D.H. Hill Library staff spends about $500 replacing 10 lost books each month, but hundreds more are misplaced, incorrectly shelved or lost over the course of each semester.
Between replacing older sources and adding new ones, coupled with thousands of books moving around campus each day, NCSU Libraries is unable to maintain a perfect online account of every book checked out.
Chris Tonelli, director of communication strategy, headed a group of the NCSU Libraries’ staff to address and publicize the common issues involved in maintaining the libraries’ catalog, focusing on D.H. Hill Library.
“At the D.H. Hill Library, there are 1.3 million physical volumes on open inventory shelving or open stacks,” Tonelli said. “Because of the open nature of the shelving that involves thousands of users interacting with this inventory of 1.3 million items daily, it happens from time to time that books represented in the catalog are not in the proper places in the stacks.”
Tonelli illustrated that thousands of people that peruse the library stacks for learning material or reference every day. People who use print sources without checking them out may accidentally misplace them, making it difficult for other users to use the library’s sources fully, according to Tonelli.
“Some studies indicate that an average user will find a book 80 percent of the time when it is located in open shelving,” Tonelli said. “This is most likely due to mis-shelving by users of the books or the book being used within the building, checked out, recently returned or the user is unfamiliar with call numbers and how they are shelved in the stacks. Each item is scanned whenever it is removed from and returned to the system, maximizing the available storage space and allowing the libraries’ online catalog to track the location of all materials at all times.”
Since many students and faculty have strict research deadlines, D.H. Hill Library is obligated to keep books available outside of checkout times. Librarians maximize book availability by purchasing additional copies of high demand books and by maintaining older scholarly sources, according to Hilary Davis, the head of collections and research strategy.
The library’s primary means of regulating book availability is by demanding library fines. Late fees vary depending on a book’s availability and popularity, and students and faculty that do not return borrowed materials after 60 days can end up paying $100 or more in replacement fees, according to the NCSU Libraries’ website.
Aside from demanding fines from students and faculty for not returning a book on time, there are additional protocols in place to help library staff to replace missing books. To replace a missing book, the library must first verify that a book is missing using identifying information tied to each book: property stamps, barcodes and a Library of Congress call number.
“When we discover that a book is missing, we immediately initiate a detailed workflow to search for the book,” Tonelli said. “Users can initiate this workflow by informing library staff that a book they thought was available is not on the shelf. Our staff will do an immediate search for the book, checking our system for when it was last returned and confirming that it should be on the shelf. We are often able to locate the item on this initial search, which covers all library locations, including our three branches, which also have open stacks.”
When books do not appear in any of NC State’s libraries or are unreturned for more than 60 days, librarians must take more concerted measures.
“If we cannot locate the book, we change its status in our inventory system to ‘Missing’ and assist the user in requesting the book from another library through our Tripsaver service, so that we can quickly get the necessary information to the faculty, staff member or student who needs it,” Tonelli said. “We then begin a series of searches over 30, 60 and 90 days. If a book ultimately cannot be located, we will purchase a replacement copy as needed.”
The Tripsaver service allows NC State to borrow books from other public universities and NC State library branches, including books held in the BookBot. Many students are unsure of how to use the Tripsaver service or use other libraries.
“They don’t have a lot of poetry collections, and I wasn’t really sure how to request books from other libraries in the Research Triangle,” said Simone Tucker, a freshman studying political science.
To learn more about Tripsaver, the NCSU Library system, collection procedures or NCSU borrowing policy, consult the library help desk or the NCSU Libraries’ website.
