Where is everybody?

What are you doing this summer? We've been busy LTing as much of our library as possible. It has made such a big difference. I feel as if we are more in controll and can keep track of what we have. I've been doing bibliographies for the different Bible studies and Sunday School classes using my tags. Circulation has really picked up. What are you all up to?

We are still in the process of entering our library on librarything. It is a long-term project. We are a Regional Meeting (of Quakers) in Australia. In the US that would translate to Quarterly Meeting. This year we are beginning a circulating library project. We will box up four or five collections of books that will be shipped to our remote meetings. They will keep them for about four months, then pass them on to another meeting. This was the idea of a woman who attended a "one-teacher school" when she was a child and remembered looking forward to the box of books that arrived every term to supplement the school's library.

Are you putting all the collections on LT? If so how will this facilitate your task? How large a shipment will each one be and who will handle it when it arrives? How many items will you be handling in all when you finish entering the library? I can imagine the delight your people will feel when the project actually happens and those books arrive. Keep me posted!

We have about 1,500 books and a large collection of pamphlets and other materials that I will worry about when I get that far! The shipments will be about 20 books, an assortment of theology, philosophy, biography, fiction, and issues of social concern. We even have VHS and DVDs that we can toss in. The collections will be numbered and itemized. Each box will include a "check-out register" to help the meeting keep track of who has a book at any particular time. The books will be listed as "checked out" from the main library. Instead of a person's name, we will show it checked out to a specific collection. Each meeting has a "Correspondent." The Correspondent will most likely be our contact, but the meeting is free to appoint anyone they choose. We'll be making a new set of collections each year. I'll let you know what kind of feedback we get.

I'm new to the group, but I thought to introduce myself. We've a church library of a couple thousand books (I think) that I'll be cataloging and putting online in the fall. Part of the project will be weeding the collection, and advertising that it exists!

Nice worK WORM, I'm sure 20 items will be easy to keep track of and they will be returned. Our library is in one place and returns and overdues are a problem. I've just been chasing down books that have been on other people's shelves for the past year. We've decided to have people make out membership cards with emails and mobile phone numbers so we can keep in touch.
How large are your regional meetings? How handy are Christian book stores? Who do you turn to for ordering new items? Will your "correspondent" have some training, or will she/he be simply an active reader? I am looking to train additional staff and it's hard to find active readers. Good luck.
Welcome parelle, start that weeding. We've done a bunch of it this summer and put the overflow out for a book grab one Sunday. Gone in a flash! We have to do it often as we receive lots of gifts from departing families and we have to keep our collection down to 4,000 items because of space. Buy one, recycle one.

I was working in the library this afternoon and a woman dropped by and returned two books she's had for ten years. Borrowers sign a "Borrowers Register" each time they borrow a book, and it shows their name, address, phone. We sent out reminders several months ago for the first time since the library was founded in 1990. We do not yet have cards in each book. That's next! The West Australia Regional Meeting is only about 250 people, though Quaker meetings usually have a much larger number of attenders than members, which is hard to keep track of. The largest meeting is New South Wales (Sydney). Perth (Western Australia) is the smallest capital city, so we have the smallest Regional Meeting and the largest land area. The state of Western Australia accounts for 1/3 of Australia's land mass. Most of our purchased books come from Quaker bookstores and publishers. There is a small one in Melbourne, but most of our books come from the British or American online Quaker bookstores. We recently received donations of over 500 books. About 100 will go into the library. The others (mostly new paperbacks) will go into a book sale to benefit Quaker Services Australia, who support community programs in Africa, Asia and Australian Aboriginal communities. No training necessary, I think, for someone to just keep track of who borrows books, particularly in such a small quantity.