Maximizing Usability at Pickering Central Library
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Presentation for Ontario Library Association 2008
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Maximizing Usability at Pickering Central Library
- 16. Consumer Trends
- 21. Wayfinding - Bad
- 25. Self Service
- 26. Simplicity
- 27. Lobby Displays
- 28. Promotion
- 29. Directories
- 31. A Sign for Every Bay
- 33. Adding Colour
- 34. Consistency
- 35. Positioning
- 36. What They Want
- 37. Point of Need
- 38. Adding Interest
- 39. Store Shelving
- 41. Creating Spaces
- 42. Flexibility
- 46. Keeping It Fresh
- 47. The Experience
- 48. Easy to Update
- 49. Best of Both Worlds
- 51. Maps
- 52. Lessons Learned
- 53. Right Sign for the Job
- 54. Defining The New Collections
- 65. Legends & Fairy Tales
- 67. Processing & Building The New Collections
- 68. Existing Labels
- 75. PAC Format
- 76. Batch Change: Step 1
- 77. Batch Change: Step 2
- 78. Batch Change: Step 3
- 79. Trapping
Editor's Notes
- Good morning everyone. Before we begin, we would like to share with you a manifesto that has received lots of interest in the Library world. We feel that it captures the philosophy behind our reorganization. It is the Librarians 2.0 Manifesto which we have mashed up with sounds and images and hopefully it will serve to inspire and energize you on a Saturday morning. {Play the manifesto….)
- This program is about how we physically reorganized our Central Library to maximize the use of limited space and to bring the physical organization of the library in line with our service philosophy – a client-led service philosophy that many libraries are adopting. The program will proceed through the topics as listed here. You will have hand-outs to help you follow along and we will post this presentation on the the OLA conference web site. We ask that you hold your questions until the end as we have a lot of ground to cover and any questions might very well be covered by a subsequent speaker.
- Pickering Library system consists of three rural branches which are open limited hours, a 12,000 sq ft community branch, which opened in 2001, and a Central Library, built in 1990. It is the Central Library that we will be focusing on today. The circulation at central is approx 90,000 / month , the traffic is over 35,000/month and the collection size is approx 170,000 items. Its square footage is approx 30,000 square feet. If you apply current space standards to the PPL system in 2006, we are clearly smaller than we should be system-wide and certainly at central library. The City of Pickering has been growing at a rate of 1 or 2% / year for the last 10 years. This slow rate has not allowed for any money for expanding the central branch which has experienced significantly increased use since 1990.
- I would like to draw a picture of the central library library prior to the reorganization: At the beginning of 2006, the 2 nd floor housed the adult fiction collection, including paperbacks, the adult media collection (DVDs, Music, Videos, Audiobooks), the multilingual collections , and the teen collection. The 2 nd floor was significantly smaller than the first floor and also housed an auditorium and the adminstration and technical services offices. An information desk on the 2 nd floor provided readers advisory assistance as well as simple catalogue searches. The first floor housed the children's collection and the adult non-fiction collection (which included separate job career/ and business collections. Two information desks were located on the first floor – childrens and an adult reference desk as were 40 public computing workstations.
- There were many factors which led the Library towards a physical space reorganization. The first factor was Maximizing use of Limited Space. The community was not in a growth mode and hasn’t been for almost a decade. Capital spending on a new building was not possible. Despite this, the use of the library as a community commons for programs, study and computer use as well as new uses such as computer labs and government services was increasing. Another factor was our corporate focus on client service. This focus led us to consider everything we did in terms of whether it met the needs of our clients. With this focus, clearly there were many aspects of the existing organization which did not meet the needs of our clients. For example: Our second floor was more difficult to access for our senior clients and our families with strollers. Yet it was becoming a more popular destination. In addition our popular collections were becoming more of a focus with additional media and our non-fiction collections were becoming smaller (with electronic products) and less used with the internet. It did not make sense to have collections that accounted for an increasing amount of our circulation to be inconveniently located for both clients and staff
- In addition to building and service problems that we were facing with the existing building, there were also opportunities and trends in the library and larger environment that we wanted to take greater advantage of. Our clients were increasingly using self-service options and requesting more. Many libraries were experiencing success with holding storytimes in the open There has been a trend in non-fiction reading and publishing. More book were available, more clients reading in this area. Changes in client service trends made it clear that children’s staff were client service experts – wanted to spread their expertise to all clients.
- Critical Mass refers to the point at which we could move our non-fiction collection to the 2 nd floor. This was achieved with the purchase of multiple Gale Digital Archives, and an extensive weed of the collections along with a plan to include a substantial portion of the non-fiction collection in our popular This along with the problems and opportunities previously identified led us to develop a solution – a bold vision for library service at Pickering
- Training Plan included…. Communication Plan included ….. Communications with the Public will be covered by Amy
- One of the biggest parts of the project plan as the furniture and collection reorganization….. Much of the collection details will be discussed by Paula…. The Project Plan also included a Branding and Wayfaring plan which will be discussed by Amy…..
