Behind the scenes in the Circulation Department
Observations by Tony Wieczorek, Cataloging Librarian

I knew someone who once had an opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes world of Disneyland. From what I’m told it is an underground maze with miles of tunnels and cables and an army of support staff unseen by the thousands of people who daily enjoy the park. Yet without their vigilance and efforts the entire world above them of rides, concession stands, booths and shows would not be able to function.

A similar “underground world” exists right here in the library. The thousands of people who yearly visit the library and checkout books, DVDs, videos and tapes are largely unaware of the vigilance and efforts of many behind-the-scenes people whose work allows the library to function.

When you return your borrowed item to the library you drop it into a narrow chute and it disappears from sight. But did you know that it falls into the waiting hands of small, gnome-like creatures with large catchers mitts? Well, sort of but not really.

On average, about 3,500 items go in and out of the library in a single day. When an item is returned it is checked in to first determine whether it belongs to APL or to another member OWLS library. Those belonging to other libraries are set aside for return to them. When an APL item is checked in it is also checked out for damage. Those needing repair are set-aside for that purpose and the rest go to holding shelves where they are sorted by call number or genre (fiction, mystery, romance) and then placed on carts so they can be returned to the shelves. In June 937 carts were “built” and shelved. Returning items to the shelves is a constant process that begins about 8:00 AM and continues until the library closes each and every day we are open.

One can better appreciate what a daunting task keeping up with returned items can be by using a specific example. On July 8th over 8,000 items were checked out of the library. A good deal of work for the circulation desk indeed. There were twelve items checked out every minute we were open that day. However, consider the workload on those who had to deal with the more than 10,000 items returned – just in that one day! Each of those had to be checked in, inspected, sorted, and finally shelved. And the next day there were more materials in book drops waiting for return to the shelves. It’s easy to see why pages, page clerks, and clerks are busy throughout the day returning books to their respective places.

But some items never made it back to the shelves at all. Sometimes people have already placed a hold or reserve on returning items. The opportunity to reserve something is a well-used tool of our library patrons. In June alone over 6,000 items were sent from Appleton to other OWLS libraries and almost 8,000 holds were filled for Appleton patrons. When an item is checked in a special message appears if someone has reserved it. The item is then “trapped” and the next person notified.

It’s a simple process to place a reserve on an item but when someone does it sets into motion another unseen part of our library machine. In each case the reserve request has to be processed and, in many cases, searched for before notification messages can to be sent out either by email or land mail.

We can see how hard the people who staff the circulation desk work and how important they are to smooth operation of the library but they only one part of a larger machine that operates behind the scenes. Nor have I mentioned all the roles and duties of the Circulation Department. Other tasks like handling overdue items are also within their domain. But I hope that the next time you look for something that is not where its supposed to be you will think about all the people in the “underground world” working hard to sort and shelve so items can be made available.

There is a lot that goes into a library’s smooth and efficient operation. I’ve touched on one element here that we don’t often see but the fact that books and tapes and discs are borrowed at all presumes they have been ordered, received, and prepped for loaning. But that’s another story for another time.