff to as the items they unnecessarily withdrew aren’t available to go back, and they haven’t a cue what the stock gaps are, the ones they caused by being so unscientific about what they unpacked in the first place.
Apparently, and this is the best bit, they have now decided it is someone else’s problem to sort.
2 comments:
What a (totally preventable) mess. A recipe for disaster.....I can't imagine how this haphazard plan received approval.
Lavinia,
The word 'plan' is the killer.
'Plan' is to 'Librarian' like 'Fish' is to 'Bicycle'
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