Replying to Posts

At today's meeting, the reference managers agreed that someone from each branch should respond to each post. That way, people looking to add/get rid of materials won't have to follow up with phone calls or emails if there are few or no responses. A simple "Sorry, can't help you" will do, (unless, of course, you can help).

If you're not checking SwapAway every day, you might want to sign up for email notification. If you scroll down, you'll see the FeedBlitz box.

Thanks.

Julie

Names and branches

Just a reminder -- please put your name and branch on all posts and comments. It would also be helpful if you added labels for each post with your branch designation and some indication of the type of material you are swapping. That will help later on as we try to see where the materials are flowing. Thanks!

Julie
Trailview

Bins

Pulled from AskAway:

Totally separate query: Can we ask our "swap-away" people to just put a note stating "SWAP AWAY" on the top of these particular bins of transit. This would really help us circulation staffers out. Thanks in advance.

Of course, this was from Anonymous with no indication of branch. So if it does not make sense to you, I guess you could ask your circ people or tack another comment on AskAway.

Julie

McNaughton's

Leah reminded me of something I had forgotten: McNaughton's should not be swapped/transferred between branches. They should be converted or returned just as they always have been. I know Mary Lou discussed this at some of our branch visits, but I'm not sure it was communicated at all of them. Thanks.

Julie

Requesting materials from other branches

Hello everybody. Mostly I stay on the sidelines, but I'm going to jump in the game to clarify SwapAway's role in balancing the collections. As you know, one of the benefits of a floating collection is that over time, each branch's collection will more closely reflect the tastes and interests of the people who use it. We're letting the patrons decide where materials should go -- and speaking as one of the people who used to make that decision, it is a huge relief!

The key phrase here is "over time". We really have to be patient and let the system work. And everyone has to accept that their library's collection is not going to stay the same. It's going to be more fluid, and some things are going to float away forever and not come back. When that happens, it is a sign that they belong somewhere else, and that's OK.

I'm asking all of you to refrain from using SwapAway to micromanage your collection. If you have too much of something, weed and shift (if you can) before trying to send it somewhere else. If you see an area that's getting thin, wait for a while and see what happens. It might fill up again. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use SwapAway at all. But if you see an area that seems out of balance, watch it for a week or so to see how it changes on its own instead of posting right away. You might find that it takes care of itself. In fact, I would advise you not to ask for materials to be sent to your branch for the time being -- just until we have a better macro-level view of how floating is working.

I understand that this is all kind of loose and open to interpretation. I believe the picture will become clearer as we go along. Please feel free to comment or contact me in some other way.

Julie

Welcome.

It looks like everyone is signed up now. Welcome to SwapAway.

I'll be monitoring the blog, and I'll try to help with any technical difficulties you may experience. Email or call me anytime. If you need to add or change staff who can post to the blog, let me know and I'll take care of that too.

If you sign up for email notification, please be aware that you will receive a single email informing you of the previous day's posts. So it's not exactly instant notification!

Good luck!

Julie

The first post

Hello, I'm the first post. I'm just here so we can see how it looks.