- Pages & Facilities staff were not included in any big picture communications Change causes great anxiety in staff / management overcompensated by taking on too much themselves Flexibility and dealing with ambiguity are necessary competencies in modern libraries – some staff do not have these competencies Change management skills are necessary skills in library managers
- Since 2002, when we introduced our Entertaining Non-Fiction Collection to our clients, it has become increasingly popular. It started out shelved with the other popular materials on the 2nd floor, but soon outgrew the allotted space. Moved to the end of the non-fiction collection on the main floor, it attracted a whole new audience and added impetus to the discussion of shelf space and the ultimate goal of housing the popular collections all together on the main floor. We had already established 3 popular collections that were separated from the regular non-fiction collection and which became the basis for the new popular non-fiction collection. They were: Biographies, Entertaining Non-Fiction, and Parenting.
- The Biography collection includes full biographies; family biographies; biography collections; autobiographies; memoirs; journals; letters; diaries. It does not include Biographical Reference works and works which include some biographical information, but is more specifically critical works, such as author guides and guides to the works of artists. Specific memoirs covering a brief period or event in the life of the subject are included in the Entertaining Non-Fiction collection.
- The Entertaining Non-Fiction collection was created as a pilot project in 2002 to highlight some of the readable non-fiction gems that were buried in the non-fiction collection. 'Reality reads' are non-fiction stories that have the feel of fiction in their pacing, character development, or writing style. We include stories with an interesting topic or an interesting treatment of a difficult or mundane everyday topic. The stories in this new collection are diverse and include memoirs, historical events and figures, adventure, stories of love, hardship, humour, courage and hope, animal stories, travel stories, coming of age stories, even readable stories of science and technology. They provide an alternative to reading fiction.
- The Parenting Collection brings together materials from various areas of the library that deal with children from birth to teen and that are intended for the parent. It includes material for parents on child rearing, child development, child health Once space had been planned for these collections, we knew that we still had to move more of the non-fiction collection into the Popular designation. Staff had to determine what criteria we would use to select the appropriate collections.
- To the staff, the collections on the popular materials floor had to be: Popular - either popular, meaning high-demand or self-help materials that address the day to day needs of the client Self-serve - clients should easily be able to identify these collections and make their selections without a lot of staff intervention Browseable - once the client has found the collection that they are looking for, or that has attracted them, they should be able to browse the entire collection fairly easily. Serve a specific group of Public Library clients such as Parents, Seniors, Homeowners, etc. These collections should be circulating; clients should be able to check out any item that they find in these popular collections…and… Most of all, items in most of these collections should address the entertainment or leisure needs of our clients. Using these criteria, staff identified several other collections which could be considered popular and decided to add: Home and Garden, Mind and Body, and Travel.
- The Home and Garden collection includes materials in all formats which deal with planning, building, decorating and maintaining a home or a house inside and outside. It is one of the new collections that staff were excited about as it brought together many related collections from diverse areas of the library including… Auto Repair was a last minute addition. We were undecided on this one, it really could fit in either our research collection or our popular non-fiction collection. In the end, even the best-laid plans needed us to be flexible. Space was slightly too tight in the research collection, we had room on the main floor and our decision was made - auto repair joined the Home and Garden collection!
- The Mind and Body Collection includes materials in all formats on self help and self improvement. The Mind section covers advice materials on personal development, relationships, etc. They are mostly from the popular psychology and sociology sections. Materials on meditation are included in this collection. The Body section focuses on healthy living and fitness. Topics include nutrition, exercise, diets, hair and skin care and bodybuilding. Materials on Yoga are included in this collection.
- The Travel Collection contains guides to World travel. Included are books on where to stay, what to do, bed and breakfasts, campsites, rail guides, etc.
- Our existing Adult Fiction Collection consisted of 3 separate collections: hard covers, mass market paperbacks and Graphic Novels. The mass market paperbacks were already organized into genres including mystery, romance, horror, science fiction, fantasy, westerns, and general. Our clients enjoyed this arrangement and expressed interest in having the hardcover fiction collection arranged by genre also. Graphic Novels stand on their own and are labeled separately as 'graphic'.
- Previously, the hardcover collection had been organized in one long collection shelved alphabetically by author surname. Both collections had genre labels. The growing hardcover collection was becoming harder for our clients to browse. As we were moving the collection downstairs anyway, the decision was made to split the hardcovers into genres in addition to having them labelled. By using Horizon to create a list of Fiction at Central, the Fiction Selector, with Technical Services help, reviewed all titles and assigned each to a genre. These were then labeled and 'batched' into their specific genre collection. The process is ongoing for the branches, which will ultimately have the genre/collection labels, but may not be shelved in separate collections.
- The Children's Collection was re-arranged, but was not really divided into new collections. It has had genres for the fiction for a long time and had moved all the Biographies out of the regular non-fiction collection and into a separate collection in 2002. One new 'leisure' non-fiction collection was added: Legends and Fairytales.
