1.
State-of-the-Art Solutions &
Future of Delivery
Lori Bowen Ayre
Discovery to Delivery: Rethinking
Resource Sharing
June 28, 2013

2.
Characteristics of a Good Library
Delivery System
1. Reduces need for physical delivery
– finds a local copy
– offers digital surrogates
2. Selects the “cheapest” copy that meets the
patrons request
– cheaper in terms of cost of transport
– cheaper in terms of cost of fulfillment (pick the right copy to
request, scan on demand, purchase on demand, ILL)
3. Easy to discover, request and track progress
4. Gets into patrons hands within
necessary/expected window of time
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

3.
STATE OF THE ART SOLUTIONS

4.
Purchase Instead of Borrow
• Purchase on Demand
– Generally part of the ILL workflow
– Items to be purchased must meet certain selection
criteria
– May ship to patron or library first
• Zip Books at Shasta County Public Library
– Generous selection criteria
– Items shipped (or downloaded) directly to the
requesting patron and processed after return
• Support patrons buying item for themselves
– Worldcat and probably others

5.
Holds Targeting in Evergreen
• Parameters for managing behavior of holds in
Evergreen
– hard boundaries
– soft boundaries
– stalling
– hold priorities
– time restrictions
– preferred targets
– opportunistic capture
• Other ILSs much more limited
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

6.
Box Trucks and Sprinters
Box trucks with lifts for high
volume routes
• Sized to efficiently fit
stacks of distribution bins
• Easy to load and unload
with hand truck
Sprinters for longer, short-
volume routes
• Fuel efficient
• Less ergonomical than
box truck
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

7.
Sorting Pods
• Sort to pods of
10-20 locations
• Reduce
movement while
sorting
• Use clear labels
• Unload to stacks
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

8.
Put-to-Light Sorting
• Reads barcode, RFID tag or label to determine
destination
• ILS look-up for destination (SIP or RFID tag)
• Light indicates tote
• Benefits:
– Improves accuracy
– Make is easy to do more granular sorting
– Cheaper than AMH system
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

9.
Put-to-Light to Accumulate Items
Before Placing in Tote
• Allows
person
sorting to
stay in one
area for
sorting
• Place stack
in tote
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

10.
Automated Sorting
• Staff induct items
onto sorter
– 1200 items per hour
• ILS reads barcode or
RFID tag
• Sorter drops item
into appropriate tote
• This sorter can sort to
half totes for media
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

11.
King County Library System Service Center
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

12.
Other Good Practices
• Unambiguous codes for labels
• No packaging and rubberbands
• No labels!
• No sorting on trucks
• Limited presorting (to 1-2 locations max)
• Delivery systems that work for the library (not
vice versa)
• Accurate delivery windows
• Distribution bins for totes (lids, collapsible,
nestable, 9x12x15, max weight 50# loaded)
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

13.
Signs of Trouble
• Damaged or missing material
• Missed deliveries or deliveries outside of
delivery window
• Courier leaves ready-to-go items behind
• Too many items delivered at once
• Unnecessary movement of items
• Items sorted to or delivered to wrong location
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

14.
PROJECTIONS

15.
All Signs Point to Reduced Delivery
Volume
• Big bump from patron-initiated requesting is
over
• Digital options increasing and increasingly
popular

16.
Delivery Services Will Become More
Efficient
• Improvements in Hardware
– RFID
– Digitization
– Automation
• Improvements in software
– Discovery
– Requesting
– Management of Holds and Delivery
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

17.
Faster Retrieval of Items to Fill Holds
Due to RFID
• RFID makes it more likely that items
are where the catalog says they are
– Libraries using RFID are more likely to
do inventory
– RFID makes it easier to find misshelved
items
– fewer items walk out the door
undetected
• ILSs providing better pull lists
– Contain all the necessary information
– Sorted in an order to optimizes pulling
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

18.
Print on Demand
How Patrons Get a Book
Today
• Self-Service Holds Pick-up
• Kiosks / Vending Machines
• Storage lockers
• Purchase on Demand
Print on Demand
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

19.
Scan on Demand
DRM Formats
• Mobipocket (Kindle)
• ePub (Adobe Content
Server)
• PDF (Adobe Content
Server)
• eReader (older Barnes
& Noble format)
• LIT (Microsoft) Scan on Demand
DRM-free
• Smashwords
• PDF
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

20.
Batch Check-in
• How tote-level batch check-in
works
– Sending library records scans tote
barcode and then each item it
places inside
– Items inside the tote are
associated with the tote’s
barcode number
– Receiving library scans the tote’s
barcode number to check-in all
items inside
– Exceptions are identified (e.g.
items that trigger a new hold)
• Does NOT require automated
sorting (but its easier that way)
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

21.
Delivery Check-in with RFID Gates
• Rather than reading the barcode on the tote,
read all the RFID tags on books inside the tote
• Depends on advancements in RFID technology
or transition from HF to UHF tags in libraries
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

22.
Home Delivery
“The United States Postal Service (USPS) may invite
some public libraries to double as post offices,
Susan Hildreth, Director of the Institute of Museum
and Library Services, said on August 1.”
Home Delivery for Requested Items
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

23.
Automated Storage and Retrieval
Systems
• High density (HD)
repositories common
in academic libraries
• HD systems can store
1.5-2 million items in
same space as only
100,000 volumes could
be stored on public
shelves and its cheaper
• Add AS/RS and access to selected items takes 5
minutes
• As library spaces support more activities, AS/RS
systems will make more sense
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

24.
Real-time Tracking of Items
GPS Maps Web Real-time tracking
of library items
during transport
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013

25.
ILS Adds Delivery Manager Module
LibraryILS version 4.1 was released Spring 2014 and
has a lot of really exciting new features. Here are
some of the highlights:
• A completely updated user experience
• Sophisticated yet simple unified searching
capabilities
• Ability to deliver select DPLA, HathiTrust, and
InternetArchive content to your users
• Integrated interlibrary delivery management
system
Lori Bowen Ayre –Discovery to Delivery Preconference ALA Annual Conference, Chicago 2013