10/09/2007 by Max Marbut Staff Writer Thousands of people each day visit the 21 branches of the Jacksonville Public Library (JPL) system and check out books, CDs, DVDs or audio tapes. That’s a pretty simple procedure, but the process behind the scenes to keep all those materials available at all the locations is actually quite involved, especially considering there are more than 3 million individual items currently in the system. It all begins at the University Park Support Services Center on University Boulevard North. As part of the Better Jacksonville Plan, half of a former KMart store was converted into a neighborhood branch library and the other half into a modern distribution center to receive inventory and prepare it for distribution. “We were able to get rid of an eyesore,” said Assistant Director for Support Services Chuck McMorran of the building that was empty and deteriorating when the JPL took over the property. “It was a win-win situation because we were able to give the neighborhood a branch library and we got a great distribution center.”McMorran said it was a natural fit because since the building was originally a high-volume retail store its location and existing design was perfect for processing the JPL’s “merchandise.” Performing inventory processing at University Park yielded some immediate benefits in terms of getting materials to the branches faster by making the process more efficient. Before the operation was moved, processing of newly-arriving materials was conducted at the Haydon Burns Library Downtown and it took 21 days from the time it came off the truck from the vendor to get a book to a branch. Now the 9-step process takes less than six days and the goal is to reduce that time to four days or less. The center’s 27 employees process an average of 15,000 copies of 5,000 different titles each month. After it has been labeled, jacketed, cataloged and sent to a branch location, each copy of every title is tracked by computer. Materials that people no longer check out or copies that have become worn are returned to the Support Services Center where they are evaluated. Most are sent to the Friends of the Public Library’s Booktique store at the Main Library or warehoused until they are sold at the organization’s annual book sale. “It’s like a locomotive going down the track. You can’t stop the train,” said McMorran. Some titles, he said, get special treatment. “We had 495 copies of the latest Harry Potter book at the branches within 24 hours after we received them. With titles like that, our goal is to have the books on the shelves at the library and ready to be withdrawn as soon as the title is available for sale at the book stores.” McMorran also said the concept behind the timely processing of materials is to provide the library’s many customers with essentially the same selection and services they would find at a retail book store – minus the cash register – because after all, “You’ve already paid your taxes to have the library.”
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