We quite often get questions from patrons concerning how and why we do certain things in the library. I thought it might be helpful to list a few of those questions, and the explanations, in this week's column.
If Reference books cannot be checked out of the library, why do they have barcodes in them?
This is a very common question. The sight of a barcode does imply that the book should be available to circulate. But Reference books are designed to stay in the library so patrons can always ‘refer' to them. The barcodes are added to the books in order to make inventories easier. Even though the books remain in-house, we still need to track them.
Would you sell me this book? No one has checked it out in years!
We get this request quite often. First, I need to point out that just because a book has not been stamped does not mean that it hasn't circulated. (We sometimes forget to stamp.) Taking this one step further, just because a book does not circulate doesn't mean it isn't used. You would be surprised how many people come to the library, read and do research, and then leave without taking any books with them. So while a book may not circulate, it can certainly be used in-house. We don't sell our books off the shelf, but I would be happy to keep your name, and if the book is ever weeded, I can let you know that it is available.
I took my DVD home, but there was no disc in the case!
This does happen, so let me apologize up front to everyone who has suffered this inconvenience. We no longer keep the discs in the cases on the shelves because they were being stolen on a fairly regular basis. So I decided to move the actual discs into my office, and keep empty cases on the shelves. This has solved the theft issue.
What is the system for shelving West Virginia books?
Books that are either about West Virginia, or Appalachia in general, and/or books that are written by West Virginia authors, all have a small spine label on them that looks like a blue quilt square. We thought it would be helpful to indicate a West Virginia connection this way. If the book is fiction, we just shelve it with the other fiction titles. But if the book is non-fiction, we have a special section for them. I think it makes it easier to do local research if you don't have to go through our entire non-fiction collection.
If I missed a burning question that you have about the library and our procedures, please let me know. I'd be happy to answer more questions. But no advice about love or taxes, please.