- Much like living in a small house, there is no room or extra shelving for placing items while you rearrange existing space or shelving; therefore, collections had to move systematically. As one collection was moved upstairs, one could move downstairs is a simplified way of looking at it. Although the plan was to re-label items and place them in their new location, this was not always a realistic goal and we ended up re-labelling items and then filing them back into the existing non-fiction collection. However, you have to remember that all of the non-fiction shelving on the first floor was not just being emptied, it was being re-oriented, slightly, meaning that whole runs of shelving had to be emptied and had to stay empty until it was moved. Travel was the smallest collection, so it would move first - and stay in its new location. Mind and Body was next in size, followed by Home and Garden. Although we started out labeling the items and then placing them in their new locations, we were soon changing the labels and replacing them back into the existing non-fiction collection until the new shelves were ready.
- Show examples of labels In December 2005 and early 2006, we had to decide what labels to use. Checked suppliers catalogues, but nothing fit the new corporate look, also, suppliers labels change regularly and we did not want to lose control of the design. Once we knew that we had to fit into the PPL branding criteria, it was easy. We decided that the labels had to be visible on the spine and the cover (for outward display) without obscuring too much of either area and they had to be easy for clients and staff to recognize and identify with a specific collection, both for browsing purposes and for ease of shelving. The labels also had to be in the same place on each item. We chose to use existing label stock and coordinated the colour to the sign colour for a particular collection. There are 2 bars of the colour that are centered over the middle numbers on the spine label, then the rest of the label, with the name of the collection written out, wraps onto the front cover of the item. We opted not to use icons or codes but to stick to actual names of collections. In the interst of standardizing labels, we re-designed the Business Collection labels at the same time.
- Items on the shelves had to be identified by the Selectors as belonging to one of the new collections. This was done at the shelves, with a member of Technical Services staff (later a Page) at hand to take the identified items away and label them. Once the items were labeled, it was a fairly quick process to scan them into Horizon using a function called Item Group Editor which allowed us to scan a whole shelf of items (or a whole truck - depending on how trusting the individual was of the system). It was then a simple process to 'batch change' all the items into the new collection. I should also note that, until the reorganization was complete, we had all of the items in the correct collection code in Horizon, but the display for clients still read 'Adult Non-Fiction Collection'. On the final weekend of the move, I simply changed the client display of each new collection to the new description. 'Home and Garden'…. The whole process took about 1 to 2 hours for a full truck, but once we had a process established, the flow of trucks between the shelves, scanners, labelers and reshelving ran very smoothly and quickly. Initially, staff were removing each item from a truck and holding it under a barcode scanner (in Tech Services). We quickly realized that there would soon be an 'epidemic' of Repetitive Strain Injuries, so we decided to use the RFID scanners in the Circulation Department. This reduced the need to lift items up to a barcode scanner as staff could just slide the item along the desk. We also had staff mix up the tasks so that they would scan a row, then label that row, scan the next row, label it, and so on.
- Items On Order in Horizon As our system displays items as soon as they are placed on order, we had to be able to identify items in the new collections so that clients would be able to locate them on arrival and also so that we did not have to process them twice. In order to do this, lists of items on order for the non-fiction collection were provided to the Selectors. They were asked to identify any items belonging in one of the three new collections: Travel, Home and Garden and Mind and Body. Technical Services staff then corrected the collection codes in Horizon so they were processed correctly on receipt. I will also note that we had divided the non-fiction budget into AN and LN (Adult nonfiction and Leisure Nonfiction). Selectors indicated the correct budget and this was also changed so that statistics for collection use would match the allotted funds. Items To be Selected and Ordered Selectors were given the new collection codes and budget codes and asked to use them when identifying items for purchase. In this way, they were consciously adding items to the new popular collections and also ensuring that the items would be processed correctly on receipt. Items Already Signed Out to Clients This was the next largest group and the most labour intensive. Circulation was given broad ranges of call numbers to trap as items were checked in. This list of call numbers grew as Selectors and Technical Services moved through the collections. Selectors had to review the trapped items daily due to space constraints in Circulation, then they had to weed items out or identify them as belonging to one of the new collections or as remaining in non-fiction. Items for the new collections had to go to Tech Services for relabelling and for collection changes in Horizon. These were also done in batches. After the reorganization, this same method was applied to Fiction and to the new Children's collection of Legends and Fairytales. It took approximately 20 minutes to scan a whole truck (3 rows, one side only). Then it took close to an hour to label the same items, covering the label with J-Lar. The items then had to be re-shelved. As we were working within the existing, regular budget, we used regular staff hours and extra Page hours. CAP students were also able to help with scanning and batch changing the collection codes in Horizon. Feedback from clients has been extremely positive. Lesson learned…count shelves, count items, count shelves, count items again and again and always leave more time than you think you will need for moving items.
- At PPL we are committed to the process of making our library service friendly and convenient and meeting the needs of all of our clients. This is pervasive throughout the organization and will continue to be. We will work on our policies and procedures to make them more client friendly, we will hire staff who are in-line with our vision, and we will continue to work on all of branches to build on what we started at Central. Future Facilities Improvements include aesthetic improvements to children’s storytime area at Central / Digital Wallpaper in Information Services, better lighting, and more comfortable seating throughout Future Marketing & Branding Improvements